Transformers: Titans Return Mindwipe

Let’s take things back to a simpler, happier time: a few weeks ago, before the world went crazy, and I attended the gathering of love and frivolity known as TFCon Chicago. At that time, I was in full on hunt mode for Wave 2 of the Titans Return Deluxe figures, and had obtained all of them except for a certain vampire hypnotist Decepticon. 

Transformers: Titans Return Chromedome

Wave 2 of Titans Return Deluxes kicks off with the mnemosurgeon IDW made famous, Chromedome, or what is perhaps his more accurate name, Headmaster Dead End. This figure is basically the same as Combiner Wars Dead End, only with the Headmaster gimmick taking the place of the combining one. The transformations schemes are the exact same; the arms and legs are the exact same; the car hood backpack is the exact same. Loyal readers will remember my extensive writing on the Dead End mold, so I should like the slightly different version, right?

Well, yeah, I do. But Chromedome here is not without things to complain about. But first . . . 

Transformers: Unite Warriors Computron

Right now, I’m unsure about a lot of things. Things aren’t making sense the way they should. I don’t know what to do, or where to start doing things I that I know I need to do.

So I figure Unite Warriors Computron might be a good review to work on. This review is long overdue, as this isn’t even a new release any more, having been in my possession since September. I don’t know, even as I sit down to write this, how I want to proceed: should I do individual figures; should I just do the whole thing as a whole? I didn’t know; I don’t know even as I sit to start working on it. I think I’m just going to wing it. I'm just going to sit down and try, because that is how I figure things out.

Unite Warriors Computron is another entry in the long list of toys in the “That Figure Will Never Happen” Hall of Fame. Like two years ago, a Combiner Wars Scattorshot was announced at SDCC, and the idea immediately took hold that Combiner Wars Technobots were on the way. By Botcon of that year, Hasbro had denied this idea, citing the ever accurate, iron clad “No Plans At the Moment” defense. Naturally, a portion of the fandom took this to mean Never. Of course, there are two Computrons on the market currently.

Transformers: Titans Return Scourge

  

Rounding out Wave 1 of Titans Return is Scourge, another toy I was initially avoiding for reasons listed in my write up on Blur. A few weekends ago, my wife and I went to IKEA and bought new bookcases, and then stopped at a couple stores before heading home. One of them was a Toys R Us, and I grabbed both Blur and Scourge.

Transformers: Titans Return Blur

 

There is so much stacked against Titans Return Blur for me that it’s not even funny. Not traditionally a Headmaster character, not a character I have much connection to, not a toy that I was particularly enthused about when news of it first surfaced. Seems like a largely needless injection of a gimmick into an update of a G1 character.

Then why does Blur wind up being so terrific?

Star Wars: The Black Series K2-S0

Well, here we go again. A new Star Wars movie is on the horizon, the first of the standalone films, Rogue One, arriving this December. Once again, a new cast of characters will be making its debut, and with them, a slate of action figures depicting them, clamoring for us to buy them despite not knowing anything about them right now other than small bits of information gleaned from teasers and trailers and whatever prose there exists to serve as a vague introduction before the events of the movie transpire. Last year, I bought a figure I liked, and banked on the notion that, being a figure in one of the first two waves of The Force Awakens merchandise, it must be a Somebody. It wasn’t. 

Transformers: Generations Armada Starscream

 

 Ah, Generations. The continuation of the ever changing to meet the needs of the brand Universe line. 

At several points in the history of the moniker new toys have been released, figures designed and produced as 100% originals, rather than the straight up repaints of old figures which were the hallmark of the line from its origins until 2008. Between about 2011 and 2014 the Generations line took up the mantle of being the ‘collector focused’ line, and a slew of G1 updates were released in its packaging. With the success of Transformers comics on the upswing in the 2012-2013 cycle, Generations also became the toy line attached, either in part or in whole, to releasing figure versions of characters featuring in the comics. But here is a sort of grey area for some: was Generations the umbrella under which comic characters got new toys, or were comic characters getting more comic attention because they were getting new toys in the Generations line? The dreaded ‘to sell toys’ argument was reborn again, as it is with every Transformers fictional iteration. 

Grave Considerations: TFCon Chicago 2016

On Saturday, October 26^th, my wife and I went to TFCon Chicago. Over the years, I’ve never gone to a Botcon, despite a few of them having been in the Chicago area, and I missed TFCon in 2014 when it was in Chicago as well. We’ve been going to C2E2 for the last few years, so the two of us are no newcomers to the convention scene, but this was our first trek to a property exclusive convention.