Grave Considerations: Moving, Part One

This was begun Friday evening, and my wife and I are sitting around our apartment: she playing video games, and I shuffling back and forth between projects or ideas for projects. Just the previous night, we found out – officially – that we would be moving in 36 days from our current one bedroom apartment to a very spacious two bedroom, complete with living room and dining room. It’s quite a big upgrade for us, and we’re both pretty excited. But, moving is never easy, and while we were then currently relaxing and not making many solid plans in preparation, the journey to this point has been tumultuous. And now, the hard part is about to get underway.

DX9 War In Pocket Usurper, BlueBolt, and SkyShaker

 

 Here’s something really exciting. Proving that good things come in small packages, DX9 has produced a Legends-scale trio of G1 Seekers Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp, packaged them all in one excellent throwback style box, and managed to get them out to the market for about $60. Amazing.

This is not the Coffin’s first experience with the third party Legends class, as last Fall Iron Factory’s Wing of Tyrant Clone figure was a very pleasant and generally unexpected surprise. It is only natural then that these Seekers be compared to that one from time to time, and as good as Clone is, there is no contest to be had.

Maketoys Galaxy Meteor

 

Galaxy Meteor is an interesting piece, on a number of levels.

It is a third party rendition of Cybertron/Galxay Force Starscream, an anomaly by itself, as most of the third party market is still hyper focused on the G1 collector. It is also a figure that was seemingly rescued from oblivion by a concerted effort by some Transformer Twitter bigwigs spreading enough hype and etailers settling on a $99 price point, down from the initially projected $130.

And then, it’s a pretty interesting figure on its own.

Star Wars: The Black Series Admiral Ackbar and First Order Officer

 

It’s been mentioned in brief that The Last Jedi didn’t produce as many action figures as a Star Wars movie can be expected to produce. Even the exclusive figure sets released to coincide with the movies’ months prior Force Friday were mostly figures from other Star Wars movies. But, here’s a pair of figures that are very much The Last Jedi tie ins.

Long-serving Alliance officer and meme celebrity Admiral Ackbar and Generic First Order Officer.

Star Wars: The Black Series Amazon Exclusive First Order Stormtrooper

 There have been a number of exclusive Black Series figures over the last three years, ranging in value from Must Have to Could Have Passed On, but this one may be the most superfluous. The Amazon Exclusive First Order Stormtrooper is basically a $30 accessory package.

TFC Toys Hercules

 

  (Just for reference, a lot of thought went in to making Hercules the focus of the first third party combiner article. But because it was the first full set collected, and in deference to Devastator’s status as the first combiner, here he is. –mr)

It has taken a long time to get here, the final and completed form of Hercules, TFC Toys’ Devastator, and one of the first Third Party Devastators to hit the market. It took a little over a year, in fact, as the complete set was acquired early last January as a set, and then very slowly rolled out, figure at a time, months after the fact in accordance with the often glacial pace of life at the Coffin. By now, the Transformers community is general accustomed to the 3Ps offering full combiner teams, or some other such complete figure, but at the time of Hercules’ announcement, 3Ps were generally still producing figure add on sets or parts, or were producing what can only be described as altered knockoffs, like the iGear Coneheads: clearly bootlegged Takara Masterpiece Seekers with the necessary alterations to become at-the-time-unavailable Masterpiece-compatible versions of Ramjet, Thrust, and Dirge. Seemingly out of nowhere, competing Constructicon sets began to surface, and the real third party market, the one we still currently inhabit, began in earnest.

Star Wars: The Black Series Finn (In First Order Disguise)

 

 This seems rather familiar, doesn’t it? A Rebel or Resistance hero, added to the Coffin’s Imperial (-style) only Black Series collection only after a figure of said hero wearing an Imperial (-style) disguise is released. At this time, the only Luke and Han in said collection are the Stormtrooper armor-clad ones, and the only other Finn is his Stormtrooper armor-clad version. Now, a second Finn joins the ranks, wearing First Order officer garb.