March Hauls

[andersonh1]

Found the 1990 Flash series on DVD for $10. With John Welsey Shipp, Amanda Pays and now Mark Hamill showing up on the new Flash series, I've enjoyed revisiting the earlier series for comparisons. The modern series is much better, but the old one is entertaining and has that great Danny Elfman theme to boot.

[andersonh1]

Pretty nice find today at the used bookstore. Detective Comics 323, published in January 1964, only a few months before the "new look" Batman debuted. Cost me $5. It's not in stellar condition, as you might expect since it's only $5, but it's not bad. I had no new books this week, so a 51 year old issue of Detective Comics suits me fine.

http://www.comics.org/issue/18191/

[Onslaught Six]

GI Joe ROC Heetseek Missile System: So, more dumb GI Joe backstory no one cares about: The very first red HISS released stateside was a cool Sears exclusive (back when Sears gave a damn about toys, and anyone in the world shopped at Sears) in 1985 that came with a black-and-red Mobile Missile System repaint. The whole set was known as the SMS, or "Sentry Missile System." (This wouldn't be the first red HISS in the world; that would be the Hyena from Action Force in the UK, piloted by Red Jackal, a slightly doctored up Destro. Europe was weird!) The MMS was one of the cool little towable vehicles that a larger vehicle like the VAMP or HISS could tow along, and lots of these neato pairings were released back in the day as giftsets. This was one of the few, though, that actually had a unique repaint, as the black-and-red MMS wasn't available anywhere else.

Fast forward to 2009, and Hasbro is reusing whatever moulds they have for little vehicle exclusives in the ROC movie toyline...including what was basically a straight reissue of the original SMS missile platform. This is awesome! Except these exclusives were relatively hard to come by and could sometimes come with desirable--or entirely undesirable--figures, so collectors either bought them and held onto them or didn't buy many at all. The Heetseek came with a Scrap Iron repaint in grey and a straight up Neo-Viper...which everyone already has about 80 of. (I never went out of my way to buy one and still somehow ended up with at least 3 that I can't get rid of.) I'm not sure how it ranks on the rarity scale but eBay didn't have a lot of them, and those all wanted a bit...

I wanted one because I now have a big red HISS, and what better thing to get for it to tow around than the original red HISS tow vehicle? Plus, then I have cool options besides the red ASP (which is neat but doesn't hold figures too well). Like I said, eBay was scarce and expensive, so I turned to HISSTank, where I have actually had plenty of luck doing small trade or buy deals with people who are more than willing to hook people up for next to nothing. I ended up trading those (entirely useless to me) Crimson Guards from the actual HISS set and throwing in some money for shipping, which isn't bad at all to me. Weird that I would trade the figures for another vehicle to go with the vehicle they came with, though, huh?

I'm not sure why I'm suddenly getting so interested in Joe vehicles. I was never a big fan of them and felt like I could use the money better to buy TFs, who were usually the same kind of scale but could transform. Maybe it's those photoshoots I did last summer in my backyard--the first backyard I've felt comfortable doing that kind of thing in for years--where I used literally every vehicle I owned, which was all of five or so, and wanting to see that expand outward. (I also don't own a single snow vehicle or snow-themed trooper, so I couldn't go out at all this winter and do anything cool there. For shame!) Plus, I'm more interested in just grabbing random stuff rather than certain expensive or rare things, so.

Joe POC Crimson Horseman: Naturally, the Crimson Horseman was released with a red repaint of the newest HISS from the POC line. I was not particularly enthralled or interested in the POC HISS design (the canopy isn't clear, and I already have two different HISS designs running around so I don't think I need a third) so I ended up passing on it entirely, but I got interested in the driver later on. He's just a POC Firefly repaint with a new head and different webgear, but POC Firefly was an armoured motherfucker who only sorta resembled Firefly. (Not necessarily a bad thing, Firefly lends himself well to reinterpretation!) The new head is a cool motorcycle-type deal and got reused in the Retaliation Cyber-Viper, but here it's in a sleek glossy black. I wanted a driver or gunner for the crimson HISS that would be relatively unique, and this guy is perfect for that. I might pick up a second so he can both run the gunner and driver's positions, or I might not and keep him unique. We'll see. Oddly enough, I kinda would like to see this repainted as a traditional HISS Driver or even Rip-It.

[JediTricks]

Ordered Leader Jetfire for $22.50 shipped, should be here in 10 days.

Pre-ordered MP Tracks.

Pretty nice find today at the used bookstore. Detective Comics 323, published in January 1964, only a few months before the "new look" Batman debuted. Cost me $5. It's not in stellar condition, as you might expect since it's only $5, but it's not bad. I had no new books this week, so a 51 year old issue of Detective Comics suits me fine.

http://www.comics.org/issue/18191/

That's pretty cool. How's the newsprint holding up? I'm always gunshy to buy comics from the newsprint era for fear that it's dried up and too brittle to survive a single flip. I bought some paperback novels from the '70s that ended up with a lot of cracked corners and edges, so now I'm trying to be more conscious. Then again, unlike comics, novels that old go for cents.


Joe ARAH vehicles are great, some of the most intricate and fun thinking on a toy. Most everything from '84 (the first 2 years were bland) through '91 was great in GI Joe vehicle-land, and that spirit continues occasionally in new designs although it's far more hit-or-miss unfortunately.

[andersonh1]

That's pretty cool. How's the newsprint holding up? I'm always gunshy to buy comics from the newsprint era for fear that it's dried up and too brittle to survive a single flip. I bought some paperback novels from the '70s that ended up with a lot of cracked corners and edges, so now I'm trying to be more conscious. Then again, unlike comics, novels that old go for cents.

I'd call the paper "slightly yellowed" in that it's clearly no longer white, but not too bad, and still very readable. That's the first thing I did when I got home: take it out of the bag and read it. The first half is the Batman story, and the second half is a Martian Manhunter story. I'll have to post a few scans in the retro comics thread to give you an idea of how it looks, but it's held up pretty well.

[Shockwave]

Got Brainstorm at Target the other day. Review later but so far, I'm pretty happy with him.

[JediTricks]

Hot Wheels Star Wars Stormtrooper car - lines are a bit smoother than other entries in the series to give a Stormtrooper armor feel grafted onto a 1980s Porsche. The homages here are much more straightforward, taking liberally from the helmet, with only the armor's back panel showing up above the engine (there's also a possible homage in the drag bars on the tail, but I'm not sure). The paint is simple but much tighter than the battle-damaged one from the Target-exclusive 5-pack last holiday season.

Hot Wheels Star Wars Darth Maul car - this is an interesting design, they went with a Japanese small sports car from maybe the '90s, or a more modern European sports car, as the homage on the car end. The Maul end is clear, they went with his head: red and black tattoo design as panel lines, orange headlights for eyes, and the top has antennae/wind vanes shaped and painted surprisingly well as the horns. The back end of the car is the flowing cape, and the rear tail lights are his double-bladed lightsaber.

Generations Jetfire - got this from the HTS ebay sale, $22.50 shipped. At that price, it's well worth it and a little better than I suspected, not as hollow or lazy. I'm going to explore it more in the next few days before commenting, but I think DvD was right in saying this is an easy recommend at $30 where it's not at $45.

[Onslaught Six]

More stupid Joe crap, or more specifically, European Action Force: This time I got the Shadowtrak and Laser Exterminator, the latter being a repaint of the Joe HAL in bright-ass red. It originally came with a red repaint of Cobra Commander as an original character, but this didn't come with it. Shipped from goddamn NETHERLANDS! I lucked out on this and got it for relatively cheap, and I'm glad I did, it's a cool pair of vehicles. Neither is complete, either, but they're missing only non-essential pieces and have enough going on that they aren't completely fucked.

[Onslaught Six]

Actual TF stuff! Combiner Wars Megatron and Motormaster. I spent too much money. I'll leave some reviews in the next couple days, but the main thing so far is, Megs is cool but too big, Motormaster makes a better him than he would a Prime.

[BWprowl]

but the main thing so far is, Megs is cool but too big,

I was about to ask how such a thing could be possible, but then remembered your dislike of larger toys.

From what I've seen, I'm actually concerned that he might be not big enough for me, since I'd been hoping he'd be able to scale with MP-10.