the vynsane asylum

I found Grimlock, Blaster/Steeljaw, Sideswipe, Air Raid, Kickback, Starscream, Ultra Magnus, and the usual older figures (Prime, Jazz, Shockwave) this morning. Left the store with Grimlock, Blaster, and Magnus. Air Raid is a Shockwave repaint, which is just wrong. Kickback looks like nothing I've seen before and is only identifiable as an Insecticon by the colors. Starscream and Sideswipe, well, I'm not getting Cybertronian modes at that price for figures I have in Earth forms. I did get Magnus; probably shouldn't, but I wanted a Magnus with the right head and color scheme.

I've opened Grimlock. He is the biggest piece of shit I have bought in the TF line since the Classics line debuted seven years ago. (Only a fool would say he's worse than some of the vintage stuff, a lot of which was awful.) I know there are positive reviews out there, but they're either by people who are trying to sell this shit or are sadistic bastards who want others to suffer the way they suffered upon opening him. He's a gappy, unarticulated mess of bullshit with a stomach in T-rex mode that's completely hollow and open on the bottom, making him useless for display. Good thing they worked in that fucking stupid light gimmick to make up for it! He is so fucking bad, I am very seriously considering marching Blaster and Magnus back into WM and getting a refund. Fuck, he's so fucking bad, I'm considering taking him back to the store, throwing him in the face of the customer service rep, and saying, "I don't care that this is the greatest Transformers character, and one of the best anti-heroes of the last thirty years. I don't want this fucking turd in my house. I'm afraid owning it will make my property values drop, screw up my credit, give my lice, and make children laugh at me. I don't even want my money back. I just want this piece of shit away from me!"

I saw that new Grimlock at Walmart. He doesn't look too bad in the package. I'll take your word on the quality. Light up eyes?

Robot mode is growing on me, to the point where it's "tolerable." Still lacks quite a bit. JT elsewhere actually said I was too generous in giving it credit.

I'm still quite irked that this is the first Grimlock I have (and I have most of them, sadly enough) who transforms into a dinosaur but cannot be displayed in dino-mode because it's so shitty. (Obviously that doesn't apply to things like non-transforming figures, or ones that turn into space tanks and Ford Mustangs.)

Wandered thru WM toy aisle today and saw Grimlock, Blaster, etc. Blaster looked kinda cool in robot mode. Too bad I have no money.

Blaster actually turned out to be quite nice. Steeljaw is easily the new winner of the "Worst Transformer Since Classics Started." Holy shit, that is a fucking turd. And they sell those tapes in 2-packs for $10? Fuck that.

Anyway, the reason I came here today is my new goal in life: I want to hit Toys R Us at opening every day until they put out Metroplex. Then I want to snatch every Metroplex off the shelf (but only if there are scalpers and collectors there who want him). Laugh at the scalpers, then whoosh my cart away... to where I hide the Metroplexes behind diapers. Fuck that noise, he looks cool, but, god damn, what adult who's not living in a mansion or completely pathetic has anywhere to put that damn thing?

I was bored and started looking around the other site. Started skimming the Transformers thread. I noticed someone mentioned Convertors. I wasn't sure what they were, so I looked them up. It turns out my brother and I each had two. One of the Spies, and one of the Avarians. I completely forgot about those things until I saw the pictures.

http://www.toyarchive.com/Convertors/Convertors.html

They have a wikipedia page, but doesn't give much info on who made them. Bandai had the license at one point.

I had one of the Maladroids. I'm pretty sure it was the grey Zark. He was like a simpler, smaller version of the Jetfire/Robotech jet design. Not only did I use him as a no name Decepticon, since his robot mode was about the same size as Joes and SW figures, he scrapped with them also.

I had the grey Zark (Zardak?), the Avian Rex, and the bad guy who turns into a sort of space aircraft carrier. Zardak stood in for Jetfire when I was by myself*, Rex was either an Autobot or a stand-in for Divebomb, and the other dude was just a badass Decepticon. I might've had a couple of others.

*--My best friend and I probably played with our Joes or TF's in a weird fashion. We didn't live within walking distance, so whenever we got together, it was a sleepover. We'd plan in advance whether we'd do Joe or TF, and then coordinate with other friends who we could swap for the weekend. It'd be along the lines of "I'm the only one who has Grimlock. You're the only one who has Jetfire. But we both have Wheeljack, and so-and-so lives next door to you who has Megatron, who neither of us have, so see if you can trade Wheeljack for Megatron for the weekend and we can use my Wheeljack."

Holy motherfucking shit, have you guys seen the SDCC exclusive crossover set?

It's at least $100. That's what people are saying; I'm guessing it'll be substantially more based on what's in it:

Snake Eyes repaint
New Baroness figure that beats the holy shit out of previous Baroness figures (goddammit)
New non-transforming Ravage
VAMP repaint as Hound
Skystriker repaint with some new parts as Jetfire
Miniature non-transforming Blaster with three cassettes (Eject, Ramhorn, and Steeljaw)

And the motherloving coup de grace:
A repaint of Budo with a new head as Bludgeon

Fuck my ass sideways with a splintered broomhandle. Most of that set is stuff you can live without. Yeah, this is a better Baroness figure, but we have a few hundred of them already. But Bludgeon. Damn. The figure looks more like Bludgeon than Budo (as in "exactly like the fucker"), plus he'd be in the perfect scale with the Classics figures.

Shit. I suppose if I can score an extra Budo, I can try to customize one now that the thought occurred to me.

Sweet God almighty, what should've been an incredible no-brainer pass becomes really tempting. Who thought repainting the Combaticons and giving them new heads and weapons would result in this level of awesome?

(Also, note that the combined form reuses the "Ruination" name from various non-G1 re-uses of the original Bruticus mold, but that head looks an awful lot like the last guy you'd expect to use a name like that. But maybe like the first semi-pacifist you'd expect to become the living embodiment of Primus at the behest of Galvatron, only to die like a little bitch when Primus decides to smack-talk Unicron.)

Fall of Cybertron Wreckers

We made a trip to TRU this weekend and I glanced at the Transformers. They had an Ultra Magnus and Grimlock/Bruticus in fancy packaging. I guess they were both exclusives. Grimlock/Bruticus was something like $100. Next to it were a big non-transforming Optimus Prime for $25. It seemed strange because the exclusive cost 4 times the crappy Optimus, but it was way more than 4 times cooler than the non transforming piece of carp.

I saw Metroplex and the Wreckers today. 'Plex is fucking HUGE. The Wreckers were at stores charging $16 apiece, which is unacceptable, but I want them. Especially Impactor.

I found all the Wreckers except Topspin at Targets for the older, lower price. Got all but Whirl. Hasbro screwed up on that one by revealing, before the Wreckers actually hit, the upcoming IDW-accurate Whirl coming later this year. Since I have no desire to build Ruination Xaaron (nice homage, but stupid idea), passing on him was easy. The rest, odd color choices aside, look so much better as Wreckers than they did Combaticons.

Granted, the way they've double-dipped, I suspect one of the others will be released in another form soon. Not sure what their fetish is with not doing a damned thing with a character for 25-30 years, then releasing multiple versions within a few months to two years of each other.

I don't play the Legends mobile game, but, damn, they have some nice artwork. I think this should work properly. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Fangry. Yes, that's one of the most stupid-looking G1 characters done in a frightening realistic style.

I just walked through the WM toy aisle to see what they had (since I can't actually afford toys anymore) and LITERALLY laughed out loud when I saw Blitzwing and the giant cannon hanging between his legs. There's no way that's an accident. Good for you, Hasbro packaging design team.