Titans Return Rewind (2016) and Custom Dispensor

While I've never been a huge fan of the live-action Transformers films to come out in the past decade, they've provided both resources and inspiration for Transformers fans of all interests to get something that might appeal to them. For example, toys to come out in the various sub-brands of the Generations imprint (of which Titans Return is a recent example) have featured classic characters that might never have been seen again if the success of those movies hadn't provided Hasbro with funds that enabled them to take chances on some of the more obscure areas of the mythos. In return, certain creative corners of the fandom have come up with innovative ways to use some of those toys to make characters originally seen in the movies. The recent Titans Return version of Rewind provides an opportunity to have a look at both.

BotCon 2006 Optimus Primal

For many fans, BotCon 2006 was the "high point" for convention exclusive popularity (others might argue for the next year, but while those toys were popular, they were also controversial just for being convention exclusives). Early exclusives had tended to be previously-unknown characters (with the very first BotCon exclusive, which wasn't originally planned to be an exclusive, being a clear exception). A few years before Fun Publications started running Transformers conventions in 2005, exclusives started to be slightly better-known characters as "updated" versions of the forms previously known. But even these stilled generally stayed away from the "top tier" of the Transformers roster. Also, there were usually, at best, only a small handful of toys made available at a given convention. But starting with BotCon 2005, all that was starting to change....

40 Years of Firestorm

"Shag" Matthews, who created a website called Firestorm Fan (now largely defunct) and subsequently launched a (mostly) Firestorm-specific podcast and a network of other related podcasts (which is very much alive these days), brought my attention to the fact that today, December 6th, 2017, is the 40th anniversary of the publication of the first issue of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, which featured Firestorm's first-ever appearance! While long-time readers already know of my affection for the character, I confess that I hadn't been keeping up with this particular anniversary (if I had, I'd have planned ahead to feature one of the Firestorm action figures I have, something I'm not in a position to make happen before the day ends). But now that I do know about it, I can't just let it go by without notice!