Completing the Set: My US Action Masters Collection is Now Complete!

Despite collecting Transformers for pretty much as long as Transformers have existed, there are very few parts of my collection that I consider "complete." However, with the recent acquisition of the Action Master Gutcruncher (pictured to the left), I can now say that I have all of the American-released Action Masters in my collection!

Of course, the main reason I was able to even aspire to completing the section of my Transformers collection is the fact that Action Masters were so unpopular back when they were first released. I've already spelled out why I like them ages ago, but it's worth noting here that they were so unpopular when they first came out that I was able to find them on clearance at Kay-Bee toys (as KB toys was then spelled) for less than a dollar each! Of course, this only covered the carded toys. Not the boxed ones. And even then, I only bothered to get all the Action Masters that were representations of existing characters from early in the original line.

Naturally, this left several holes in my collection that I started trying to fill once I was out of college. I started with the boxed toys representing popular characters, although I turned to getting the carded new characters before I was able to finally achieve my goal of getting all of the Action Master versions of established characters when I won Action Master Optimus Prime in an eBay auction. Optimus Prime cost me a fair bit back then, and I figured that would be as far as I went.

But when I eventually started cataloging (and later creating) the Power Plans that came with the Action Masters, I soon realized that there weren't too many gaps left to fill. So I slowly worked towards getting the remaining boxed toys representing new Action Master characters, until I eventually had them all... except Gutcruncher.

Gutcruncher remained the sole gap in my American Action Master collection for a rather long time. I can't really explain why. Part of the reason was no doubt that, as the largest "new" Action Master character in the line (same price point as Megatron, but less than Optimus Prime), Gutcruncher was fairly rare, and quite expensive. But I could have probably picked Gutcrucher up a long time ago if I'd really bothered. Long story short, I finally found an auction for the toy at a reasonable price on eBay recently, and the toy arrived this past week. Now my collection is complete! (Well, I could always work toward getting all of the European Action Masters, but that will take quite a while yet, not to mention more money than I care to think about at the moment.)

I do have a request, though. Although my Gutcruncher is in wonderful condition, and came complete with all of the parts for the vehicle it was originally packaged with, it did not come with any stickers whatsoever. I have already contacted the folks at Reprolabels about getting replacement stickers, and they've indicated that they would be very happy to create a Gutcruncher set, but they lack scans of the original stickers (or access to a clean Gutcruncher with factory stickers applied) from which to create the set. If anyone has access to such, please send them a line via the Reprolabels site. I'm sure the Transformers fan community would be most grateful. I know I would!

BotCon 2007: A Non-Attendee Perspective

It might seem a bit odd to be talking about BotCon given that I wasn't able to go to the convention this year, but I expect that I'm like most Transformers fans, keeping in touch with the latest data online as much as possible. My abilities to do this were somewhat limited by my vacation in KY over the past week, but I was still able to participate in a number of online discussions about what was going on. Here are my thoughts.

• Exclusives: Perhaps it's a bit mercenary of me, but the toys have always been the major reason for me to go to BotCon, and so it's always the first thing I want to find out about when I look up what was going on. I've already talked about the five toys from the boxed set revealed several months ago, and will focus here only on the toys revealed at the convention itself. I've also updated my exclusives data sheet with such information as I currently have available, although there seems to have been some confusion about the Alpha Trion/Weirdwolf 2-pack. I'll post more reliable information once we get the expected e-mail from Brian Savage detailing post-convention news.
1. Clear Mirage: This was the attendee-only freebie. A clear blue version of the Classics Mirage mold, intended to represent Mirage as he turns invisible. Apparently a lot of fans didn't like this one. Oddly enough, it's one of few that I really liked, and I've already got a couple of requests in for people looking to get rid of the one they got at the convention. If no one ends up contacting me, I'll look for it on eBay.
2. Alpha Trion/Weirdwolf 2-pack. The first of these has been known for a couple of months already, and is a remold (new head) of Vector Prime from the Cybertron line. This is the definite "must buy" for me, and I'll be looking on eBay if it turns out that FP doesn't have any leftover to sell to club members via the online club store (they never have before, but like I said, there seems to be some confusion on this one). Weirdwolf was one of a number of characters revealed in an online teaser of the convention comic, but we didn't know for sure which of the teased characters would actually be at the convention. It's a recolor of Snarl from the Cybertron line. If I end up getting this as part of a 2-pack deal to get Alpha Trion, I'm turning right back around and selling Weirdwolf. A lot of folks really like this one, but it's just not for me.
3. Springer/Huffer 2-pack. Springer is a repaint of Cybertron Defense Hot Shot, and Huffer is a repaint of Armorhide, both toys from the Cybertron line (and, no, in the case of CD Hot Shot, that's not redundant). Again, it seems that my tastes run counter to those of the rest of the fandom here, as I've heard lots of good things about them, and there seems to be little question that they've sold out (although, again, I hope to get more positive confirmation of this when Brian Savage sends the expected e-mail), but they just don't interest me.
• News:
  1. It was disappointing (but not wholly unexpected) to learn that both the Alternators and Titanium lines are being canceled. The latter was even more disturbing because of the revelation of several molds which will, apparently, never see the light of day. The Cosmos figure is especially interesting, and I can only hope that something happens to give that design another chance elsewhere.
     
  2. We also learned that the "Classics" line will see more molds (although not under that name. Apparently these will be released under a new "Universe" line), which is great news, but unfortunately fuels the anger of those who were angry at FP for doing exclusive repaints of several of the Seeker jets, thereby making it unlikely that these characters (and certainly not replicas of the same designs) will ever be made available at retail. I have to repeat what I've said elsewhere many times over: FP wanted to make cool exclusives, and the Seeker jets were obviously popular choices that Hasbro hadn't yet done. They STILL had to get permission from Hasbro to use them, and Hasbro had, at the time, no plans on using those concepts. The fact that Hasbro made a decision later to do something whereby they probably would have used (at least some of) these ideas does not negate this. FP ensured that (all of) these designs would get made. If FP didn't make the exclusives, there was a strong chance that the toys would never exist at all. And even with this latest turn of events, we probably would never have seen all of those Seeker designs used (Thurst, with it's peculiar wing-design, would have been especially unlikely). In any event, it happened. Deal with it.
  3. It has already been known that a new cartoon will be showing up on Cartoon Network (dubbed "Transformers Animated") next year. Attendees got to see the first actual animated clips (as opposed to just still pictures) to be seen, and apparently these, coupled with the news of classically-inspired characters scheduled to appear, have converted many fans from being fearful about what this new cartoon will bring to being excited about the possibilities.
     

We don't yet know where next year's convention will be, or even what the dates are, although it's been more or less confirmed that it will be in the Fall again, with hopes for getting a convention in the Summer again in two years, and basically flip-flopping Fall and Summer with the Joe convention also run by FP thereafter. Once those announcements are made, I'll have to go through the whole process of deciding whether or not I can go all over again!

And So It Ends....

I'd fully intended to post this tomorrow, in honor of the final episode of The Price is Right to feature Bob Barker as it airs tomorrow morning. But I've just learned of the death of Ruth Graham (Mrs. Billy Graham), and I simply must spend some time reflecting on that tomorrow (I also learned only about an hour ago about the death of prominent Transformers fan Shaun Christopher, which came as a complete shock). I'm not sure how to respond to these tragedies yet, but know that I can't just go on with my original plans, so I'm going to post this piece, which I'd actually written a few days ago in anticipation of tomorrow's regularly scheduled posting time, and deal with Mrs. Graham's passing in due time.

I've already commented a bit on Bob Barker's unprecedented tenure when he first announced his retirement back in November. Very few people, in any genre, can claim to have been on the air continuously for 50 years! Steve Beverly of tvgameshows.net is fond of pointing out that Barker has set longetivity records that will never, ever, be broken. Given the fact that the current culture of celebrity tends to emphasize youth over experience, he may well be right.

Although The Price is Right is not ending, Barker's retirement has been occasion for many of us to reminisce about the show's history. I, myself, have spent a fair amount of time searching through YouTube, which has lots of The Price is Right clips available. I wasn't able, unfortunately, to find a particular clip that I was looking for: the person who I consider to be the worst player of all time. Now, you'll see a lot of downright stupid contestants if you look through those clips (a particular player of "Ten Chances" seems to be copied many times over on the site, but since she won, I have to grant that she did something right!), but this contestant, who was bidding on a toy guitar (the first of three prizes he would have bid on) while playing "Cliff Hangers," takes the cake for me. Although I couldn't find a clip, I was able to find this transcript, courtesy of Golden-Road.net (the person who shared it there credits it to Jeremy Soria, but I couldn't find the original): (UPDATE: A YouTube video of this event had finally surfaced by 10/11/08, but it's apparently since been taken down)

Bob: "Tell me the price of that guitar."
Eric: "Two thousand."
Bob: "Now just a moment, audience. I want you to hear this.
What did you say was the price of that guitar?"
Eric: "Two thousand."
Bob: "Now---"
Eric: "I thought that was a violin or something!"
Bob: "No! That's a guitar."
Eric: "Oh, I see it now. Sorry."
Bob: "So? How much?"
Eric: "How much? Ahhh..." (looks out to audience) "Four fifty."
Bob: "Four hundred fifty dollars." (Audience groans)
Eric: "I have no idea..."
Bob: "I'll give you one last chance."
Eric: (after looking out the audience again) "Eight fifty."
Bob: "All right. He says $850."

Hans goes up...and over (all the while, Bob is telling him to hurry it up, we've got games to play, etc.) LOSS

(BTW, guitar's price was $23)

For those who don't know, "Hans" refers to the mountain climber, who isn't ever actually named on Barker's version of The Price is Right, but was given that name on Doug Davidson's short-lived The New Price is Right that aired in nightly syndication. If you put 33 "Cliff Hangers" games alongside each other, the mountain climber would have fallen off of every one of them on that one lousy bid alone!

So, what do you think? Worst contestant ever? Who are your candidates?

Oooh! Buy Me! I'm AFA Graded!

I enjoy going to eBay every now and again to look for things I might add to my Transformers collection. Although I'm a bit of a cheapskate, and I have to admit that going to eBay isn't necessarily the most cost-effective method for finding used toys, given the likelihood of success in finding something interesting when compared to yard sales and flea markets (other venues I enjoy, which tend to be much cheaper!), I'm willing to argue that you usually get what you pay for, and part of "what you pay for" is the convenience of going to a place that has items of interest, rather than just "taking your chances" that a place (such as a yard sale) might have Transformers at all!

But one thing I've never really understood is the attention some collectors give to "graded" items. I'm not just talking here about an item that is still in it's original box, and the box and the toy are in pristine condition. That can be important, and I recognize that. What I'm talking about here is a specific type of grading that, after you've had your toy sent in and assessed, the toy (and, usually, it's original box from which the toy has never been removed) is placed in a clear, tamper-proof, acrylic case. Here's an example. Now the pristine toy in its pristine box can only ever be viewed through the case. You can never, ever touch the toy, let alone take it out and actually play with it. It seems to me that such an item defeats the purpose of what the toy is all about!

Of course, ensuring that one's pristine toy stays pristine can be important if you want to sell the toy and make some money off of it. And, of course, anyone who is putting something on eBay is wanting to sell it, and presumably hopes to make as much money as they can. That's normal enough. And it's certainly true that items graded in this way tend to sell for more than items that were not graded (but are otherwise identical). It's also the case that having something graded is not cheap. The service itself can be quite expensive, depending on what you're looking to have graded and sealed in a case for all eternity. All that said, some people tend to go overboard. For example, here's a current auction that the seller is trying to get nearly $2000 for! As nice a toy as he has, and as popular a character as Cyclonus is, I just can't image that it's worth so much. And that's the minimum bid! (Off-topic in regard to grading, this seller is committing another "sin" by typing out his auction details in such a large font that's hard to read. Seriously folks, let the item sell itself. These kinds of "tricks" are irritating in the extreme. It's one thing to want to take advantage of HTML code to make your description easier to read and understand, or even eye-catching. But this is ridiculous!)

But even if we grant that sellers are simply doing what they can to maximize their profits, why would anyone buy an item like this? You can't ever open it! Buy something similar that's not been graded, and save tons of money! It's a toy, for crying out loud! It's meant to be played with! Take care of it properly, and it will last for quite a long time, but go ahead and play with it! That's what it's for! The only reason I can imagine someone buying something like this is because they, themselves, want to sell it again later. Ironically, I expect that most such people will never make as much money off of it as the original seller. Such "investments" really tend not to pay off all that well.

If you're into collecting expecting to make money off of this stuff, you're not really much of a collector. A "speculator," perhaps, but that really is a different thing. That's not to say that collectors never sell the items they collect: I do it a fair bit myself, but any "profit" tends to be an unusual occurrence. Usually I don't even make back what I paid on an item in the first place, and that's okay. I more likely than not enjoyed the item while I had it. I realize that some people don't always recognize the difference between collectors and speculators as much as they ought to (I still sometimes wonder if the folks behind the Official Transformers Collectors Club recognize the distinction), but the difference really should be pretty clear.

Action Master Thundercracker: The Ultimate Weapon

Over on the club message boards, a topic about the upcoming Timelines Summer Special mentioned the garish coloring of Action Master Thundercracker. Look, and be horrified!

I asked if any fiction (official or fan-made) has ever been made using AM Thundercracker as a character, to which board member Victorysabre quipped, "I hear several people have tried, but during the attempt, all artists went blind for some reason." This immediately made me think of the classic Monty Python sketch about the funniest joke in the world.

It's parody time! And possibly the first piece of fiction anywhere to feature Action Master Thundercracker (although, given that the toy has existed for over 15 years, I fully acknowledge that this is unlikely).

---

Decepticon scientists, frustrated by persistent losses against their enemies, the Autobots, labored long and hard to come up with a new weapon that would turn the tide of their never-ending battle. At last, they believed that they had come up with the ultimate weapon. But they would need a volunteer.

There were risks, they admitted. If the experiment failed, the unfortunate test subject could end up a twisted heap of scrap, but the potential payoff would be undying glory in the annals of Decepticon history.

Frustrated at his recent forced conversion into a non-transforming "Action Master" by an infusion of Nucleon, and tired of being pushed around by his superior officer, Air Commander Starscream, Thundercracker volunteered for the experiment. Anything was better than this life! After a short briefing with the Decepticon scientists about the nature of the procedure, Thundercracker stepped into the modified CR chamber.

The idea was to coat Thundercracker's armor with a light-refracting substance that would result in him being invisible to all optic sensors. This substance was sprayed onto every part of Thundercracker's body. The scientists were concerned that the substance might interfere with the electrical circuitry running through all of Thundercracker's joints, causing him to suffer massive systems failure, and possibly extinguishing his spark.

If only they were so lucky.

Thundercracker emerged from the chamber alive and well, but not at all invisible. Upon seeing the garishly colored form, the scientists' optical circuits instantly shut down. Unable to see, the scientists ran into each other and, in their efforts to escape the laboratory, trampled over one hapless assistant, crushing him to the floor and causing severe injury. Thundercracker, unware of what was happening, walked out of the room, looking for someone who might explain what was going on. Several more Decepticons were blinded when they inadvertently saw Thundercracker approach. Slowly, Thundercracker began to understand that he might be the problem. He went back to the laboratories to seek help, but everyone he met found themselves stricken blind.

It wasn't long before the team of blinded scientists found some of the other Decepticons, and were able to explain what had happened. The possibilities for using Thundercracker's condition to fight against the Autobots were immediately apparent, but the Decepticons needed to be able to ensure the preservation of their own ability to see in order to take proper advantage of the situation.

This led to another team of scientists to devise a set of imaging goggles that the Decepticons could wear, in hopes that this would help them to approach Thundercracker safely. The first scientist to try out the goggles approached the room in which Thundercracker had agreed to remain (pending a resolution to his condition). Upon seeing Thundercracker, the scientist's optic circuits exploded, and the scientist screamed out in agony.

"The goggles! They do nothing!"

The next solution involved covering Thundercracker in a large fabric sheet, stolen from the humans of Earth. Two Decepticons would then escort Thundercracker to the battle site, and upon reaching the appropriate position, they would take the sheet off of Thundercracker and cover their eyes.

The results were instantaneous. Autobot warriors fell left and right. Unfortunately, the sheet blew away, and neither Thundercracker nor the available Decepticons were able to recover it. Although Thundercracker was instructed to return to the laboratory, seventy-four more Decepticons were blinded during the journey, negating any benefits gained by the losses on the Autobot side. More Transformers might have been able to escape this destruction in an earlier age, but since so many Transformers had become Action Masters, few could transform into alternate modes that would have facilitated escape.

Various other experiments were tried, but none were successful. Both the Autobots and the Decepticons found themselves stricken whenever Thundercracker would approach. Ultimately, Thundercracker grew tired of being a de facto prisoner of his own people, and left the Decepticons to strike out on his own. This only made matters worse, as every being that Thundercracker came into contact with was blinded upon seeing even the slightest reflection of his color scheme. Attempts were made to destroy Thundercracker, but any soldier who saw the renegade Action Master lost his sight before he could fire his weapons, and any computerized weapons system that attempted to lock onto Thundercracker's form shut down while attempting to calculate the Pantone color codes that Thundercracker's paint scheme used. Slowly, the Transformers began to die out.

Several thousand years later, an alien race came upon a record left by a Transformers historian, one of the last of the race. No one could tell if the historian was Autobot or Decepticon. By that time it didn't matter. Thundercracker had annihilated friend and foe alike, before finally succumbing to systems failure himself, a process accelerated by the lack of any surviving medical technicians that might previously have been able to provide maintenance. The record stated a simple opinion, the truth of which would go on to be debated for years:

"In the end, it was the introduction of the Action Masters that proved to be the death of the Transformers."

Better Picture of Breakaway on Club Site

I was up ridiculously late last night catching up with some old friends, and am not terribly awake right now. I got up this morning to discover that the Transformers club has revealed a more accurate picture of Breakaway on the club site. So, head over there and enjoy that. I'll (hopefully) have something more intelligent to say after I've had the weekend to catch up on my rest.

The Alpha Trion Rampage Continues

A couple of times over the past week, I've commented briefly in the context of other issues that a figure that appears to be a repaint of Vector Prime as Alpha Trion has been showing up on eBay. Alpha Trion is a character from the old '80s Transformers cartoon, and is notable for being one of the oldest Transformers, and for "creating" Optimus Prime (the cartoon actually says that he rebuilt a Transformer named "Orion Pax" as Prime, but that seems to be enough to call him "creator" for most folks).

To date, over 20 of these toys have shown up on eBay. That's an unusually huge number of toys for something that hasn't been released to the general market yet. Since these "Alpha Trions" have almost certainly been stolen, I'll not be posting links here. But the sheer quantity of "Alpha Trions" out there is very odd. Most folks think that this will be a BotCon exclusive. But no BotCon exclusive has ever been leaked before the convention in these numbers. The previous record holder seems to be pre-Beast-Wars Megatron, for which a little over a dozen toys leaked onto eBay over the course of a couple of months. We've already seen nearly twice that many in only a week or so!

Some folks are theorizing that this might be a sign that "Alpha Trion" is intended for mass release instead for a convention. Although nothing would make me happier, it's hard to imagine this being true. It's also a possibility that "Alpha Trion" will be available through the Transformers club in greater quantity than the convention exclusive would allow. But even this seems a bit of a long shot.

Fact is, we'll have to wait to find out for sure. In the meantime, I know it's tempting. I was tempted myself when those first "Alpha Trions" were going on eBay for fairly low prices. But please don't encourage these thieves by buying these items on eBay. It only encourages more of this kind of behavior in the future.