Bryce's Pipe Bomb Survival Guide*

First off, the disclaimer: I love Transformers, enough so that I hold myself back from talking about them at least 4 out of 5 times I think of them. You don't want to be THAT guy, trust me. The thing that's most alluring about them is, of course, the toys. When I was a kid and I got a GI Joe, I got a little figure that could punch people, hold a gun, and drive a vehicle. If I was lucky, he could also fire a spring-loaded plastic projectile. When I got a Transformer, it could do all of that (except for driving a vehicle, although that wasn't unheard of) but it could also fold up like a piece of origami into a truck or a jet. It was kind of like a puzzle, even though I always read the instructions, I still marvel at the engineering of it all. Now, Transformers have been around for over 30 years, and just like any other fictional property with that much history, you can find a lot of stuff that's surprisingly good. At the moment, we're kind of in a hayday for comic...

Mainstream comics are inherently ridiculous, which is probably why I enjoy them so.  Lately, by which I mean for at least the last decade, the trend from Marvel and DC has been to have a big "universe changing" event that mostly happens in it's own limited series, while splashing out into the majority of other titles being published at the time. Probably the first that I really followed, at least as an adult, was the first Civil War series. Brief synopsis: Lesser known superhero team fights a team of villains, and an entire school full of children get called, backlash is that the government institutes mandatory regulation and training of anyone that tries to be a superhero, Captain America is against, Iron Man is for, they fight. I tried to read all of the tie-in books, but ultimately got really annoyed when different writers decided to write the same character, at roughly the same time, and get them completely different. If you read the chronological order, you go dire...

If you're still somehow following this blog after three years of inactivity, two things: 1. Surprise! 2. I'm very curious to know who you are, so leave a comment, or reach out to me in other ways. I'm planning to do some more writing here. Basically, I have thoughts that are too long-winded to put on Facebook, or bug people by sending them in emails. First up! Strong Female Protagonist  is the most interesting treatment of the differences between "saving the world" in the traditional comic book sense, versus combating  problems of social injustice that us bland, real world people have to deal with. In this universe, a freak storm occurs giving a bunch of teenagers superpowers. I like to think that this is in the same universe as the phenomenal TV series, Misfits . Just like any other story, things quickly turn into super-villains trying to destroy/take over the world, and superheroes fighting to stop them. In this world, our Justice League/Avengers stand...

Clearly this blog hasn't exactly been a high priority for me, if there's anyone out there that's wondered where I've gotten myself off to, the answer is this: My marriage of 12 years just dissolved a few months ago, and I've decided to get out of toy collecting. I might come back here eventually and keep up on reviewing other things, and just talking in general, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Thanks for reading everyone, Bryce

So, last time I covered Robots In Disguise Optimus Prime, which was the first Prime toy I bought as an adult, but what actually got me back into collecting was reading a Toy Fair magazine that had a feature on the upcoming Armada toy line. As I recall, the article didn't even have any pictures of the new toys, just some descriptions of a few samples, and an overall theme for the line. In the article, at least, Armada was described as the first full collaboration between Hasbro and Takara, prior to Armada, each company worked more or less independently, and would choose to use media or toys from the sister companies on a case by case basis. Most of the US cartoons were brought to Japan at some point, while Robots In Disguise was the first Japanese TF cartoon to be brought to the states. So, what was Armada supposed to be about? The idea was Mini-cons, a new name for an old idea, which is little tiny Transformers. Look back at Star Convoy . The difference this time was that ther...