Today's arrivals

 

Prime being unintentionally all 'Wooooooo! I'm a spooky ghost, bitches!'

-Edit- Nope, he's playing the same invisible piano that Mike was in that episode Phoebe falls for him.

 

'This Powermaster business is a trip!'

I'd totally forgotten about the mad artwork and insane level of detail in the annuals' text  

 

reminded me of this

 

Very strong "I had to learn how to draw all these bastards for this fucking book, and I'm going to get the most out of them for this" energy.

 

Have you used that site for TFs? Was this the first time buying from them?

Some cheap prices on their site.



Can I ask what the shipping fees were coming in at?

Avoiding the import vat and admin charge it’s great but even factoring those costs on top it’s similar to UK prices. Might be worth a punt trying them for TFs.

Cheers for the heads up on that site.

I will look forward to your first snaps of the zoid put together.

 

Welcome to the awesome annuals club. I’ve been delighting in them, this one was always a personal fave, Highbrow v Skorponok.

 

I resisted but the Ladybird books tipped me over  

 

Yes, I remember when I started collecting Armada, you could still buy swathes of Beast Wars/Best Machines.

It's not a straight component of inflation though due to a) growth in disposable income and collectables market effecting pricing capability and b) recent spikes in production costs compounded against already higher pricing recently.

Unadjusted inflation would be c85% increase so £30 but add in reissue tax and aligned pricing it seems fair.

 

When Power Rangers hit, i was 15, going on 16 and honestly I was not impressed. Of course, my little brother was hooked.

However that all changed and I can sum it all up with ONE word:

Dragonzord.

Okay here's two words: Frigging Dragonzord.

Okay let's go three words: Green with Evil.

 

As someone who essentially lived and breathed power rangers from 93 to 96, in terms of the toys, the monsters had cool looking designs and the robots, while maybe blocky, looked exactly like they did on tv. They were solid, had great heft and were pretty damn big, and they could form different combinations of robots and oh how badly I regret selling my Ultrazord all those years ago.

For the show, it was a combination of the fighting, the nice morals lessons they had in quite a few episodes, the characters seemed like genuine friends, the over the top cheese and the absolute legendary kickass music (in the show itself, not just the main theme) from Ron Wasserman (same guy who did the 90's Xmen theme) and most importantly, it gave us a bunch of genuine hero's, each with enough of a difference in personality there was someone for each kid to relate to.

I've gone back and watched some of it on netflix and yeah, it has really not aged well. For me, it will always hold a super special place in my heart, at least the original 3 seasons, but it's one of those things where you have to have been in the target audience age bracket to get it, otherwise it's just some really cheesy, bad tv. I will say though, they did create a main villain with no skin, metal skeleton and raw muscles and brain on show, with his veins on the outside of his body in something that wouldn't look out of place coming from HR Giger's imagination (if watered down a lot) and prompted a whole bunch of parents to write in complaining that the villain was too scary and he needed toning down.

I've watched the sentai version of mighty morphin power rangers, Zyuranger, and as a whole, that holds up much better and has a more consistent story.


I admit, I do still feel a rush when I hear one of the cast shout "It's morphin time!"

 

@Siege Fan, the Mega Construx arrived today, thank you very much!


(Note: Snake Mountain is really far away in this picture)

 

Ah Electro. I had one as a kid and it crumbled in my hands within a week. I recall bending the elbow to transform him and the arm just fell off, then the leg. Freakin' loved the alt mode and I still do.

 

My mind actually went to this...


Journey were the progenitors of the invisable keyboard ;P

 

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I'm pretty sure my brother or I had that 'mid change' Superman with the Clark Kent trousers 
Also, gotta appreciate the balls Micro Machines had to have one of their 'transforming' playsets be an almost dead ringer for Optimus Prime's truck mode and in the same colours  

 

In my house we call that "Putting it in a safe place"  

Oh very cool! I also like how it says HMM in the top right corner  

My AE Thrust has also now shipped but man, you got it for £48? Is that including postage? All told with postage I just paid this morning mine is running £57! Eek... hopefully it'll dodge customs... really hope I'll be able to shift him on for cost + postage  

Oh man all that shiny metal drawing effect! I remember that being all over comics in the 90s and I used to use a lot too to make things look 'shiny'!  

Great summary and very accurate to me too. Dragonzord and Green With Evil though man, I remember spending ages looking longingly at the Dragonzord in catalogues... I eventually possessed a Megazord + Sixth Ranger Zord with the Ninja Megazord and Falconzord  

I've recently been rewatching Power Rangers on Netflix and as you say it's so gloriously cheesy and so very 90s but that in itself is it's own charm   also fun picking up on stuff I never noticed as a kid  
I'll be honest, I've been tempted to see if I can get one of those more recent remakes of the MMPR Megazord and DRAGONZORD 

Edit: My Soundblaster has also shipped from IDToys... though now I've realised what his colourscheme is... Revenant Prime is eying him  

 

Excellent, looking good!

 

AE Thrust and Runabout ready to go, so good show on all the AE talk reminding me to go look. Once these two are out the door I'm mercifully clear of any more orders with them. Fings and toes crossed they make it here ok.

Unless there's another Thrust-type-exclusive fudge up I won't have to be using them again.

Weekly plea for a Siege Sunstorm please.......

 

These two pics were still in the back of my brain along with seeing Sonia on Top of the Pops and other 'Here now, that's interesting...' moments.



I forgot they did bios.



I love the 'we've got a single page to explain this shit, the book already costs £4!' vibe.


...

https://www.smythstoys.com/uk/en-gb...ulator&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TY049-21

I'll be needing the Iron Monger and Castle sets in a sale, thank you please.

 

Dragonzord is best Zord.

 

Yep went for economy shipping so £38 +£10 postage, no prepaid tax option at the time though so could well get hit for customs bummage.

Man I love those annuals especially the bio pages, fond memories of the seacons, micromaster and headmaster ones in particular. Picked them up from boot sales during my formative years in the mid to late 90s and they were my only source of info for the characters pre Internet and bagging rebirth on vhs