I recently bought and uploaded to social media images of Perfect Effect Warden, a very successful 3rd party figure from 3 years ago that I had missed out on for some time but finally found for a great price. While there is still a fair amount of affection for this toy about the place, I received a comment about the image and its content that got me thinking. The collector involved, quite innocently, asked “Is that figure still relevant?”. While I admit my first reaction was to defend this fine specimen of a IDW-based comic homage and its well put together features, it did lead to a more significant question. Is there such a thing as a relevant collection? The Relevant Collection | Source Blog <- CLICK TO READ All the best Maz
Exactly! Relevant to who? I don't collect for other people to tell me what's relevant or not. I collect toys I like. If something is a cool toy to me, it doesn't matter how many other versions of that character come out, a cool toy is a cool toy. If a new version seems cool to me, I might get that one too. Then I have two cool versions and so on... My G1 Grimlock is relevant because it's the original toy I had as a kid. My KO OS MP8 Grimlock that is on its way to me right now is relevant because it's gonna be one big, badass Grimlock to stand in my MP collection. All the thousands of Boba Fetts I have are relevant because...they are all Boba Fetts!
Thousands of Boba Fetts? Sounds awesome! Enjoyable article, loved the picture with tr hardhead and the third party headmasters. It's probably not advisable to laugh too much at a guy who has a shoulder cannon that won't take that much aiming to get a head shot.
It could be a bit of an exaggeration but I have pretty much bought every Boba Fett figure I've ever seen...From the original 3 1/4" Kenner figure that I still have to the Lego keychain version to the latest 1/6 Hot Toys one. There are definitely many that I don't have have but I also have multiples of a lot of the better Boba Fetts that have come out.
Transformers is vastly different from so many media franchises because it's figures very rarely are an "improved" version of the same design, whereas in Star Wars, for example, improving technologies meant that the same design was being constantly updatated. The original Boba Fett was adequate at the time because it was a product of it's time. Then the VOTC Fett, Saga Fett, and the VC Fett. Each features better articulation and sculpting than the previous one, and thus there is a point of relevancy with having the "Definitive" figure of a character. With Transformers, the universes and designs are so different, and are oftentimes based on different frictions. T30 Brainstorm is IDW based, but TR Brainstorm homages the original G1 toy/comic. The two don't make each other irrelevant because they are not figures of the same design, not do they attempt to accomplish the same thing. For the same reason, Classics Optimus doesn't make the G1 original irrelevant, because the Classics design is a reimagining. Animated Optimus Prime doesn't replace Energon Optimus, etc. So a relevant collection isn't a term that really applies, because very few designs have more than one figure (Mostly movie/Prime/Rid main characters)
that's actually a question? maybe they shouldn't collect if they think a figure has to be relevant in order to take pics of it, or to enjoy it. TR Chromedome is nowhere near the quality and genius that FP's is, does that make it less relevant? or is it just because it was released in the last microsecond that it is? There's still a 0% chance we will ever have a complete G1 character line up in any new form, you might get 60% if you're lucky just on character numbers alone. Does that make a new collection irrelevant? No. Collect what you want, and if you ever have the thought of "is that relevant?" Might want to look into your hobby choice.
^So much this. How could a collection ever be IR-relevant? Does a collection need be be state of the art, newest versions only, with older 'redundant' figures needing to be laughed out of the schoolyard? I'll be honest, my personal opinion of ANY collection that includes third party Transformers is that those figures are irrelevant: I don't rate them as Transformers and to me they might as well be Zoids or Gundam figures: fun to look at and perhaps to mess around with, but not a part of Transformers or even an actual part of a Transformers collection. Still, having those figures doesn't make the collection as a whole irrelevant.
To take the MP-01/MP-10 example: I hate MP-01 (I didn't even care for it when it came out, to be honest) but even I would hesitate to call it irrelevant. It just fills a different niche. But FOC Bruticus is irrelevant. Real talk, though, very few lines genuinely became irrelevant because of those niches, but I can see a lot of figures that, overall, probably did. On occasion, genuinely superior figures do come out and replace their predecessors. Remember when Energon/Cybertron came out and people were excited about getting G1-based characters? Then Classics came along and made a lot of those homages pretty irrelevant (does anyone actually care about Cybertron Blurr anymore?).
Excellent article (as always, Maz! ), but I have to be a little critical: 1) Did you actually answer the question in a meaningful way? Most of your commenters seemed to share your viewpoint (or one very similar to yours), and while you did broach the idea of collectors who buy current toys to replace old ones... you didn't really get comments from them directly, so you end up assuming a lot of the counterarguments (while nailing the "relevance is in the eye of the beholder" argument you favor). For example, maybe SOME collectors enjoy NEW TOYS. And these same collectors cannot afford all the new 3P and MP releases (not to mention TR!) - these guys may end up selling "irrelevant" pieces to afford the new stuff. In that case, "relevance" is a terminology that's useful for psychologically accepting the sale of a toy you once treasured ("This toy is no longer 'relevant', so it's not loss to me when I sell it"). I think finances are a big motivator to what we consider "relevant" or worthwhile, where higher income individuals will clearly find more value in pieces like the $400 Pandinus. 2) Binaltech is a great example of "relevance", but you only touched on that? I mean, you have solid declining sales numbers (from personal experience even), but you don't really delve into what is happening... Maybe the BT toys weren't that great (quality wise) or had obnoxious transformations (I found some of them horribly frustrating), compared to newer incarnations such as MP toys? Maybe they weren't slavish enough to the original G1 line and were therefore only originally "relevant" because of the absence of better toys? ("Placeholder" toys are an interesting topic, right? ). From your experience as a TF columnist, do you see the same interest in vintage articles as you do in brand new releases? Doesn't that say something about "relevance"? You could use the popularity of certain columns to further your discussion of how the community perceives "relevance", as it's kind of a direct example of that. And do your MP/3P columns get more views than CHUG articles? Does that say something about the relevance of one scale over the other? Is the TR line truly relevant? Or is it the latest hype/trend that will soon crash in value/interest? Are movie toys relevant? But great article overall - I just felt it got a little redundant with the commenters all expressing a pretty universal view of "relevance is immeasurable/completely subjective!" Which, by the by, just feels like a cop out answer. It might be interesting to gauge the rise and fall of a particular toy, for example. Maybe a movie-verse Optimus Prime that got replaced by a newer movie/version? I take offense to this! It's a REALLY bad example - you hated that toy from day 1. You CANNOT call something you hate (from the beginning) irrelevant. It's something you hate; irrelevant should be defined as starting out important/interesting. Seems like FoC Bruticus was universally lamented from release - from the "fruit loop colors" to the horrible combination gimmick, to the horribly bare backs of some of those toys... But I STILL ENJOY that set. And a big reason why: Microblaze Creations Onslaught/torso-upgrade. So in this example, an "irrelevant" (bad) toy becomes relevant because of a 3P add-on. However, I still stand by the point that "irrelevant" should not be a tossed around label for things we don't like! It should be reserved for things we no longer like!
This is pretty interesting considering the current state of Classics. We're getting a lot of more well known characters a second time, like Universe/CW Prowl, Classics/TR Hot Rod, etc.
Yeah! Exactly! And what about upcoming versions? Hot Rod the HM, for example - will he replace Generations Hot Rod? And do the CW toys, in general, make the Power Core Combiners completely irrelevant? Some toys feel irrelevant from GO, but we still buy them - Generations Galvatron was a mess, but how many collectors STILL bought it, despite the bad alt mode and other issues? I wonder the same about the upcoming Mindwipe figure - it doesn't look THAT good, to be honest, but I'll still buy it for lack of a better option (not a fan of FansProject's version). Ironically, enough, the TR version has me interested in buying a KO G1 Mindwipe, which I'll probably consider more relevant than the TR toy (because the G1 HMs feel more solid and don't have such loose, hollow joints).
Not sure why they would. PCCs were their own characters and supplemented sub-teams...I don't think they were ever meant to replace them. As in Skyburst is AN Aerialbot...not THE Aerialbot.
In general, I think like many have said, relevance is a personal matter for collections. That said, i think it would be fair to call certain areas of transformers more relevant than others and therefore collections that focus on the more niche/less popular areas, while no less valuable in their own way, are less relevant. Think if it like a C- list DC or Marvel character vs the main ones. A collection focusing on G1, BW, Animated, etc would generally be seen as relevant whereas a collection of spychanger variants wouldn't be. I think different people would have different dividing lines here, but a "majority" could agree on certain narrow or less-notable focuses being somewhat irrelevant. Things like Warden or the headmaster alternatives at the moment wouldn't reach that level.
Does TR brainstorm make voyager generations brainstorm irrelevant? That seems to be a more appropriate question. While IMO the old one looks better (and I generally prefer a larger figure to a smaller one) the new one fits in with the size and style of the other headmasters.
Put the voyager with your Masterpiece figures. I doubt TT will be getting to Headmasters anytime soon.
Irrelevant.. No one wants it, you should sell it.. Well if it is irrelevant and no one wants it and everyone should sell it.. who is going to buy it? Surely if everyone was selling and no one wanted none would sell... It is always going to be relevant to someone somewhere. Some thoughts that went through my head when someone was telling the rest of us about an apparently irrelevant 3rd party figure recently and what we should do with ours. It is silly really.
When YOU write the article you get to write whatever point of view makes sense to you. I would say GO and WRITE your own article, but don't expect Maz to not love express his love and passion on Transformers in writing, to do any less would for him would be dishonest. Pop-culture experts don't tend to get to be experts by focusing on all the ideas that disagree with their own views. You look at contradictory ideas, you consider them, if anything to see how strongly you disagree with them, or see something from a different angle you may not have seen before. To fill an article with ideas contradictory to why you wrote an subjective article would be a bit schizophrenic. It's art not science. However I also agree with most of what you said MartyFeeb. All the more you reason you should write your own article!
