The Trials of Monday

It's the beginning of a new week of content for your eyeholes here on Zone Base! I hope you all had a great weekend and hoping this week will be a good one as well. I spent most of my weekend playing Astro Bot on my PS5. I discovered the little guy on Astro Bot's Playroom and have been in love ever since. Such a cute little robot starring in some really great games! Aside from picking that up from my local Target, I also grabbed Hordak from Turtles of Grayskull and a great set of Peanuts Halloween mini figures at Five Below! Walmart hasn't gotten any of the Transformers Star Raiders collection in yet sadly, but my Thundertron 3-Pack came in during the week.

Between this collection and the Transformers One toys, I'm having a lot of fun! Speaking of Transformers One, the release date is around the corner and I'm PUMPED! This looks like a great movie and I've been seeing a lot of cool sneak peaks online. Here's hoping it's a success. I also spent some time sorting through older toys my Mom had in her storage. It was fun repairing Starriors and looking at my old school supplies robots by Mark. Speaking of robots, I managed to get Transformers Studio Series 86 leader class Springer and Swoop over the Labor Day weekend. Aside from recolors, I now have all the leader sized Dinobots! Not to mention, my Mom wouldn't approve of me missing a Springer.

We're firmly in the 2nd month of Halloween and now that it's September the cool Autumn air if filling my lungs with joy. I really do love this time of the year. Are you enjoying the annual Halloween party? It's just getting started and the spooky season is really shaping up to be a special one! Neon colors are huge this year and I love it. Being a child of the 80's, those bright colors were a big part of Halloween that hasn't been around in a long time and it does my heart good to see them again. 

It's time to get this week started. I've got some household work to do and pictures for future toy posts to take. We've got a fun week planned for you all. Even more looks at Transformers One and Turtles of Grayskull are in store for you all Zone Base readers, please look forward to it. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. Please don't forget to share the site with your friends!

Don't let this week go to Wastor

Another weekend has passed signaling the arrival of Monday. Let us all curse and take a knee. Fortunately for you, there's a lot of fun posts here on Zone Base! I had a great weekend. The Mrs and I exchange gifts at Halloween each year, but we do it mid month as... look, the door slams close on the season November 1st. As much as I love Halloween, you have to respect it's boundaries. The Mrs got me a goodie bag full of candy and neat things. There was the Halloween ReAction Megazord and Mr. Bones. This years Halloween Droid Factory figure and the Halloween Clone Trooper I missed last year! A way cool Halloween Transformers t-shirt, a Dracula Funko, and a spooky Bluetooth speaker (boo tooth). She got me a Kinder Surprise multi pack and I was able to complete this years set! There was a bunch more stuff in the bag, but that's just off the top of my head.

A trip to Walmart resulted in Beast Changer Scourge. Just 3 more to go and I've completed the Beast Alliance toys. It's been a fun time and I'll be sad to see it over. Just the way these things go. While out shopping I also grabbed the rest of the TMNT Jada keychains, kinda wish there was a Shredder.  Transformers Earthspark Expedition came out Friday and a physical copy proved hard to get. The Mrs ordered my copy from Amazon and it came in Sunday while we were at Costco. It's a great little game, a lot better than I expected. Unfortunately the Switch version is very buggy and freezes a lot. Fortunately the developer has already got a fix patch ready, it's just a matter of waiting for it to come down the distribution channel. I'll be looking forward to it as I'm really enjoying the game (when it works). 

There's a few more weeks of Halloween here on the site. I hope everyone is having fun and enjoying our adventures in the haunted house. I've got some errands to run, so I'll be ending this here. I hope everyone has a great week and please, if you could, share Zone Base with your friends!

Transform Squadron 42- Con Leche

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This month, as Rob prepares for Toylanta, he talks about various convention experiences.

Weekly Update- 11/21/22 Holiday Edition

It's the start of a new week here on Planet Zone! Not just any week, a holiday week! Between the days off and pretty much working non-stop until then... It'll be a mini-Bios week before taking a much needed break. But don't worry, everything will return back to normal next week. Pinky Swear. Thanks so much for continuing to support Zone Base. I really appreciate it and just ask that you share with your friends!

Flashfist Has Modern Solutions

Flashfist has always been one of the bots I think of whenever Starriors comes to mind. He's not one of the marquee characters for some reason. Flashfist comes from the last wave of toys before the line ended. Just like other toy lines, it's the later figures that come out the best. I really like his mix of yellow and brown colors.

With his bulky build and maser gun hand, you'd think Flashfist is a big tank type. Instead, the big guy is a walking rechargeable battery. When the Destructors attack, Flashfist absorbs the energy and fires it back. Considering the Starriors are fighting on a post apocalyptic wasteland... that's a pretty green solution to fighting robot war.

How About A Refreshing Slice?

As someone who loves robots and monsters, Slice is the best Starrior. A robot skeleton with a spinning axe and sickle combination 100% intended to give the Protectors nightmares. I've always really appreciated Slice's specifically robotic skeleton design.

The cables, pipes, and hydraulics form the spooky when paired with his skull head. The red and purple really pulls it all together nicely. It's a mix of 80's super robot and spooky scary that makes for a unique looking toy. There's been other robotic skeletons, but Slice is a cut above the rest. Than pun just made this post better. We all know it.

Cyberfire and Brimstone

I've been talking about Cybertron toys lately, and for good reason, they were great! One toy from the line was Brimstone, a Decepticon from the Jungle Planet whom turned into a pterodactyl. Brimstone was a fairly good sized toy in the deluxe class with a great neon yellow and gray color set with some purple for good measure. Looking like some cool knight from a mid-evil fantasy adventure or even some evil warrior to be found in a dungeon, Brimstone was just a sharp looking figure. Speaking of sharp, his Cyber Planet Key gimmick was flip out knife blades that came from his wings in either robot or beast mode.

Transformation was pretty simple, but still pretty unique. A simple rearranging of parts and his legs formed the pterodactyl's head while his arms formed it's feet. In beast mode Brimstone was pretty solid thanks to his simple transformation. Simple doesn't mean bad though as the toy looked great in both modes and didn't sacrifice anything in the process.

Oddly enough Brimstone's mold was a 'one and done' that rarely happens in Transformers. I blame timing as the toy didn't really fit in with following lines while other Cybertron toy molds got folded into various reuses. Aside from his Japanese counterpart and random value pack style releases there just wasn't any other use of the toy mold. Which is a shame as I can easily see him as a Windstorm homage. Fortunately he did get some love later as the character returned as a BotCon exclusive.

Starriors Armored Battle Station Commercial

This morning I bought some gas and myself a nice hot cup of pecan flavored coffee. What does that have to do with Starriors? Nothing. But while I was driving home and enjoying that coffee I found myself lost in thought over Zoids. This went to memories of Starriors and wondering if it would work in current times. I think if the toys were a smaller scale they would. Of course it's just me agreeing with myself about things I like. I don't claim to know everything, that's just ludicrous. Just while hearing that local gas station commercial and realizing I had coffee in my beard I couldn't help myself. Sometimes memories come as they do and thoughts go the way they go.

It's hard to not admire the Armored Battle Station though, just look how nice looking it is. That great robotic cobra headed, pyramid inspired fortress looks wonderful. I've always fancied an evil version of it with robotic mummies and scarabs. Wouldn't that be cool?

Imaginext Power Rangers Pink Ranger and Pterodactyl Zord

I've made no secret that I love the Imaginext MMPR line. It's a 100% fun way to collect toy versions of the classic characters that honestly works really well. While Imaginext is aimed towards smaller children, it does have it's share of adult collectors and Fisher Price acknowledges that often. Imaginext is essentially the modern day equivalent of Adventure People and just like Adventure People, Imaginext makes just plain wonderful toys. Their Power Rangers line doesn't give the characters much of a cutesy make over. These are essentially smaller sized figures with really neat vehicles and play sets. There's often some neat play feature integrated into the vehicles and play sets that is utilized by way of turning the figure on a base.

The Pink Ranger makes the Pterodactyls mouth open. Also, if you have the wings folded up, they snap back into place. Just a silly little play feature that's hard to hate.

The Zord makes me think of Windstorm from Starriors a bit. Owing more to it's similar nature as a robot pterodactyl than anything, I'm curious if a blue version might find it's way out at some point just as a robot figure turns up in the blind bags. Imaginext is crafty like that sometimes. As you can see, the Pink Ranger stands on her base to pilot the Zord in a satisfying manner and even has some firing rockets. I've already got the Pink Ranger from the figure two pack, and just like the other Rangers that come with standard versions of the Zords, they are the same figures without the variations that run throughout the line. So really, if you missed the two pack, here's another with the bow for the combining Power Cannon.

Imaginext toys are really hefty and satisfying. I had been passing on this Zord set as I already have the regular figure from the two pack. Though when I saw it in my local Walmart's spring clearance section for $4, there was no way I was passing on that deal. Which I'm really happy about as my track record with these larger Zords has been all positive. These are just wonderful old school Adventure People style sets themed to a series I really love and it works amazingly well. I'd argue better than normal Power Rangers toys. This set is normally around $14 on average, so $4 was such a steal I expect the police to knock down my door any minute.

I think the best example of just how neat these toys are can be summed up in the Zord's hidden form. Despite the sets not being able to combine to form the Megazord, you can still convert the Pterodactyl into it's chest formation. It's not a happy accident either, they took time to paint and deco up the Zord's underside just for this detail and really could have skipped it. See what I mean when I say these are arguably better toys than the normal toys? I do worry that when Hasbro's toy control kicks in that the Imaginext line will eventually go away and Playschool will take over. Which, could be awesome. Playschool makes great similar figures and I'd wager they'd possibly explore other series than MMPR. Just, man, Imaginext is really nailing it. It's going to be a tough act to follow.

Starriors Wastors and Cosmittor commercial