Weekend HENSHIN! Cyborg Monday

Hello Zone Base readers! Welcome back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! I hope everyone had a great weekend, mine was pretty good itself. I can't say I did a lot, but enjoyed it all the same. The Mrs and I made a point to do our weekly shopping early Saturday morning to be home in time for the severe weather awaiting us that night. Like last weekend, I didn't buy myself anything toy related as my birthday and Toylanta are in 2 weeks. But did finally find a can of BBQ Doritos Minis. I vastly prefer the mini Doritos and really love the BBQ flavor. Now that they're available in the smaller size, I can indulge without worrying about eating too much. I love them, but still need to watch what I eat!

Saturday evening as the storms came in, I enjoyed some sushi the Mrs had ordered while I was sleeping. I had a wonderful meal of spicy yellow tail roll, sweet potato roll, and of course a cucumber roll. I normally get a spicy tuna roll, but think I'll be getting that yellow tail more often! It was so pleasant and this was my first time with a sweet potato roll. I'll definitely be getting it more. It had some tempura inside and went perfectly with the spicy yellow tail. Of course I enjoyed my cucumber roll, it's a favorite. I love cucumbers and you all know I love my spooky stuff. Nothing like a kappamaki roll to polish off a great meal! I had some rainbow sherbert for dessert and an overall wonder meal. The weather was not so great as spring is settling in and that means lots of storms in the American South. There was severe weather all evening including tornadoes. We made it out ok, but unfortunately others didn't. I wish the best for them and their families. After dinner, I rode out the storm with various ghost and robot videos in between playing Shredder's Revenge. That might just be my favorite TMNT game ever! 

Sunday, the weather was much better and I went to the local Kroger to renew my license tag for the year at the Tag Renewal vending machine. Afterwards, I decided to check out the Pokémon machine to see if they had anything cool. Normally there's a line, but the store staff had blocked the machine with online order pick-up carts. Jerks! I'm always annoyed when staff are inconsiderate to customers. Thinking how many people are usually in line at that machine, I know there was several unhappy people that morning. I worked retail and fast food when I was younger and remember how these sort of things were often because of incompetence more than anything. That's a large portion of my annoyance towards these types of situations. I still remember getting in trouble for things like this by the manager whose idea it was in the first place! Oh well, hopefully others got to use the machine later.

I organized my toys some more (I've got quite a mess to get under control) and enjoyed a wonderful dinner the Mrs cooked. Mom came over and we enjoyed Sunday dinner while watching the first half of The Electric State. I look forward to finishing it as it's really good! We had salad, spaghetti, and some awesome lemon cupcakes! After Mom left, we watched some Leemax and other companies Halloween offerings preview videos. It was a great weekend and hopefully this will be a great week! Being Monday, of course I have some household chores to do and some toys to picture for upcoming posts. It's finally happening, I'll be finishing our look at Beast Alliance Transformers. Of course I'm 2 weeks ahead as usual, so please look forward to it shortly after Toylanta. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. I really do appreciate it! Don't forget to share with your friends and Mutual High Fives!

Transform Squadron 46- Shining Code Orange

Rob talks Code Orange, Telecoma Senshi, and various Tectors while not realizing his beard is rubbing against the microphone.

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Living on the edge, not afraid to die

A few weeks ago I spoke about how excited I was for the new Kingdom version of Shadow Panther. Fortunately the Mrs found him a little bit back and I now happily have one. If you don't know who Shadow Panther is, let me educate you a little on him. His bio reads-Outer appearance looks like a Cybertron but in fact he is a Predacon soldier. Shadow Panther specializes in performing surprise attacks from the darkness. He doesn't stop his hunts until he has preyed upon countless Maximals. Depending on release, he may or may not be Ravage. That's because he was originally a Japanese exclusive character, however Hasbro chose to import him when they ran a collectors web store (pre-Hasbro Pule). Initially sold as Shadow Panther, however at some point they renamed the toy Tripredacus Agent.

If you couldn't tell, it's a repaint of Cheetor. However not a direct repaint as Shadow Panther has a different head. The first bath of Beast Wars toys had the mutant head gimmick. This would usually give the figure another head that could be swapped out to represent a battle mask or helmet. When it came to repaints, these mutant heads would usually serve as the new characters head. Shadow Panther normally used the standard Cheetor head, but for this release he has the mutant head. Considering there's another Cheetor likely on the shelf nearby, that's a pretty good idea. Not going to lie either, it's a good choice. Makes him look more savage. With that sickle/whip weapon and the black colors, Shadow Panther looks like the anime shadow warrior the bio makes him out to be. 

The black on yellow with silver colors look as good as ever to me. Silver on black is a classic look and the yellow is so strikingly different that it contrasts nicely. Not to mention, makes me think of a Henshin Cyborg. There's a pretty big Transformers iceberg, and it's probably a coincidence, but the similarity is hard to ignore. As you've guessed by now, I'm happy with this toy. You might be too. The base mold is already a good one and it's a character I have a fondness for. I'm pretty happy that Hasbro went with Shadow Panther for Kingdom. With the Netflix version of Cheetor also available, I would have assumed they'd pass over another use of the mold on the shelf at the same time. Sometimes it's good to be wrong.

Kreon Blizzard Strike Optimus Thinks He's A Microman

Remember that Soundwave I talked about yesterday? While at the Dollar General that day, the Mrs. saw the kreons and grabbed me a neat looking Optimus Prime. I was a big fan of Kre-O during it's run but slowed down during it's last years as a discount chain line. She saw these more deluxe Kreons with the add on parts on the pegs and grabbed me one. The Optimus Prime was differently colored than what his art depicted and she thought he looked neat. She was right, he does look neat.

While I have admittedly slowed down on the Kre-O stuff, it was fun revisiting it and frankly this Optimus was pretty cool. The toy is mostly in translucent blue and clear plastic with some solid white colored pieces. He's pretty dang sharp looking.

I had a hard time finding this version on the TFWiki, so I have no clue what they're actually called. They've had them at Dollar General for a while and I've just now gotten this one. Basically you get a Kreon with the parts to add on to make a more 'deluxe' figure. With all the parts added the figure has knees and elbows and stands a little taller. It's a neat little thing and I'm pretty tempted to get more now.

The funny thing about this figure is the base kreon. Without any of his extra parts, you pretty much have a Kreon Microman/Micronaut.When Kre-O was more of a thing, I thought Hasbro should have made Micronaut Kre-O sets. It seemed like the perfect fit to me. Years later, Kre-O technically still exists with a small amount of product available and I guess they just wanted the Micronauts name. Hopefully something will eventually come of it.

He could be a Henshin Cyborg as well I suppose, but my mind goes to Microman first. I've taken to calling him Microman Orion. A different helmet for the more 'deluxe' figure and he'd make a fine Acroyear. Now that I have essentially that Kre-O Micronaut I wished I had all those years ago, I really wish they would have made that line. The proportions are just right as is the sculpting.  Oh well, at least I have a cool Optimus Prime.

Transform Squadron 26 - Accidental Micronauts

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Rob’s back in a post-Halloween hangover to tell you all about the Transformers. Well, Transformers SCF to be specific. He also talks about various Universal Studios stuff, the hidden Micronauts Kreon he discovered, and how he became a creepypasta by accident on Halloween night. There’s a lot to unpack here and don’t you just hate it when people say that? 

Yo Cyborg!

I've been wanting a Henshin Cyborg for a while. The chance to do so has come up a few times, but I never pulled the trigger. Nothing fancy, a reissue would suffice. I'd really love to get a Dokuro King as well, maybe a King Walder. I've had one in mind since last Toylanta. Wanted a Robotman/Biotron too. Saw a few actually for decent prices, but didn't pull that trigger either. Missing just enough parts to make me consider it longer than the con went on. A few parts is no big thing, but ones that ultimately affect the visual look of the toy is another. Same guy was some great Diaclone and Rock Lords stuff. Thinking right now to splurge on some of that stuff at the con. Of course like any Toylanta mental purchase list... card subject to change.

Thinking more about it, I think I need to get more of the space figures from Adventure People. The only reason I haven't before is a resounding 'I already got all those dudes back in the 80's'. Though, they're all in boxes in my Mom's garage. Getting another set as well as the ones I never got would be a lot more fruitful I imagine. I get plenty of the homages, wish I would have gotten that last Clawtron Battle Tribes did, but a OG set to maybe put on a nice shelf next to my mini consoles would be nice.

Cyborg Station CX1

Henshin Cyborg commercials sure are a fever dream.

Cyborg Station CX1 commercial

That was amazing.

Screaming into space

Damn that art sells it

SDCC is right around the corner and exclusive talk is on every bodies keyboards. Super 7 is teasing a Transformers exclusive by the way of their upcoming Henshin Cyborg style line that honestly looks pretty neat. I do love a good X-Ray/Cross Section robot image.

But, the big one. The poop your pants one. 

The stuff dreams are made of

 A Studio Series Bumblebee set that comes with reissues of Dial and Zaur, some of the rarest Transformers, and they're coming out of nowhere with a Bumblebee. I'm obviously not going to the con, and I hope I can score a set from the after con sales. I say hope because it's already hard for a working adult to get some of this online stuff as it sells out pretty quickly, but there's going to be all sorts of extra competition for this one. I mean, these are the kind of figures you rarely get to even see in real life... and they're coming with a Bumblebee in a SDCC set. People might actually kill over this one. Going to be a bummer when I wake up and find out it was availible for all of two seconds while I was driving home from work.

I'm a positive person, but knowing I'll likely never get this is super depressing

Beyond your wildest Imaginext

Credit: Matthew Garrison of Imaginext Generation

The current 'on fiya' post in Imaginext Generation is the first sighting of the newest Imaginext blind bag series. Which is, without a doubt, all that and a bag of chips. Let me elaborate in case the amazing picture doesn't already make your mind explode. Imaginext, while being a toy line intended for small children, is very well catered to adult nerds. I've said before that Imaginext is the modern day Adventure People, but as you can see in the picture, there is an Adventure People homage in this series (not the first time either).

What's super cool is that the new X-Ray Man also pay's homage to it's Microman/Micronaught leanings with with a doggy nod to Henshin Cyborg. That's super awesome. I'm tempted to also get one for my brother. The sci fi Adventure People held a proud place on his bookshelf from childhood well into his teen years and I'd wager he still has them stowed away somewhere. Then there's Triple Threat Snake from Battle Beasts making a sneaky appearance. Readers of Zone Base already know how I feel about Battle Beasts and many have fell from me cutting them over many a heated rub sign fight. I'm willing to disagree on many things, but I might kill you over a Battle Beast.

Last and certainly not least. In fact probably the most surprising, a two pack of Muscleman/Kinnikuman and Terri-Bull/Buffaloman from M.U.S.C.L.E/Kinnikuman. That's the kind of awesome surprise you not only didn't expect, but probably embarrassed yourself when you found out. Like other folks my age, I've probably got a metric ton of the little toys and pop hard when I see anything similar. This... this right here... is amazing.

The other guys on the bag look similar too, though I outright am fuzzy on them. Fish head dude is really reminding me of something. The centaur looks a lot like a Navi from Avatar, but being a centaur makes me wonder if he's supposed to be somebody else. Radiation suit guy is a long awesome trope that doesn't need any explanation. You know, there's tons of high end toys for the adult collectors market, but the best one can be found at any Walmart in the toddler aisle for not a lot of money.

Henshin Cyborg Jaguar

Now this is neat. Seeing the direct lineage of Henshin Cybord to Diaclone and Microman, I have to wonder exactly how much of a ancestor to Ravage this toy is. It's really cool looking regardless and I appreciate the interaction between it and the other toys in the commercial. I think my favorite part though, is the kids at the end.

King Walder commercial

As I've noted earlier this week, that Halloween love has sprouted right back out of me. Which makes me laugh at myself, because the Halloween Hootenanny I do on Zone Base isn't too much different than the years regular content (maybe just a little more emphasis on horror). The scary monsters and horror themes are pretty rampant on the subjects I cover here, which makes me wonder if I'm into horror because of robots, or am I into robots because of horror? I try not to question it too much though because I don't feel I need to define myself and really, I'm pretty comfortable with myself (as much as possible anyway, everyone has self esteem issues occasionally). So all presentation silliness aside, is this Henshin Cyborg commercial crazy or what? I love the animation created for the ad and the plain scariness of it. It's like an old metal album cover come to life.

Henshin Cyborg Shonen Cyborg commercial

Coming back from Toylanta, which was formerly known as Joelanta (as it was originally a con for 12 inch Joe fans), conversations are still fresh in my mind. One gentleman had plenty of Henshin Cyborg figures and I enjoyed chatting with him about them. He was older than me and is from the pre-internet generation that relied on pen pals and the like to help him track down these great toys from another country. Sometimes I feel older than I am talking with younger fans about the early days of the internet and what it was like before the internet was really a thing. Back pages of magazines with various classified ads for fans and collectors, ordering catalogs and getting on fanzine lists. Then I talk to this guy, or hear stories of the guy who used to form grassroot letter writing campaigns to get things produced and I'm taken aback and amazed. Somehow those old pages in the back of toy and video game magazines don't seem so archaic.