Transform Squadron 58- Dead of the Brain Module

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Halloween is here and there’s no better time to talk about ZOMBIES! Optimus and the gang have dealt with the living dead on more than one occasion and Rob’s here to talk about it. Also a look at the upcoming Transformers Wild King line because it’s awesome. Trick or Treat!

Enough to Make you Hallowscream

I've never been to Kentucky Kingdom, but judging by this commercial from 1995, it's pretty great during Halloween. While I'm sure in more recent years they've probably updated the scares with more modern frights... there's just something special about those classic monsters running around and scaring folks.

Resident Biscut

I've been enjoying Pocky forever. As a kid, my mom would often go to a local Farmers Market/Grocery store to buy produce and for whatever reason it had a big international foods area. I'd often get Pocky or other Asian snacks and one of those giant cans of Ecto-Cooler to enjoy with whatever video game I'd rent while we were out. These days I tend to keep a box in my desk as the occasional stick makes a perfect work snack. Of course it'd make a great treat to hand out at Halloween. I wonder if the kids would be able to do the Pocky dance?

Monday of the Brain

Dammit, it's Monday again. Let's all pour one out for another weekend gone. I spent mine taking the Mrs out for her birthday. We spent all Saturday taking in a bunch shops like Teso Life, Tokyo Kuma, and other similar shops. I bought her a bunch of fun stuff like Sanrio, stationary, treats, plushies, and other things she likes. It was a good time. I did pick up a few things for myself while out. Got 2 Popmart Transformers blind figures. Starscream and Galvatron. Galvatron came with a arm for the Devastator build-a-figure. Also picked up a BeastBox Jonsen. This was a limited edition version in unique colors and accessories. Neat! I also picked up a Chin Chan blind box, some Bikkuriman stickers, Demon Slayer, Hone Hone Zaurus, Ultraman, Gundam, Mario, and other goodies! 

I've got a fun week planned for you all. Thanks to each and every one of you for reading Zone Base. If you like what I'm doing, thanks! Please share the site with your friends. Mutal high fives everyone, let's get this week started and have a great week!

What if Destroids?

 

It was a dark and stormy night. A lone security guard patrols the medical university when he discovers the door to the morgue is open! Upon investigating he finds Decepticon Pretenders robbing the bodies of the dead! What could those dastardly fiends want with a bunch of corpses? They plan to make an army of un-dead soldiers, THE DESTROIDS ARE HERE! Part of the reason I love Masterforce so much is that it's complete departure from traditional Transformers story telling. While other series have strayed from the trail on occasion, Masterforce was the first to go it's own path. From the spooky depictions of the Decepticon Pretenders, to the Destroids, to an outright witch... Masterforce didn't mess around. Someone wanted to tell a scary story.

House Of The New Week

Christmas is over and we're entering the last week of the year 2020. This year felt like a horror movie, so here's hoping next year... won't. I've got a fun week of posts in store to last you the rest of the year! Thank you for continuing to read Zone Base and please share with friends!

Biohazard: The Real 3

So maybe the timing of using this commercial isn't the best, but considering we're all making the jokes... So far the virus pandemic has canceled a LOT of things for a few weeks. Toylanta was canceled among other things. I know my updates from it are usually a pretty popular, and I'm pretty disappointed. It's best to be safe while things get under control though.

I've been utilizing online services such as mobile app ordering and taking most food home and shopping online mainly for years now. That habit seems to be the way to go for a while and with the move to streaming services for media (I've been seeing news of movie studios offering major motion pictures to in demand services) fortunately we live in a world ready for such a situation. I hope all of you reading this are ok and continue to do so. Follow the guidelines being put out by your local governments, wash your hands and stay on top of those things. A little personal responsibility can go a long way.

Be nice to each other. There's a lot of scared people out these and that trip to the grocery store could prove stressful. I went out to stock up Saturday unaware if my grocery pick up would be available or what would even be in stock. People were generally friendly and patient with each other and that was nice. That's how we'll get though this. Thanks each and every one of you for reading Zone Base. I'd be honored if you shared the site with others to help them pass the time. I know my site isn't the greatest, and I don't make anything from it. But if one of my bad jokes about an old robot toy helps pass the time, then I've done my job.

Set Your VCR For The Vampires

Sometimes GI JOE fights monsters

G.I. Joe is the code name for America's daring, highly trained, special mission force. Its purpose: To defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless, terrorist organization who apparently has a ton of monsters just laying around. To be honest, I'm kinda at a loss at just how Cobra looses all the time. Even without monsters they have ninjas, punk rock pirates who's leader could just morph into other people. Some weirdo in a metal mask, a guy with a robot arm, a freaking mad scientist, a bootleg Dr. Strange, robot soldiers... and that's before you get to the secret city of snake people and the second (and better) leader who was a damn Frankenstein Monster with a portion of his parts coming from Dracula himself!

At some point Cobra decided to outright just start using monsters, because why the fuck not? The hell with those twins, we've got Mega Monsters! GI JOE had to make another special team called the MEGA MARINES to drive up in their Monster Blaster A.P.C to shoot a big ass rocket with. But not to be outdone, when Cobra took their antics to space, GI JOE had to utilize space robots. The Manimals would have come in around then, but something happened and they didn't see the light of day until the early 2000's. What are the Manimals you ask?

Freaking mutating solders that's what. I was lucky enough to score a couple on clearance at Kay Bee Toys and let me tell you, Manimals were freaking amazing. In case the Mega Monsters, snake people, and drug dealers weren't enough... mutant soldiers that changed into terrifying monsters should do the trick. With toys like Manimals, there's no rational reason for GI JOE not to still be on shelves. In the immortal words of Ronnie James Dio, it's always a mystery.

What if mutating soldiers and giant monsters STILL aren't enough? Well, just pull out the zombies I guess. Both Cobra and GI JOE have Eco Warriors teams. Utilizing things like toxic waste for evil, Cobra's cool Toxo-Vipers are awesome enough on their own.  Packing chemical sprayers and a shotgun... I just can't love these neon colored warriors enough. But you can't just go around squirting toxic sludge around and despite all the amazing stuff Cobra has, they have terrible quality control. Toxo-Vipers suits will eventually leak and create a new soldier called the Toxo-Zombie. I'm not kidding, they literally just call workplace accidents a new type of soldier. Somehow these new zombie soldiers were trusted with more chemical sprayers. At this point why the hell not?

At some point Cobra decided accidental zombies weren't enough and developed Zombie-Vipers. According to the bio-card on the back, Compound Z is a chemical that just turns Vipers into zombies. Zombie (a monster known for dragging it's limps) soldiers with big tentacles hanging off their arms. After ten years of The Walking Dead and people dispatching zombies with sticks, starting to understand how the Joes keep winning.

How did Mighty Max not die?

If there ever was a toy line that should and could make a return in today's world of smaller toys it's Mighty Max! I could easily see the little figures being sold in blind packs as well as with play sets. Mighty Max was great because you had this totally every Saturday morning cartoon looking kid in horrible situations. Damn, where are his parents? Literally Max is finding himself in some random evil fortress shaped like some random terror (a skull in this commercial). Not only is the evil fortress shaped like a random terror.... it's full of random terror! Monsters, ghosts, skeletons, demons, all out for Max's blood. I'm all for the backwards hat wearing cool kid and his fast ways... but let's face facts. They killed him.

The Tomb of Doom

I've often compared fantasy toys to Halloween decorations, have you ever looked at Skeletor? Often these lines are filled with all sorts of creeps from the local haunted house ran by the heavy metal guys from the high school (I heard the sacrifice kids in the woods). Scary snake people, bat armor, full satanic panic. Super Naturals saw that and told Hordak to hold their beer. Using holograms as a means to display the warriors transformations into powerful magical forms and the bad guys from ... corpses to demons...

The Tomb of Doomb.. doom... play set is a freaking crypt so your ghost monsters can hang out and be scary when they're not driving their spike covered 50's hot rods around. It features such amenities as ledges for the figures to stand on and a wall of lost souls. Of course the weapons glow in the dark, so it's a ten.

Jaycees Haunted Houses

I spent some years on the charity haunted house scene back in the day. It can be a great way to spend a few nights during the Halloween season. During the Halloween season you'll hear about two kinds of haunted house attractions. The big budget for profit type like Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios, or the smaller local haunts usually run for charity. In those circles you'll often hear the name 'Jaycees' as the group is infamous for running these types of haunts generating scares and money for local charities. While there's no comparing the big budget thrills to the solid white make up faces drenched in fake blood. There's no denying that old school charm.

Evil in a Residential area

I love the original Resident Evil. Love it. Hands down my favorite 'scary' game to this day. One thing my wife and I had been talking about lately is what to put in each others Trick or Treat pails this year. She'd like a copy of the new Luigi's Mansion while I'm finding myself drawn to the new Switch re-releases of older RE games. Sure would be a great way to enjoy Halloween night.

Fear the Mad Scientist

One of the coolest toys of the late 80's was Mad Scientist by Mattel. Everybody loves slime and incorporating it with monsters was perfect. The Monster Lab was one of the most popular sets. Essentially you'd take a plastic skeleton, cover it in flesh, and create your monster. Then you murder it by dropping it in a vat of chemicals that melted the creature before your eyes. You gave the monster life and then took it away in morbid fashion. That is fantastic.

Just take a look at the Japanese version of The Monster Lab's packaging. I'm a fan of Japanese logos, kanji, and Asian horror as is. The straight J-Horror visuals of the box are just wonderful to me. In Japan the line was called 'The Laboratory of Mad Dr. Fear'. It's pretty hard not to love that. Unless you're some sort of monster, and we kill those horribly in this laboratory. Suddenly that names pretty amazing huh?

Another popular set was the Alien Dissection kit. If the commercial above doesn't clue you in to it's amazing nature, let me explain. You have an alien filled with internal organs and slime. Then you rip it out. That's it. The play feature of Mad Scientist was torturing monsters to death in violent and horrible ways. Dammit that's awesome. There was other play sets of varying horror and grossness. Though the last of the line was only released in Japan and worth taking note here. It's pretty great.

Ma-Ba Zombies were a sub-line that followed the initial play sets with tiny rubber freaks and monsters. The figures were hollow with the intention that you'd fill it with slime. Squeeze the monster and watch it ooze out. Pretty simple, but simple usually works the best. There were a few series of these on their own outside of the main line. Mad Scientist was a collaboration between Mattel and Bandai that often gets swept under the rug in most peoples memories. I suppose a toy line of gross monsters that you effective murder violently would be a touch too much for the more lame members of society. I do see various homages to the monsters (mostly the alien from the dissection kit) in the occasional designer toy though. I'm pretty jealous of those lucky kids of the late 80's in Japan. I'd love to have had Ma-Ba zombies.

45 Grave- Do you wanna party

Pocky zombie commercial

I wonder if Pocky and a dance routine ever occurred to Rick Grimes?

Undead Skyquake

Groovy

They're coming to get you Minerva

When there's no more room in the pit, the dead will walk the earth. 

Since I'm talking about how perfect Masterforce is for Halloween, let's take a second to talk about Destroids. Destroids are Decepticon Zombies. No really, the Decepticons made a point to make an army of Zombies in Masterforce.

They even gave them uniforms.

Honestly, I have to just applaud this idea. I mean, let's think about this for a second. What's a better way to slow down the Autobots than hordes of humans that they won't want to harm.? Not to mention, considering the bulk of the Autobots transform into some form of car, that would really slow them down.

HEY, LANGUAGE! 

Biohazard 2/Resident Evil 2 commercial by George Romero