I don't know who was saying he had to go, because it wasn't me. Today we'll be looking at Godzilla in Monster Egg Series form! Out of the 4 in this 2024 reissue set (the Gigan from 2014 isn't available at this time) Godzilla is the star. Not just because he's the main character of the films... but he's also the best of the batch! Thanks to the transformation he's got quit a bit of articulation compared to the others. The head and tail are jointed, twice in the tail! Arms and legs can move... there's even twists in the ankles!
Bandai is the best at this sort of thing and they proved it with Godzilla. Unlike most egg toys, he retains his traditional proportions. Transformation is easy and everything folds up neatly into place. Egg form is truly monstrous (as it should be) and this is one truly well done toy. Go Go Godzilla!
Whenever Transformers is brought up, Soundwave is one of the trademark characters to be mentioned immediately in the conversation. It's to no surprise either, he's just that cool. You've got a guy who turns into a cassette player that ejects cassettes that turn into little robots. That's as rad as it gets, then add in his signature reverb voice and he's just as iconic as it gets. It doesn't hurt that his face is the symbol of the Decepticons. This Blokees version is pretty great. It's the standard Soundwave we're all used to and that's all it takes to be outstanding.
He just looks extra by being, of course he is extra compared to your normal Blokees figure. The trademark tape door chest is present and it opens! Being a non-transforming model kit, you'd assume it's just be a sticker... but nope! There's even a little cassette to insert! The tape doesn't transform, but that's still a great little touch. He has both his rifle and shoulder cannon. Man, I swear everything about Soundwave is a trademark. I've always thought these guns formed from the tape players batteries were awesome. Of course, there's the standard open and closed hands as well as display stand with symbols you'd expect from a Blokees. Speaking of, that specific Blokees style you'd expect really lends itself to the specific look of Soundwave.
Monday has risen from it's icy grave and with it the entire universe is in danger. We must join forces and defeat it's evil! Thanks for coming back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure Zone Base readers! I hope you had a great weekend, mine sure was! Friday was Valentines Day, and even though I had flowers and candy for the Mrs then, we had a little dinner date Saturday to enjoy the occasion. Afterwards, there was some shopping where I picked up the new Funko Pop Soundwave and Megazord figures. I've been looking forward to these as their from a new subline in Pops that I find neat. They're a little larger and come with itty-bitty Pops to serve as pilots. Soundwave came with Rumble and The Megazord with the Red Ranger! They even come in boxes that resembled vintage packaging. You guys know I love a good pilot figure!
Walmart had a really good sale on their app in the week that I totally missed out on! Between monthly bills and Valentines Day, I wanted to wait until purchasing any toys. I had plenty items in my cart to wait untill then weekend and well, whoops. I'll be buying the figure in time, but I totally missed out on that sale. Dammit, but other stuff took priority and real life comes first! Speaking of real life, the next episode of Transform Squadron will be a little delayed. My mother has a few medical procedures that will be taking up some extra time over the next few weeks as I've got to drive here around. Sometimes I can get busy really fast.
Also speaking of real life, Saturday night after we got home, there was some pretty big storms here in my home state. Early Sunday morning around 4am it got super nasty and a few small tornadoes caused some havoc. Our entire county and a neighboring one were without power for a while. Some still don't have any. Fortunately ours came back on around 11am. It wasn't the longest I've been without electricity, but still not great. Hopefully those without will get restored soon. It's pretty cold and I'd hate for them to be without heat. I did spend Sunday morning listening to a radio while playing my Evercade EXP-R untill the batteries died (only had a half charge). I then read some G1 manga untill the power came back on. I've been meaning to re-read it, so that gave me a good chance to jump back in. I watch a few episodes of G1 every day on the TF channel, so it's always great to go a little deeper.
Speaking of the Transformers Channel, I've been noticing some weirdness. The channel is on a few different apps and usually has the same schedule across them all. Lately the Pluto TV version has a different schedule. Weird. Also, Cartoon Rewind has only started showing a few episodes of Gobots a week instead of the full series at a time like they do their other shows. Thankfully I have a lot of DVR recordings to get my fix whenever, but that's really annoying me. Also annoying, the Godzilla channel was shut down and the beginning of the year and now Tokushoutsu has been removed from Pluto TV. What the hell is going on? Fortunately Tokushoutsu still has a great presence on YouTube. Between that, the Godzilla channel, and the Godzilla: Monsters and Friends channel leaving Amazon Prime... I feel attacked! Thankfully most of the content is on demand (and DVDs). I just really like channels, you know?
Well, this has turned out to be a longer weekly update than I planned, but hey... I don't know how to follow that. I've got to get some more toy pictures taken for upcoming posts and household chores to do before work tonight. I hope you all have a great week. Thank you for reading Zone Base. Your support means the world to me. Please don't forget to share with your friends and Mutual High Fives everyone!
I've been a big fan of the Walmart Exclusive Transformers Legacy series as they're just so cool. Somehow, I've hardly covered them here on the site until the Star Raider Collection, which I've managed to completely showcase. That was a weird way to reflect on the series while also acknowledging that today's space pirate is the last of the series. Like Lockdown, Canonball was a Christmas gift from the Mrs. who spoils me every year.
Cannonball has pretty much always been a pirate character, though his crew tends to change depending on fictional setting. As a toy, he's always been a repaint. The original was a repaint of the Deluxe Cybertron Red Alert figure. This new one is the latest use of the Legacy Skids mold. That mold itself has seen more miles than a long haul tractor trailer with multiple repaints and remolds. Cannonball specifically is a repaint/remold of Crankcase. I have Crankcase, but don't think I've covered him here. Despite the reuse of prior molds, Crankcase and Cannonball almost feel like completely different engineering. There's only been two Cannonball figures, but ironically he's been a Walmart exclusive twice. The original was reissued in an exclusive set, while this new figure is from the Star Raiders collection.
Cannonball is very similar to his original design, but now turning into a crossover style SUV while the original was a Dodge Magnum. Which was a station wagon that was pretty popular at the time. Cannonball has a new head that looks almost just like the original as well as the original's laser hand. There's a claw and hammer accessory that can fit on the laser hand and store in his legs. He's holding the hammer in my pic as I wanted to show it off, but apparently in not the very best way. One nice touch is the Cyber Key. It doesn't unlock anything... but is a nice nod to the past. The key is sporting a Star Seeker insignia, and that's really cool.
Another nice touch is the skeleton graphics on the original toy's car doors are replaced with a Vok one. The Vok resemble a flaming skull, so it's a really nice Easter Egg. Like all the other instances of this mold, like Burn Out, transformation is easy and articulation is plentiful. It's really neat how much this toy looks like the original. The Star Seeker Collection was fun to collect as was the exclusive sets prior. I'm sad to see it over, but as Cannonball was originally a Cybertron toy, I feel like him ending this series makes a nice segway to this years Walmart set. An all Cybertron themed collection to celebrate the series 20th anniversary. So look forward to more Cyber Key action later this year!
There's something magical about classic MechaGodzilla. Sure, more modern takes are extra awesome looking and super badass... but there's no denying the classic sci fi charm and style of his era. You can laugh at his rainbow colored beams all you want... but he did draw blood. Those fights with Godzilla were specifically gory and it was this version that did the damage. While we're talking about his far out looks and hardcore fighting... let's look at his egg monsters toy. Like any Bandai transforming egg, he's well done.
Minimal articulation, but that's common for this type of toy. He looks pretty great in both modes. Robot mode looks pretty spot on, maybe a little extra round, but that's another side effect of this type of toy. You expect it. Egg form looks like some sort of crazy bomb G-Force devised to stop these monsters and run off the evil space aliens. Or since this MechaGodzilla is from space and working for those evil space aliens... maybe it's something they made for us! I haven't mention yet that this series is a reissue set and they were originally released in 2014. It's super cool Bandai did this and had it at Target. The Mrs saw them and knew they'd make perfect stocking stuffers because of that. So many people are complaining about the price of eggs these days, but these ones are priceless to me.
I've always liked Red Alert. It's hard not to after Auto Berserk, an episode where his paranoia gets kicked into overdrive leading him off the deep end. Toy wise, it's the deco that wins me over. I've always liked a police car deco, and the fire chief variation is even better. That white and red just pop in a specific way that looks great. Normally, G1 Red Alert is a repaint of Sideswipe and that's the case in Blokees as well.
This time they've given him a different helmet to be show accurate and frankly as Red Alert, it feels like a more premium version of the toy. It just looks great! Aside from the helmet and colors, everything else is the same as Sideswipe, including the double set of hands and display base with symbols. Red Alert may think everyone's out to get him, but with a toy like this, can you blame them?
