Transformers Legacy United - Chromia (Cyberverse Universe) - Hasbro 2024 When the Cyberverse Arcee figure came out four years ago, I was certain we would be getting a Chromia in the line. All the original engineering for that new female body seemed wasteful for a single release. Plus I really liked the Chromia design. But we all know that never happened. And that Arcee became a shelfwarmer with an unfortunate trait of turning yellow over time. But the current Transformers Legacy line is intended to merge together characters from different Universes with a unified design aesthetic (I've been ..read more

DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms - Jun w/ Wu & Wei - Spin Master 2022 DreamWorks Dragons is a very impressive franchise. Since the first movie came out in 2010, there has been a non-stop flow of continued media. In fourteen short years, there has been: two additional movies, six animated shorts, thirteen video games, comics, novels, theme parks, live stage shows, and three animated series totaling 223 episodes. (Plus there is a live-action movie coming in 2025). DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms is the most recent addition - the series just ended in December 2023. The show featured ..read more

DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms - Alex & Feathers - Spin Master 2021 DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms is the most recent entry in the long legacy of the How To Train Your Dragon (2010) franchise. It's a CGI-animated television series that ran for eight seasons and 52 episodes (ending recently in December of 2023). The series follows five young Dragon Riders in modern times (the leader of the group, Tom, is a descendant of Hiccup and Astrid) roughly 1300 years after the events of the first movie. Alexandra "Alex" Gonzales is one of the core characters and is the token technology e ..read more

Marvel Legends - Wolverine 50th Ann 2-Pack - Lady Mandarin - Hasbro 2024 Of all the X-Men, I've always felt that Psylocke has had the most interesting and extreme design changes. The fact that she was quite literally body-swapped in the 1990 Acts of Vengeance storyline just increased her number of unique appearances. Prior to 1990, Betsy Braddock was a lavender-haired British psychic telepath. But then she was brainwashed by The Hand and body-swapped with the East Asian assassin Kwannon and refined her powers to now present as her signature "psychic knife", a pink dagger-like energy spike e ..read more

Transformers Deluxe Class - Rise of the Beasts - Airazor - Takara Tomy 2023 I finally gave up and ordered this figure from a 3rd Party seller. When images of the Transformers: Rise of the Beasts movie products began being leaked online early last year, the very first item I saw was this Deluxe Class Airazor. The early images of this toy made me very excited for the movie and action figures. But ironically, this excitement was ill-founded because Airazor had no robot mode in the movie and this specific toy proved very hard to find. There was a US Hasbro release in a Target-exclusive "Ju ..read more

MAFEX #123 - Batman: Hush (Jim Lee) - Catwoman - Medicom Toys 2021 Hush is probably my favorite Batman storyline of all time. It ran twelve issues from Batman #608 (2002) through Batman #619 (2003) and featured nearly all of the active bat-characters at the time with a story by Jeph Loeb and art by the one-and-only Jim Lee. Everything about it was iconic and it's amazing to see it's still being celebrated (and merchandized) twenty years later. One of the unsung side-effects of Hush though was the elevation of Catwoman's utilitarian costume to permanent status. We may take this black goggled ..read more

Sonic the Hedgehog 2.5" Series (Easter Wave) - Amy -  Jakks Pacific 2024 I think we can officially call the Holiday releases of the Jakks Pacific Sonic the Hedgehog figures a trend now. A surprise Christmas assortment showed up at Target back in December and sent me on a wild hunt for weeks until I found the sole female character, Classic Amy Rose in a red and white deco. There had been Advent Calendars released in 2022 and 2023 from Jakks that featured these figures (notable because some characters have unique accessories, like Tails' reindeer antlers), but these single-pack releases ..read more

Marvel Legends Vintage - Spider-Man Legends - Hallows' Eve - Hasbro 2024 Hallows' Eve was my favorite comic discovery of 2023. She was introduced as a new villain in the pages of Spider-Man the year before, but I didn't become a fan until her solo mini-series was released in TPB (appropriately during Halloween week 2023). Janine Godbe had been (an unpowered) character since the mid-nineties as the Scarlet Spider/Ben Reilly's love interest. A mere 29 years later during the Dark Web crossover event, she became the center of attention. Without spoiling too many origin details, her transformati ..read more

MAFEX #198 - Batman: Hush (Jim Lee) - Poison Ivy - Medicom Toys 2023 2002 was an eventful year for me. I had graduated college the year before, but the world was in turmoil so my adult life was a little delayed. In 2002 I moved to a city, launched my career, had my first mature relationship, and once I accepted that my life was (somewhat) stable, I began resurrecting my old hobbies that I hadn't indulged since high school. I suddenly had access to comic book stores again and there was a bit of a renaissance happening. My favorite titles on the shelves that year were Darwyn Cooke's Catwoman ..read more

Transformers Earthspark - 1-Step Flip Changer - Elita-1 - Hasbro 2024 I love how every few years there is a reboot of the Transformers Universe animated for television. I rarely watch all of these, but I love the repercussions they have on the toylines - especially more modern series that don't shy away from including female characters. The current incarnation is Transformers Earthspark on Paramount+ and the show features at least five female Transformers that have received toys so far (nine figures total and two more on the way). The show includes original characters like Twitch and classi ..read more