‘Til All Are Displayed! The Collection… well most of it.

I was just looking at the pictures on my “‘Til All Are What Now?” page and thought it was just about time for an updated shot of my Transformers display.

As I sit at my computer typing this out a turn to the left reveals three shelves, each roughly six and a half feet tall, as well as an assortment of smaller satellite shelves. To my immediate right is display shelf 1. Topped by three (soon to be three and a half) shelves of the star of Transformers — no, despite what they would have you believe recently, not Bumblebee: Optimus Primes and Convoys of all shapes and sizes.

Working our way counter-clockwise, shelf-by-shelf from there we have:

• Half a shelf of Hot Rod/Rodimus Primes.
• Ultra Magnus’ (Magni?) and Blaster and his tapes.
• Smaller Constructicons and a slew of Micromasters.
• Constructicons (old and new) and other combiners.
• Scorponok, SkyLynx, and Omega Supreme.
• In the middle is the Dark of the Moon shelf and Kre-O Optimus, which is a bit of a mess at the moment.
• My wife’s “girl Transformers that could kick your tailpipe” shelf.
•  The multiple incarnations of Mirage, Prowl, and Jazz.
• The Targetmasters.
• Finally, the Headmasters and Wheeljack.

On the wall opposite display shelf 1, there are shelves 2 and 3 and two more ancillary shelves.

For this one, I’ll do each shelving unit individually, starting on the top left:

• Various incarnations of Star Saber (except an actual Star Saber, sadly) and Dai Atlas (with an actual Dai Atlas, happily.)
• Two shelves of Minibots and their updates.
• An entire shelf of Grimlocks.
• The rest of the Dinobots, as well as Grimstone and his Dinobot drones.
• The G1 repaints from the newest movies; such as red Ironhide, white and blue Jazz, and Revenge of the FallenSkywarp (look! I finally found my G1 repaint Movie (2007) Starscream!)

Display shelf 3, starting at the tippy top:

• AssortedGods, Monsters, Primes, and one tiny Fortress Maximus.
• The Animated Shelf, including the full 2011 Botcon set and TFCC Exclusive Animated Cheetor.
• The G2 and G2 Classics with all the glorious colours of the rainbow.
• The first section of G1 and G1 Classics Autobots.
• Shattered Glass and the second section of G1 and G1 Classics Autobots.
• The Movie (2007), RotF, and DotM Leader and Human Alliance class toys.
• More Combiners! Predaking!

Display shelf 2, from top to bottom:

• Shockwaves, The Fallen, and movie Megatrons.
• G1, G2, Masterpiece, Classics… just a whole bunch of Megatrons as well as Classics Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge and their updates.
• TheshelfoftheSeekers.
• Soundwavesgalore and mini-cassettes (and updates) galore.
• G1 and G1 Classics Decepticons.
• Japanese Beast Wars, including my beloved Tako Tank.
• Another shelf full of combiners.

The last little shelf is a mishmash of stuff:

• Smokescreens G1, Classics, and Alternators (soon to be joined by RotF and Cybertron Smokescreens once I dig them out.)
• The Generations Junkions.
• Scan series Bumblebee, Sideswipe…
• …Ratchet and Ironhide.
• The Power Core Combiner Autobots.
• The Power Core Combiner Decepticons.

Oh yeah, also Supreme class Beast Machines Cheetor standing to the side.

With the exception of G1 Metroplex and Cybertron Metroplex that stand ever vigilant above my computer (which is itself named Metroplex) and an extra Micromaster Tailwind, that is the entirety of my current display.

However, though admittedly a lot of floorspace is taken up by the display (and yes, I am aware that I am very, very lucky to have a wife that is not only ok with, but actually encourages my collecting and displaying), it only amounts to a little under half of my total collection. The rest are in plastic bins in a closet.

One day I will have an entire room devoted to the collection, until then, I’ll keep enjoying them by occasionally pulling them out of their bins to take pictures of them for this blog. That way I get to share the joy this collection brings me (and yes, a little showing off too.)

Why I don’t do posts on — or for that matter own many — Action Masters. G1 Jackpot!

Action Masters. I won’t belabor the point but needless to say: this subline’s name was ironic.

In fact, as non-transforming Transformers, they are just chock-full o’ irony, but their name is particularly ironic. Nothing about this toy line screams “Action!”. It would have been one thing if they had made them non-transforming Transformers with lots of articulation, but they didn’t even manage that.

This is as action as this gets, folks.

With arms that swivel in only one direction, with no elbow joints, and legs that are the same, only with the benefit of knees joints; their range of motion is surprisingly limited.

“If you clearly dislike the line as a whole, why buy any of them?”

Glad you asked.

I own two. First was Shockwave. He is a rather decent recreation of his G1 incarnation but the real reason I bought him was that he was in perfect condition while being sold for under $5.

Second came Jackpot.

"This is my non-action pose."

He was equally as cheap and in as good a condition (however, unlike Shockwave, he was missing his partner, Sights.) The reason I bought him, though, was due to characterization. Nothing in G1, mind you. He didn’t make an appearance in fiction until recently.

I haven’t been too big a fan of the Transformers Collectors Club’s “exclusive” online fiction offerings. Almost all of the text stories have been either poorly written or, more often than not, just plain boring.

2008′s Gone Too Far by S. Trent Troop & Greg Sepelak was the one story I actually enjoyed. Right off the bat, the great cover image used on the site caught my eye, a larger version of which can be found on page 3 of the story itself.

Troop and Sepelak’s stories suffer from far too many attempts to throw obscure Transformers history in at every conceivable turn; which someone should tell them does not translate well — or in most cases at all — in text form. This one, despite being set in the middle of one of the most confusing Transformers universes, Transtech, didn’t have too much of that. It could actually be followed without having to have the TFWiki constantly open for reference.

In it Jackpot and Hubcap accidentally find themselves warped to Axiom Nexus and the middle of the Transtech continuity. They naturally run afoul of the local criminal element and much excitement and a good deal of hilarity ensues.  Jackpot is a risk-junky with an innate luck that borders on being a superpower. Luckily for his unwilling partner in crime, the amiable con artist Hubcap, the dangerous risks and the miraculous luck often cancel each other out.

This one is definitely worth a read. Enough to make me wish they would do an update of Jackpot. So far the only thing he’s gotten is a brief appearance, also in TFCC fiction, by his Animated incarnation.

More importantly, Gone Too Far was good enough to spur me into buying a toy of the one line I swore I would never allow into my collection. It was totally worth it to be able to reunite these two.