LEGO Marvel X-Men vs The Sentinel KO

Presenting a Knock-off (KO) version of Marvel's X-Men vs The Sentinel LEGO Playset.



In a nutshell, this LEGO Playset features the X-Men: Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm and Magneto flying a Blackbird up against a medium-sized Sentinel. Here's the thing though: We're not sure when this particular scenario would have happened. Magneto - and the way he's dressed - was back when he Headmaster of Xaver's School for Gifted Youngsters (Circa: Fall of the Mutants). The X-Men's Blackbird didn't become a forward-swept-wing aircraft til the X-Men returned to from the Shi-Ar empire along with Charles Xavier and Xavier had Forge redesign the Blackbird.

So this could never have happened.

The Singapore MINT Museum Of Toys (Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys)

Almost a year ago, I showed this picture from the Singapore MINT (Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys) Museum of Toys. My wife and I stumbled quite accidentally on this signage that we also featured a mere month before that read: "Whoever has the most toys when he dies wins."

We had no idea that it was in the MINT museum so it was pure coincidence that we found it.

A year later, I realized that I never featured the museum. And that would be a shame considering that visiting a toy museum may not rank that high when visiting Singapore, but as toy collectors, it is important for us to know and recognize our heritage, our history, the toys that paved the way to what we have today.

So here's a glimpse of the Singapore MINT Museum and hopefully it'll help you drop by the next time you're in the Merlion city. Excuse the photos, no flash photography is allowed in the museum

Transformers UFO War Axe and Shield

Presenting the Transformers UFO (Get this - Unknown Factory Originals) War Axe and Shield.

I had a discussion from a few members of Cybertron Philippines while setting up for the Toykingdom Toy-Expo 2012 regarding the third-party accessories being released into the market and how Hasbro and Takara were bringing the full weight of the law down on them.

My argument was that both Hasbro and Takara should end up working instead with these small organizations since there is absolutely no such thing as a perfect toy. 3rd Party manufacturers are one of the reasons why collectors like us continue to patronize original toys. 3rd Party manufacturers make "props" that keep things interesting and fun.

Captain America Stark Tech Assault Armor

Presenting Captain America's Stark Tech Assault Armor from the Avengers Movie Toyline.

You gotta love a good exoskeleton - yes, this is technically not Armor, this is a Powered Exoskeleton. While both Armor and an Exoskeleton may protect the wearer, enhance their natural abilities and increase mobility and firepower, an Exoskeleton has a more "vehiclular" feel to it than simply armor and has more akin to the APUs of the Matrix Movie, the Exosquad E-Frames, the G.I. Joe Steel Marauder, and the Avatar AMP Suit.

But unfortunately Marvel doesn't see the difference.

Anyway this is one of two Stark Tech Assault Armor released into the market. The two are virtually identical and vary only in color. This is Captain America's, the other one belongs to Iron Man and has that garish super pretentious gold and red paint-job. both came with action figures, this one came with Captain America.

The Captain America Stark Tech Assault Armor came with spring-loaded weapons, but I think it looks better without the missiles jutting out, and such will be the case for the majority of this review.

I've often wondered if this was meant to be the movie version of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Mandroid Power Armor.

Star Wars: Durge

Presenting one of the main-scourges of the Star Wars Clone Wars saga, Durge. Durge is a Gen'Dai - a long lived (4,000 to 7,000 years) race known for three things: non-aggressive tendencies; a dispersed nervous and vascular system accompanying the lack of vital organs; and heightened senses - including the ability to hear a human heartbeat 200m away.

So like the rest of his race, Durge can be hacked, stabbed, dismembered, burned and probably even be quartered and drawn and the worst thing that could happen is that he goes into hibernation to regenerate - which he once did for 60 years.



UNLIKE the rest of his   race, he has an undying need to hunt down and kill people. Which he did quite well as a Bounty-Hunter for over 2,000 years before Anakin Skywalker threw him into a sun because he just wouldn't die.

Durge was made even more deadly after receiving training at the hands of Jaing, a rogue Mandalorian Training Master. Both Jaing and Durge underwent an experimental operation that enhanced not just their armor suits but their bodies with enhanced cybernetics. Mandalorians came for Jaing after the procedure and succeeded in killing him which totally pissed off Durge who swore to get even.

STAR WARS Knights of the Old Republic: Rohlan Dyre

Presenting the Mandalorian Rohlan Dyre from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. George Lucas has long been known for the genius of filling his movies, cartoons, books and comic books with a multitude of obscure characters and extras so that he can market with merchandising that people like me will pick off the market. There are people out there who create armies of rebel soldiers or Imperial Stormtroopers. Others collect obscure characters who appeared in the movies for just a fraction of a second to complete the Cantina various Star Wars Cantina or Jabba's Palace scenes.


I just collect.

Chances are most of these obscure characters are poorly made or remakes of previous figures. But every now and then you find a really, really cool obscure character and Rohlan Dyre is one such gem.

Transformers Prime: Cliffjumper

Presenting the ill-fated Cliffjumper from the new Transformers Prime animated series who's most famous quote is "Do I ever need back-up" and who can "layeth the smack-down" on any Decepticon dumb enough to cross his path. 


"Alas poor Yorick!  I knew him." SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't seen the series yet, you might want to stop here and just look at the pretty pictures. Well come to think of it, if you read the Transformers Prime Arcee review where I didn't put a spoiler alert, then I suppose you already know that Cliffjumper died. 


Unlike his Gen 1 "Whimpy little Autobot" character who is in there to teach people that little people can do great things, Transformers Prime Cliffjumper is a bad-ass! And best of all! Also unlike his Candy-ass G1 counterpart, Transformers Prime Cliffjumper is voiced by one of the ultimate bad-asses there is! The Great One! The People's Champion! The Brahma Bull! The Most E-lectrifying Man in Sports Entertainment! Dwayne "The Rock!" Johnson! Which is probably also why they had to kill him early on because the Rock is back and busy in the WWE having just Rock-bottomed the Miz, R-Truth and John Cena. 

Yahoo's Most Valuable Action Figures

Part of being a toy-collector is picking through other people's so called "trash" during garage sales or through sites like e-bay or buyandsellph.com. But chances are quite good that you may pass up on an item of true value simply because you don't know the history of the item or it.... face it.... looks like crap even in mint condition.

Happily Yahoo came up with a short summary of the "Most Valuable Action Figures" (Note: Action Figures, not toys. Toys is simply too broad a topic).

Among the collection is this scantly clad Barbie doll. Yes that's a Barbie doll. But it's no ordinary Barbie doll! For one thing her boobs look smaller; Second, she's a brunette, and; her dress is encrusted with 160 genuine diamond and that is real gold!  Her estimated value if you have a complete one in mint collection, then you have something worth around US$ 85,000.  I have to wonder, if all the jewelry is in her clothes, what's the Barbie worth alone? What are her clothes worth alone?

Toy News: G.I. Joe 2011 Convention Sightings

April 3 marked the end of the 18th annual G.I. Joe 2011 convention in Orlando Florida. Naturally Hasbro took the opportunity to showcase its next line of G.I. Joe toys all slated to hit the market this fall. Till the last quarter of the year comes, I suppose we'll have to content ourselves with these images courtesy of our friends at ToyNewsi.com.

The highlight of the convention is the action figure selection from the new G.I. Joe Renegades cartoon series including this very fetching version of Scarlett that you see on your right.