Review: MOTUC Standor

There's quite a lot of hate going round the internet for the new(ish) MOTUC figure Standor. And now it's my turn to have a go at it!

WTRTW Awards 2013 aka 'the Palindromes'

It's the 10th January and you know what that means? Yep, I'm 10 days late with announcing this year's awards. You actually lucky you're getting them this year. I was this close to not bothering. I sat down several times and just couldn't bring myself to write anything. Until now.

As always the awards are based on what I remember being the best stuff from the past year, rather than what actually might have been best or what was actually released this year.

Anyway, enough of the preamble. On with the awards...

Toyology review: Lego Cargo Heliplane

There's really no competition for the best toy of all time. Without a doubt it's Lego, who've been producing bricks since 1949 and, despite the current trend of looking down on plastic toys, is a firm favourite with everyone across the world.

With the abundance of 'themed' Lego sets - you can get everything from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings to The Simpsons in Lego form now, not to mention Chima, Friends, Castle etc - it's rare that we buy a 'basic' Lego City set so it was a nice change to receive this one for review from Toys R Us.

Plus it comes with a Lego chainsaw!

Review: Transformers Metroplex

It's amazing really. How do you take a 25 year old toy, update with modern design and manufacturing techniques but generally keep everything  the same and yet have the final product somehow turn out worse than the original?

Because that's what Hasbro's done with their new Metroplex.

Not that I'm saying the old Metroplex was perfect. I mean, look at all the 'fortress' Transformers from the 80s.

• Scorponok: cool scorpion mode, pretty good robot mode, terrible, terrible base mode.
• Trypticon: cool dinosaur mode, terrible, terrible base mode.
• Fortress Maximus: decent (if blocky) robot mode, iffy ship mode, surprisingly not too bad base mode.
• Metroplex: decent robot mode, ok vehicle mode and hmm... could do better base mode.

Notice a trend?

Super-dooper-giant Metroplex takes the crown from Fort Max as being the Biggest Transformer Ever (in height, if not bulk), but that's about it prize-wise.

Review: Batman Classic 60s TV Batman & Robin

Ask someone to sing the Batman theme. Without a doubt they'll start humming the tune from the 60s TV series. Despite the Nolan trilogy, the Burton duo and all the other incarnations, it's the Adam West version that remains the most famous in popular culture. Why? It's hard to put a finger on. It's very much a product of the 60s, with limited special effects and high amounts of cheese, but despite this it's remembered with a fondness that none of the others have managed to capture.

Due to a convoluted rights situation, a DVD release has never happened. TV repeats still occur sporadically - we had a joyous time not so long ago watching episodes on ITV4 in a morning - but it's not been exactly 'high profile' for a long, long time. And yet not so long ago, somehow, a deal was struck and brand new merchandise has begun to appear.

Amongst this merchandise is a 6" line of action figures from Mattel. The first (only?) wave contains Batman, the Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Catwoman, and...Surf's Up Batman? I can only guess this came from the mind of the Mattel employee who came up with Disco Skeletor.

Bizarrely, the only way to get Robin is in a Batman-Robin two pack which is the subject of this review (I get round to the subject matter in this reviews eventually).

Review: Masterpiece Bluestreak

Bluestreak, eh? The unloved brother of police car Prowl and racing car Smokescreen. While Bluestreak is...well, he's not even blue. He's a dull grey and black combination. Odd hint of silver, but mostly he's a boring grey car. Sometimes a slightly 'meh' character can be saved by a cool back story, but he's never really gotten one of those.

Three Masterpiece Transformers are being released by Takara to round off the year, all slight remoulds of each other. Prowl, the most famous, arrived last month; Smokescreen, the cool one, is released at the end of November; and in the middle...well, there's Bluestreak.

There's hardly going to be fights in the toy aisles to get hold of this one.