F is for Fattypuff, T is for Thinifer

The last of the First Wave stuff from Mattel on the subject of the sequel/prequel/spin-off/arse-tear which seems to have been the movie Lightyear. I didn’t get all of them, there was a 'dogfight double' with Zurg's ship (see below and Buzz's XL-15, it came with rocket firers which could apparently be fixed to the locating divots under the four smaller, single pack vessels, which we've seen in the last few days.

 

Zurg's fighter, as far as I can tell, Zurg is some counter-Buzz from a paralell or alternate universe, but as Buzz is a toy, it's all in his head really!

 

There was another, bigger Zurg-related toy in the First Wave, which is called the Mothership, and comes with another Zurg figure, and - I think - a couple more Zyclops, to even up the score a bit, with five vessels in Buzz's available fleet, and four from Zurg's faction, two ships, two pods, and six figurines apiece, if you get all bar the twin-set?

 

It too was remaindered, a year later, over Christmas 24/25 (the fighters were, before their reappearance in Home Bargains last week, cleared in the autumn of '23), in TKMaxx, but because TKMaxx is never as cheap as it should be for a supposed 'clearance' model, they started them at something really silly like 70-quid? It came down to about £35 within a fortnight, and was further reduced to about 25 Pounds, in the after-Christmas sale, but for something which originally retailed at about 17-23 squids, I wasn't biting, and let them go!

 

The Armadillo, I assume this is from the third-act too, if Buzz flies fifteen vessels, at four years per trip, the whole search for a working 'Hyperspeed' must have taken around 60 years (Wikipedia says 66)? So, the other character here. Izzy, must have only been alive for the last five or so experimental vessels, and only be barely old-enough for starship fighting!

 

Mattel's sister brand, Hot Wheels, did an Armadillo in grey, as a small die-cast, I don't know which is the more accurate colour, because, as stated before, I haven't seen the movie!

 

With four more ships and a reissue of the Zyclops pods (to maintain the balance, of a sort) in the smaller Second Wave, a nice little range, but to me, of more importance for their compatibility to the Star Wars Action Fleet stuff from Galoob and Hasbro.

 

The figures being better than the Star Wars (and similar Star Trek figures from Playmates), in having separate articulation for each arm/leg, while the others were joined pairs, although they're still pretty wooden!

 

And having mentioned the Playmates, while the figures fit the other two universes, the vessels are not to scale with the figures. Of course, Galoob also gave us Alien/s and others in the same format, while similar sci-fi, fantasy or TV/movie stuff from Bluebird, Hasbro and Mattel, means you can get a really weird Cantina scene set up, with a little imagination!

 

"Where’d he come from Obi Wan?"

 

"Infinity and beyond apparently, and those two belong to some 'Federation' in a galaxy far, far away, but not so long ago, while the red being in the corner, is rumoured to have got those scars from a kid younger than you, called Max; the Mighty Max, supposedly?

F is for Firefly

An unprepossessing name for a vicious little critter which did a lot to help win the war, and yes, lots of things make that claim, SOE, SAS, Bletchley/Ultra, Bomber Command, Fighter Command, Trinity, Boeing, Hobart and his Funnies, Rolls Royce and their wizard, and to be fair, they all played their part, but this was one of the balance-tippers!

 

Back during a more combative phase of the Blog's past, a lot was made of, and opined, about the announcement by Airfix of new 1:35th stuff, which in fact took forever to get to market, were finally released a couple of years ago, weren't model kits, nor full ready-mades', but rather clip-together, and only appeared - locally - earlier this year, in Hobby Craft, where I shelfied them.. But I thought I ought to actually get them, which I recently did, and this is the first of two posts on the subject.

 

The Airfix 'QuickBuild' Sherman Firefly, a clip-together model which uses the Lego (Hestair-Kiddycraft) mechanism, for that constructive element, even to being compatible with 'other leading bricks', but an addition to your Lego tub it ain't.

 

Everything comes in one bag, with separate instructions and a small, basic sticker sheet, the grey block to the far left is the only piece which might be useful to a Lego fan, being a large, five-way, stud direction changer.

 

My first criticism, and it's far truer for the Sherman than the Tiger, is that the track-links are a bit wank. They go together OK, until you try putting them on the vehicle, at which point they reveal weaknesses which totally destroy the 'playability' of the 'toy', as the slightest carpet-move produces breaks in the tracks?

 

The most Lego-likey element is the instruction sheet, which has full colour stages, each of which involves only three or four parts, highlighted by not being greyed-out, and tracks aside, there aren't many parts, (around twenty-five/twenty-six?), and most of them are chunky bits!

 

Second - obvious - criticism; I had a large spigot of [failed release-pin?] plastic on one of my hull sides, which prevented the construction, until removed, although it resulted in a useful piece of 'styrene rod for the spares box, so "Every cloud . . . "!

 

Turret components, result in a reasonably robust turret, with revolving action utilising the twin-lug system from Tamiya, rather than Airfix's traditional central spigot, for a firmer attachment. Frankly though it's a simplified and toy-like rendition, but that's a criticism for the whole model, and it is meant to be a toy first, and a Sherman second!

 

A small accessory runner in a different colour, this is identical for the Tiger Tank, and contans the turret-interior retaining-piece for the gun-barrel, a jerry can, two ammo-boxes and a pointed entrenching shovel.

 

Running gear; quite simple and straightforward, it took me a minute or so to work-out how the two halves of the drive-sprocket went together, but that might have been more about the need for proper glasses than any failure of my mental faculties, or errors in the instructions!

 

In the end, three useful looking pieces of waste plastic joined the greeble stash! There were a couple more on the track runners, but the tracks are definitely a different polymer, probably polypropylene, which is as much of a nightmare to glue as polyethylene, so they both went to recycling!

 

It definitely looks the part, and, in real life, must have come as quite a surprise to the big cats of Nazi Germany, but it's not terribly accurate, nor that detailed, and certainly not as detailed as it could have been, in this scale. It states 1:35, but seems closer to 1:32nd, but that might just be me, and I'm notoriously bad at judging scale.

 

Although, conversely, the underside has quite a bit of detail, compared to other Sherman models over the years! Also, you can see in this shot, how the drive sprockets don't actually engage the tracks and have been made ridiculously wide as a result, just to keep their teeth away from the track rod ends!

 

The two 'spare' track links don't clip in, and keep falling off, but there are actually quite a few spare links, so you can field 'appliqué' your tank with extra frontal armour!

 

 

 

All-in-all though, a disappointing effort, with track issues that render it unplayable once built, the simple construction is a plus, not including the tracks (and my sprockets!) it can be assembled in about eight-minutes, no more than twenty with track-faff, but simple detailing and stickers, leave it as a toy you can't push anywhere, for fear the tracks will part like the red-sea. I think 7-out-of-10 is a generous score?

T is for Two - Tinplate Tuk-Tuks!

About as far from plastic toy soldiers and/or model figures as possible, but the collection has extended it remit over the years, and micro-mini's has been one of those extensions, through such things as the mini 1-ton Humber trucks, and somewhere there is a small tub of mini tin-plate novelty vehicles, so this pair from Peter Evans are gratefully received additions.

 

Both imported by a Mechato, of the Netherlands, the single Tin Treasures sports car in a faux matchbox is made in India, and while the set of five racers says Made in Japan, I think it might be a facsimile reproduction of a 1960's or 70's card, and actually be from the same Indian source? I'll tag both though.

 

Note how the No.5 driver has been given an element of eccentricity, by riding roughshod over the rules established with cars 1-4, having rings round his tail numbers, a more pointed arrowhead graphic and a pair of feet motifs on the nose of his car - my kind of driver, I'm off down the bookies to put a fiver on him, each-way!

B is for Back to Hyperspeed!

So, these are the other three issues in the set we looked at the other day, and these have not been de-boxed, as they're in storage and have been there since these shots were taken in 2023. They were remaindered in The Entertainer, I would never have bought them new, far too pricey!

 

And I suppose it's worth mentioning, for overseas loyal readers, the Brits probably all know, that The Entertainer is a slightly weird chain of otherwise standard mid-range, mostly 'big-brand', toy shops, and only weird because it's owned by a god-botherer, so they won't stock any Harry Potter toys (it's the Devil's work!), although they seem happy with the equally numerous lines of Tolkien stuff, and they don't open on Sunday, an important day in modern retail, as it's one of the few days the modern family can be found together, with a bit of spare time!

 

I don't know why I didn't twig I was missing two ships, but the card back may have been different to the two I got the other day, but I don't think so, I think I just wasn't paying attention!

 

XL-01, the ship which started it all (whatever it is, I haven't seen the movie (I may have the DVD in the watching queue somewhere?)), and upon the return from the flight of, Buzz discovers his crew-mates are all four years older.

 

XL-15, the final ship, the one that finds the full hyperspeed. Buzz is now wearing a spacesuit close to the one we all know and love, although at this size, there's no clear dome over his head!

 

Note how the tripod landing gear on all these, follows the pattern of the Galoob Micromachine's 'Action Fleet' ships, particularly the X-Wing and Y-Wing fighters, and these will all be going in my Action Fleet tub, as background/freelancer ships!

 

Zyclops Pods, appearing it the third act of the movie, the dénouement, the showdown, the final battle of good verses evil, as - presumably - Buzz defeats anti-matter Buzz, or whatever the excuse for his giant purpleness's existence is, in the script?

 

You get two Zyclops robots (I think they are robots?) and two pods, the pods differ, with one having a push button trigger, to open it upon dropping, with red paint 'landing lights', the other has signs of damage, both moulded in and painted on, no red tips, and needs to be opened manually, I'm guessing there is some reference to a scene in the movie, represented by the distinction between the two versions?

 

Wave Two contained models of XL-03, 09, 12, and XL-14, along with a re-issue of this pod-set, hitting stores in 2022, I suspect only the US got them, as over here Wave One was still on clearance a year later? And we still have two to look at!

Y is for "You Have Twenty Seconds To Comply!"

Nine, Eight, Seven . . . 

 

It's a black, white-button toy, which is yellow and red! Which reminds me of a joke about a well read newspaper, carried by a Zebra killed on a pedestrian crossing!

 

 

 

That's it, an unknown maker, pocket-money toy robot/mech/power-loader, unmarked, with extending arms, although they are of fixed length and extend by rotation at two points of articulation, per limb. Dead cool!