G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra - Canadian Haul!

Today I am in Canada. The interesting thing about Canada, at least these days in particular, is that the G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra figures have already been released en masse! I couldn't resist stopping at the first Toys R Us that fortuitously presented itself, and was greeted with 2 free-standing islands of the brand new G.I Joe movie toys along with an entire corner of Transformers figures. Overall really, it was the nicest, cleanest, best stocked Toys R Us that I have ever seen - and even stocked UberStix - go Canada!

Of course, seeing the Rise of Cobra figures in person was more than I could stand, and some of them (Baroness, Destro, Zartan, Shipwreck, Storm Shadow) had to come back to the hotel with me, and of course the photo is below!


How exciting to have Destro in the collection - not to mention that everything that was purchased today comes on the tri-lang cards! This is of course a dangerous opportunity to have a collection of US as well as tri-lang cards, but fortunately I was able to resist buying all of the single-carded figures or any of the vehicles due to the huge prices! I was glad that I found the Combat Heroes Cobra Commander from the movie, aka. Rob Bricken's Bain!


There was also a 12" Cobra Commander that also looked outrageous, but I didn't go for it. The Alpha class vehicles also rang in at $24.99 (Canadian!) but it seems that the US prices may be better in a few days. Speaking of which, our Hasbro contacts have just sent us an email today indicating that the new G.I. Joe figures will in fact be available in the US for mass release this very coming July 6th - this Monday! Get ready to check your local store for this new line on Monday. Here's a round-up pic of the rest of our haul along with the Canadian Toys R Us bag!


Posted by charlie on July 3rd, 02:14 AM
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Masters of the Universe Classics - Faker

Continuing our theme of the fantastic Mattel Masters of the Universe Classics line, today we feature Faker! Released way back at the New York Comic Con before you were able to score it from mattycollector.com, Faker is another popular character from the He-Man cannon to find form at the hands of the 4Horsemen in 2009. Created by Skeletor to resemble He-Man and generate chaos and confusion, he ended up with blue skin revealing him for the hoax he was, and showing that Skeletor is in general a lousy magician! Click the image below for the full bio, and some more packaged pictures of this excellent member of the 2009 MOTUC line!


Posted by charlie on July 2nd, 12:35 AM
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New Q&A Rounds for Transformers and G.I. Joe

Ok folks, it's already been two months since our last Q&A sessions, and it is that time again! This coming Monday, July 6th our three questions to the G.I. Joe brand team are due by noon. The next Transformers Q&A questions are due on July 13th at 3pm. Please post a comment to this update, or email us directly at feedback@parrygamepreserve.com and we'll select our favorites for the Hasbro teams!
Posted by charlie on July 1st, 08:48 PM
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Masters of the Universe Classics - Hordak

The Masters of the Universe Classics figure for this month was Hordak, and we reported excitedly on it's launch on the 15th at noon, and the utter sell-out of all stock 55 minutes later! Well, we managed to grab a few examples of this stunning figure here at the Preserve, and we're finally at least getting a few packaged images up in the archive. We've even opened one and it's as great as we'd hoped, so shots of that will be added soon as well. Click the image below for the full gallery, and for his excellent bio which details the other side of the arrangement that led Keldor down the path of evil!


Posted by charlie on June 30th, 08:54 PM
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G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra - Elite Viper

eBay seller ws_toys does it again and brings us a look at the upcoming Cobra Elite Viper figure, loose and up close! This is another excellent figure from the Rise of Cobra line, and is helping to contribute to our thoughts of giving at least some of these figures a home in the Preserve! Click the image for a larger view and click here for the auction listing itself!


Posted by charlie on June 29th, 10:37 PM
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eBay Watch - Set of Preserve Favorites

We're trying to do more eBay watches these days since we can highlight some interesting things while we're still working on organizing the local collection for photographing and archiving. Today we came across a pretty cool lot that includes Preserve favorites over several obscure lines! You will very rarely see X-Panders on eBay to start with, but here we have one featured with some Mega Force as well as Exo Squad items! Click here to check out this lot - it may well be a good value at the buy-it-now of $200 but it starts at $10 with no reserve - good luck!
Posted by charlie on June 28th, 07:32 PM
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G.I Joe Modern Era - 12 Inch Snow Job

It was a beautiful late spring day here today, where the skies were partly cloudy, the sun was warm and the wine was cold. A perfect day, therefore, to feature the 12 Inch Snow Job Arctic Trooper figure from the G.I. Joe Modern Era line! I'm a big fan of this figure format that Hasbro stuck with into 2009, and am glad we can finally get back to featuring more of our collection! Click the image below for a look at this geared up figure - I mean, he comes with scale-accurate skis!


Posted by charlie on June 27th, 10:42 PM
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Michael Jackson Moonwalks Through Pearly Gates

As everyone has probably heard by now, Michael Jackson passed away today of as yet unknown causes. He has meant so much to the music industry for so many years and to so many fans that it's really hard to believe the news. Growing up, I had only two musical influences - ie. only two cassettes that I listened to over and over - The Best of Devo and Michael Jackson's Thriller. That maybe explains a lot! So I've always had a really fond place in my heart for Michael, as he was the soundtrack for so many Transformers battles in my room. Everyone take a moment to remember him today as the star and the talent that he was and queue up a classic song - you'll remember just how rockin' it's always been.


Posted by charlie on June 26th, 07:45 PM
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Transformers Animated - Voyager Class Megatron

The movie is meeting with mixed reviews around the Internet, though as with all things I hope to find parts of it I can enjoy - I've not made it yet but hopefully over the weekend! At the end of the day, my opinion still is that these live action movies have introduced the concept of Transformers to a whole new generation of kids, and have reinvigorated the entire brand due to their amazing box office success (55 million opening day on Wednesday - a new record)! Solid brand support can only be good for us collectors, so be thankful for Skids' gold tooth and Devestator's Wrecking Balls, if you can!

But, now the movie is out, it will be a huge global success, and we can get back to the business of archiving all of these great toys! Let's continue our Transformers theme, but swing back to a non-Revenge line with Voyager Class Megatron from Transformers Animated! All of the excellent show-accurate toys in this line serve to make us sad that the show has been canceled, but with luck Hasbro will follow through on releasing the last waves of figures sometime later on. Click the image below for more shots of Megatron and his excellent bio!


Posted by charlie on June 25th, 01:06 AM
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Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen Released

Today the brand new live-action Transformers movie hit theaters in the US and was rapidly gobbled up by robot and action movie fans alike. Opening several days ago overseas, it already pulled in $20million on it's opening day in only Japan and Britan on less than 1000 screens. The numbers for today are still trickling in, but it sounds like this film will really rake in an amazing amount of cash! Ebert had some interesting things to say about how this really feels to him like the pinnacle of over-the-top effects driven action spectaculars, which will be remembered and studied for years as the best performing of the breed, and the time it all came crashing down. Another interesting, less error-filled review (Deceptibots? Really?) is over at themovieblog.com. As usual, though, I just suggest everyone who has any interest actually sees it for themselves and draws their own conclusions.

I admit that I've not gone yet - maybe this weekend. I'm still on the fence about paying $10 to watch Michael Bay kill Arcee. Otherwise - it does promise to be an all-out, loud, hard hitting action fest, so if you can forget that it's supposed to be the Transformers, and enjoy the occasional easter egg of Peter Cullen's Prime or Frank Welker's G1 Soundwave, there will probably be enjoyment enough to warrant the trip!

By way of changing the subject, here's a great eBay watch, sadly ended, but for a Tremors item I've never seen - a doormat!
Posted by charlie on June 24th, 10:16 PM
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