ALIEN QUEEN 5 FUNCTION QUARTZ WATCH

Have you seen one of these before? It's a kiddy quartz watch in the form of Alien Queen from the movie series Aliens. The watch was manufactured by a company called Hope.

The view of the watch from different angles. The tail is actually a little soft, allowing kids to strap it around their wrist easily. Alternatively, you can also hang it anywhere around your house.

Articulation wise, all you can do is move the head around. You can set the time of the watch from both the red buttons on either sides of the LCD screen. Unfortunately, the watch doesn't light up.

Lastly, here's an image of the original card packaging. Since I purchased this about eight years ago, the battery is now flat. I haven't had the time to unscrew the back & attempt to change the batteries.

LOTUS ANGEL WARRIOR

[SERIES 19: DARK AGES SPAWN - THE SAMURAI WARS]

During my university days in Adelaide, Australia on & ff I started getting bored of Transformers. So once in a while I'll visit the local comic store.

This mystical samurai angel is part of Spawn's Series 19 known as Dark Ages Spawn - The Samurai Wars. Lotus is depicted as a female samurai warrior wielding  two katanas & a long  battle spear.

Notice anything different? She is now equipped in full battle gear. Basically that can be done just by adding the two leg armors.

Here's a closer look at the removable leg armor. They both come in twosections that can be joined together easily.

There are a couple of setbacks to this figure. Unfortunately in terms of poses, Lotus only has five points of articulation. The battle spear can be removed from the back, but what's the point? Lotus can't hold them. Both the katanas are attached onto the hands & cannot be removed.

Nevertheless, I still like this piece a lot. Lotus looks very sleek & sexy for a deadly warrior. Even though her foot are small, this is quite a stable figure. Another thing that you can do is to adjust the length of the battle spear to touch the ground as additional support.

THUNDERCRACKER

It was one of those weeks that you're just itching to pick something up but there's nothing really nice on the shelves. Since I am not a fan of the Seekers, this is the first time in all the three Transformers movie trilogy that I picked up a Seeker.

Here's a top view of Thundercracker. This mold has been used by Hasbro/Takara since the second Transformers movie toy line. There is a slight difference as compared to the first movie because back then, Starscream came in voyager mold.

Thundercracker comes with two weapons. One is in the form of a gun blade and the other is a MechTech chainsaw. The chainsaw is actually a repaint weapon of the previously released Autobot Roadbuster.

There are slight differences in transformation if compared to the Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) Seekers. However once I've transformed this bot, it struck me as to why I never purchased any of the Seekers from the movie trilogy previously. Don't they all look like a flying chicken to you?

Anyway, both the weapons can be tucked at the back of Thundercracker.

Being a flying chicken, there is not much room for articulation as you can see.

RED VANE

This figure comes from Stan Winston Creatures' Mutant Earth series. The material used to make this toy is similar to other Spawn figures.

First let's have a look at this figure with the bare essentials. The metallic mask can be removed to show the lower part of the face. One funny bit about the mask is that it connects to the side of the chest.

Red Vane comes with a base diorama that has connecting pegs at the bottom of it, just like a GI Joe figure stand. Besides that, this figure is also equipped with two hand blasters. Although attached onto the diorama, the joints are actually movable.

Here's Red Vane with the mask on again. With blood red hands, one can only imagine what did he do prior to this. There is a huge hole at the front of the stomach revealing some mechanical fitting inside Red Vane.

Lastly, this figure also comes with a cape that can be attached onto the rear, at the neck & upper shoulder.

View of Red Vane from different angles. From the third image, you can see that thee are some design on the outer part of the cape.

Here's an example of posing Red Vane in a different way. Although there are pegs connecting to the diorama, the figure isn't all that steady. I had to bend the right knee out just a little so that the figure looks more in an upright posture.

ULTRA MAGNUS BUST

This is the second sculpture from Diamond Select Toys that I own & is by far my favorite Transformers bust. In terms of assembly this bust comes in three parts; The body, left & right arms.

Here's how Ultra Magnus looks like from other angles. Like the previous Shockwave bust, Ultra Magnus also stands at about 6 inches. The half-body bust is resting on what seems to be planet Cybertron, with an Autobot insignia right in the middle of it.

There are only 1000 units made & this unit bears the number #233 at the base of the bust.

BUMBLEBEE [LEGEND]

Reviews for legend class figures are usually quite short. This Bumblebee is just one of them. It comes from the Dark of The Moon (DOTM) series.

Unlike many collectors out there, thankfully I'm not a fan of Bumblebee.

Here's the almighty Bumblebee in robot mode.

Not much can be said about the articulation but it sure can be used as a shelf warmer for display among my other legend class figures & Cyberverse series.

LION-O [CLASSIC]

This is going to be a long & fun review of the new ThunderCats Classic series showcasing the leader of the ThunderCats, Lion-O. As a kid, I'm sure many of us wanted a ThunderCats toy. I could only remember having two items; Lion-O & Panthro.

The new Lion-O mold follows the old paint scheme from the 1980's figure. Even the hair is done in a very identical way with the wing blowing it to the right. If you ever owned a piece of the vintage figure, you'll know that many improvements have been made. One prominent thing that I realized was that it no longer has any electronic accessories built into it.

Those days there was an accessory ring with a single AAA battery that you could use, to make contact with at the back of the figure to make Lion-O's eyes light up.

To those of you who grew up in the 1980's, ThunderCats was one of those retro cartoons amongst many others that you would watch on a Saturday morning.

In terms of articulation, this figure has improved tremendously as compared to its vintage counterpart. There are at least 23 points of articulation in this figure.

Let's take a look at the accessories that come with it. You'll get two versions of the Sword of Omens (long & inactive dagger), the claw shield & an extra hand. Unlike the vintage Lion-O, this claw comes in metallic gold, as compared to red previously.

There are a couple of cool things now that you can do with the accessories. If you noticed earlier, this new improved figure comes with a short belt dangling from the left waist. This is for you to clip on the claw shield.

Also, the inactive dagger can be placed inside the claw. It's a tight fit, hence I won't leave it in there for long periods of display.

You can swap the left hand with the claw shield.

Several poses wielding only the dagger.

Here's Lion-O, with both the dagger & claw chield.

The infamous quote: Thunder, Thunder, ThunderCats, HOOOOOO!

Full view of Lion-O & the Sword of Omens.

Several other poses.

The only flaw that I have to say about this figure is the plastic quality of the long Sword of Omens. It's not that solid & if you pose the blade in a certain way for too long, it would start to bend & stretch in a couple of days time.

One point to really highlight here is the amount of flexibility & display poses that this figure can do.

Just for laughs, this blade actually belongs to the 14 inch Mega scale action figure by Mezco. I bought the blade at a flea market, to be used as a letter opener. The plastic material for this blade is very solid as compared to the original sword.