GoBots: Guardian Command Center

If there is one thing that gave GoBots a leg up on Transformers it was that they had playsets. They had two official, two unofficial, and one unproduced set. Playsets go a long way with me and if you've followed this blog for awhile that shouldn't be a surprise to you. Probably the most important GoBot playset was the Guardian Command Center. I never had one growing up but I did get a brand new one from Dallas Vintage Toys this week.

There is always a magical feeling when you get something brand new. It is a little bit like time travel for the emotions. Everything here was brand new but unfortunately it had water damage, as you can see in the pictures. This wasn't a huge problem but it did cause me grief in the stickers department. The entire sheet had developed a few layers of grime from dust and being in a water damaged box. I was able to clean it a little bit but some of the stickers were unusable. To compensate I ended up finding some repro stickers from various Star Wars vehicles and playsets online. I like the end result and I might work on adding some more.

The directions were in really bad shape and unsavable. I took pictures of each page before getting rid of them.

The set also included a mini comic. The story inside predates the cartoon but unlike the Masters of the Universe mini comics, this one really didn't improve on the overall story, save for the fact that it gives an explanation for why the GoBots look like Earth vehicles.

The exterior of the Command Center:

Walker mode. This guy is scaled pretty well.

Spaceship mode.

The back hatch.

One of my favorite stickers above the head.

And now the interior:

Trauma Center/Med Bay

The Interrogation Center.

The cool red screen was supposed to help identify Guardians and Renegades. It was a cool concept. The included stickers could be applied to your figures. These were some of the beyond saving stickers unfortunately.

Notice how the top row stickers became F's for Friendly and the bottom row became E's for Enemy. A pretty thoughtful add on that they didn't need to include.

The Detention Center and, yikes, De-Materializer. Guess you could only cross Leader 1 so many times.

Again, yikes, the Reprogramming Center.

Perhaps for the best, the GoBot Cafeteria sticker was damaged.

So this became a computer terminal.

The GoBot Maintenance/Refueling area

I feel like there is a lot of unused space here.

I'm going to try to find some things to add to the area.

Maybe a maintenance lift.

The Vertical Transportation Module. Again, notice the details here.

The sticker labels each floor of the Command Center. Pretty cool.

And finally, the Strategic Command/Strategy Center.

I still might add in some more buttons and computers.

All in all, a pretty cool toy. It really bummed me out to have the sticker sheet so dirty, especially because there are not a lot of options to replace them. No one has them scanned online and the only place selling replacements is Toy Hax but $66 is ridiculous. However, they do have Guardian and Renegade insignias that I might pick up.

Comments

Kre-O G.I. Joe Forces/ USS Flagg

Seeing this boxed set a few years ago is what got me back into collecting G.I. Joe. I had passed on the joy of G.I. Joe to my younger brothers, and to its credit, its one of the few franchises that has stuck with them. I don't feel bad about giving them my collection because most of my collections began when my cousins passed them on to me. Plus, with all of the vehicles and playsets, they are a little much to have up and displayed. Finding the Kre-O sets allowed me to keep showing my love for G.I. Joe on a smaller scale. The fact that it was a Slaughter's Marauders set is was truly sold me. Love the Sarge. So anyways, here are my current Joes. I've already posted a blog about my Cobra collection, which you can find here, Cobra Forces . After this, I'll make a post on my Iron Grenadiers and the rest of my Vehicles/Playsets. USS Flagg Not an official set. I found this Chinese knock off and modified the cabin so that it could hold figures. Also added

Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon. For many of us, seeing that name evokes the imagery, sounds, and energy of the fantastically over the top 1980 film. The bright colors. The Queen Soundtrack. Brian Blessed's Vultan's booming and jovial voice. This was my introduction to the franchise as well. It's an amazing film that still entertains as much today as it hoped to do back then. In fact, the film stuck with me so much that it pushed me to look further back into the history of Flash Gordon. "If this was the 'campy version', what was it really like?" Digging deeper, I found the 1970's Filmation series AND their hidden film. I say hidden because it has yet to be re released outside of a Japanese Laserdisc copy that some kind soul uploaded to Youtube. This was a great series that included more of the Flash Gordon world than the 1980's film. I especially love this incarnation of Thun, the Prince of the Lion Men. And of of course, Bob Ridgely's voice stands way out with

Mattel DC Retro Action Batman

Late in 2020, I went back through The Toys That Made Us series on Netflix and the Star Trek episode took some time to really dig into the history of Mego. Many of the toys I played with growing up or have collected are technically before my time but Mego was WAY before my time. I always kind of had a general idea of the toys, mainly thanks to Robot Chicken, but something about the presentation of the episode really gave me an itch to try this type of toyline out. I decided to get just one figure, to try it out. If I didn't like them, no big deal, not a lot of time/money wasted. My favorite superhero is Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern/Ion) and I remembered that Matty Collector had a Mego-like brand for a few years. A google search later and I found a Kyle Rayner figure for $10! Perfect. I could hardly ask for a better price for making a trial run. A week later, the figure arrived and I loved it. They had an entire sub series of GL's that I bought and some other items but that is fo

Star Wars Power of the Force Red Box Vehicles X-Wing, AT-ST, and Speeder Bike with Scout Trooper

Speeder Bike with Scout Trooper This was the only one of these three vehicles that my brother and I had as kids. We had two vintage scout troopers so finally having a speeder bike was a big deal. An added plus was that it was the same mold as the vintage line so our original scouts could finally feel the air fog up their goggles. The new scout figure introduced one of my least favorite things about the new Power of the Force line: wide stance, bending knee figures. They just look awkward off of their vehicles and besides the speeder bike, no one else could ride unless they had similar legs. Say what you will about the vintage vehicles and beasts but the trap door mechanism made it possible for most anyone to ride. Thankfully, like I mentioned, this was a vintage mold so we didn't face that issue YET. AT-ST My best friend had the AT-ST so I never felt the rush to go buy one. Though, if it had been in stores longer I probably would have. Return of the Jedi was my favorite Star Wars m

Mega Construx MOTU Castle Grayskull

So, I finally picked up the Mega Construx Castle Grayskull. Amazon had it listed for $189 so I jumped on it. One bit of sad news, I like keeping box art but Amazon has a hassle-free shipping service where they just ship the box as is. I love Amazon but I am not a fan of this service as they put shipping labels all over the front of the box, ruining it. Luckily, the inside of the box delivered something even better... How cool is that? So everything worked out in the end. The packaging by Mega Construx is actually very cool. All of the pieces to the Castle came in these great cardboard boxes... Again, very cool. The vintage cross sell on the covers was a very nice touch. The manual included all of the cover art inserted throughout so if you wanted to toss the box, you didn't have to feel bad about it. Speaking of the manual, this guy was a beast. Look at that thickness! Mega Construx wasn't joking with this thing, it took me two days to complete wi

Ubernerd, Beyond Loserdome

Search This Blog