Kamen Writer Reviews: The Collection Part 1:Times gone by.

So got something a little different this time. It shouldn't come as a surprise that one of my hobbies is collecting toys among other items. I've amassed quite a collection over the years just from keeping all that I love. A lot of people ask me how I have so much stuff and I always tell them the same thing, people gave me gifts and I took care of it.
This first part is going to focus on some earlier iterations. Some of the stuff seen here won't be seen later on, mostly because I've sold them.(In particular my 3 3/4 G.I. Joe collection.) Later entries will also focus on the remodel of my current room and the hurdle it was.

Just for funsies I'll try to give some info on certain items if applicable. These photos would have roughly been around 2012-2014.

Good lord, look at those blinds. Yeah the house I lived in at the time was...frankly not nice. You won't see it in any of the photos, but their was quite the gap between the baseboard and the floor and it was rather chilly. During the winter I used space heaters. You will probably see how horribly grimy the place was.
There's also a few items around here that got sold off or changed. The Dark Phoenix Marvel Legend was sold off, as were the 3 3/4" Avenger figures.
Funny story about the Dark Phoenix, I had initially ordered one for like $30 off a site called Toyrocket, who I had ordered from at least once before to get some Legends to complete a B.A.F. Toyrocket was actually going out of business and doing a big sale to clear inventory. Well a few weeks went by and I never got my figure. Tried to get into contact and they were gone. But they still charged, so ended up having to cancel the credit cards. I eventually got one off ebay for a decent price all things considered.

Lot of my Joe stuff here, mostly from the Pursuit of Cobra and 30th lines. Quite frankly those two were some of the best toylines I ever collected. Fantastic articulation, really fun and creative sculpts, accessories out the ass in some cases. Not at all bad for some of the retail prices at just around $7 in most instances.


Notice the small poster I printed out for my Joes on the Tomb Raider Diorama set

Lot of Punisher Max book there, actually one of the first TPB series I collected. My tastes have changed significantly since then in that I have good taste in literature now.
That's overly simplifying with snark but I think a better descriptor would take too long, so I'll say that ultimately there's a lot of interesting aspects and concepts shown through a dark cynical lens that isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, but its held back by realllllllly cartoony dumb shit in a series that's trying way too hard to be super serious edge. Really egregious x-phobic moments (Take you pick, there's plenty) and a lack of focus on the important stuff drag it down.

I want to bring special attention to this section because this is most of my earliest toys aside from a couple of Jurassic Park items. Most of these were from my childhood growing up, like Storm, all the Batman stuff, various Wolverines, Gambit, Magneto. Others were given to me by my Cousin who had them in his own collection. The Nightcrawler was always a favorite along with casual Wolverine.
However the most important single item here is the Batman TAS figure with the flaking paint. Rapid Attack Batman from the Kenner line. It is one of- if not the very first figure I ever owned. I still have the grapnel launcher he came with and it's one of the best accessories, that thing was fun to play with and so would not fly today- it has like a two foot cord.

The other contender for first figure was an Alan Grant. I actually still had that for a long while too, but something happened to it. You can see I have bought a replacement, however.

I got super big into Jurassic Park collecting around 2005 or so. I used to visit sites like JP toys all the time. I was even obsessed with this one site called Tom's collection, who did this huge fanfic story using Jurassic Park toys.
I suppose in a way the collecting of Jurassic Park, especially the lost world, was one of those "never had it as a kid" things.

I also had all of these Lost World figures sealed and for some ungodly reason opened them. Look I know toys are meant to be played with, but I don't feel I played with them enough to justify that. Nowadays they just sit around anyway.

Lots of NES, SNES and SEGA games in the first pic, mostly packed up. Those were once my aunts. When I was a kid when we'd go to my Grandmother's house on my dads side, I'd always play games with my aunt. All remnants from my hers and my dad's childhood. When she died, I took in the games and consoles. Although rather concerning, a few of the games were missing such as Star Fox, Super Mario Kart (a favorite of ours) Mario All Stars, DKC. Most of the NES games remain, although a few like Castlevania, are gone. I haven't a clue what happened to them, but I suspect someone from their church stole them. Ironic, I know.
Of those I miss Super Mario Kart the most. I have the VC version but I really would have liked the cart we used all those years ago.
As a side note, I have no idea how I was so good at the game as a kid, cause I was damn good if I do say so myself. Now my depth perception in that game is ass and I can't turn for shit.

I know I'm ignoring the HP shelf but... I honestly don't have a lot to say about it. I liked Harry Potter as a kid and people fucking bought me everything Harry Potter and I didn't even ask. I've got poster books, I've got like 8 different journals in varying sizes, three stationary all the same only one ever used. The only thing I ever truly asked for was LEGO. I loved the shit out of LEGO HP.

This was actually my first model kit, a reissue of the Aurora Godzilla. I fell in love with these 60s designs after watching MonsterModelReview on youtube.

Thankfully, despite my tiny room, I had a huge built in Bookshelf that I put to good use. Eventually I would add an extra shelf to the bottom section, getting all those packed away games onto a proper shelf.

The white paper in the one jurassic park shelf is actually where I used to do figure reviews. I'd take all the JP stuff out and it provided pretty much the perfect light box.

The wall of Joes just next to the giant book shelf. That weird circle came from a tree lamp being too close to the wall btw.

This Bride kit was actually quite rare, I managed to get it for $20 at a local comic shop that has a crap ton of old stock. Glad I got it at the price too, cause it was one of the most frustrating builds I've ever done, with several pieces breaking for the lab portion. And yes, I do know there are a couple items missing here or are not attached, I do have the pieces for the kit.
The Spock kit on the other hand was a lovely Christmas surprise from my parents. Really had a lot of fun painting that one up, the shade of green on the alien, mixing yellows and greens for the underside, mixing light blue with grey for the phaser colour.

The 3DS was also a Christmas surprise, I remember I had a simple Blue 3DS on my wishlist and got the Link Between worlds one instead because it was actually cheaper. My dad was a bit perturbed in getting it, unsure if I would like that version. I did in fact and it's very fitting because Link Between Worlds is the game I wanted the 3DS for.

Godzilla collection was a gift my mum surprised me with on my birthday. She rang me up and told me to open the package I had just brought in.

Just across from the wall of Joe was my TV case, which held a large selection of ToyBiz era Marvel Legends, primarily the Galactus and Sentinel waves, though you can see a Face off King Pin and DareDevil, the Urban Legends Box set, Series 6 movie Punisher and Series 4 Punisher.

I used to love the ToyBiz ML stuff but as time went on I realized how horrible their QC and not long lasting their stuff was. Almost all my Punishers had something break, usually trigger guards on the pistols, the Bazooka, the bi-pod on the M60, the UL Box Punsher's coat basically frayed on its on. Deathlok was actually not glued when I got him and his entire body came apart at the seams causing all his limbs to fall out. I was very lucky to carefully glue the two halves back together and not have anything hindered or glued that wasn't supposed to be. Bulls-Eyes left arm just snapped off after a fall, Elektra's swords flaked the paint off just from age, Ditko Spider-Man had an arm so badly stiff that it took two years before I could get it to actually move on the joint. Omega Red had one of his coil arms break- not the wire, but the peg that held the thing in, Doctor Strange really had no movement in his elbows and I don't no if that was just mine or a design flaw overall.
Cyclops' arm made a pop noise one day and was insanely loose. He was the very last to do so and when I decided to just sell them about a year ago after having already sold Galactus and the Sentinel.

It's funny, looking back as bad as Hasbro's first four or so years with ML was and how much I and many others pined for the ToyBiz stuff, they really weren't that good at all to begin with. They kinda had that McFarlane Toys issue off looking really nice...at first before crumbling.

More Joes in the middle. The Snake-Eyes seen here is quite possibly one of the most loaded and incredible figures I had the pleasure of owning. I've never seen a figure with that many accessories before or since. You may have also noticed that same Snake-Eyes was sealed and on the wall, I eventually just ended up opening him along with some others. Somethings are just too good to keep sealed. The Cobra Shock Trooper on the far left was damn nice too.

Also yeah, giant Bender picture, I drew that when I was like...12? It's on a piece of cardboard that was packaging for a jet tub my parents were putting in. I still have it but it's put away now that I have room.

I still have Juggernaut here, he is one of my favorite villains and this toy still holds up really well. I worry about the O-Ring keeping him together, but for now he's still good. Hard to believe something that big, articulated and even with a display base sold for $7.99 at one point.

At the time of this photo I was building a Wonder Woman kit,Aurora reissue from Moebius.

So eventually things started to change. You'll notice in the next pictures previous areas being completely different. I'm obviously not going to show every single area minor change, just big ones.

Otherwise we'd be here all day.

And you may be wondering why, if I collected so many G.I. Joes, why did I stop and why did I sell them? Well there's a multitude of reasons for that. Usually my collecting habits tend to go in bursts, I'm get really into something and focus on that for the time. Before Joes, it was Marvel Legends in like 2004, before that it was Jurassic Park, and before even that it was LEGO Harry Potter, which is where my serious collecting started- going after a particular line.

But usually when I collect, I still cherish those items even if my primary interests shift. Joe was the first time I decided to sell. Part of the reason was that the franchise was in a pitiful state. Franky the Joe franchise was dying and as far as I am concerned practically dead now. If it's not in regular shops, its dead. As wonderful as the line was, it simply wasn't fresh enough to capture big sales. Which is hardly a surprise, Joe always thrived on adapting no matter how drastic but hasn't had a successful drastic shift since '82. They were fantastic ARAH updates and concepts, but it's not what was needed in a general sense.
The other reason was I was getting more into Tokusatsu. I was also planing on a cosplay with a girl I was sorta into at the time. Yeah you know where that's going. That fell through and never came to fruition. But part of that was I sold a chunk of my Joes I was willing to part with and got me a Sengoku Driver.

I don't really regret it. Although ironically I do not own that driver anymore, but I did give it to one of my very best friends who lost his, so it was worth it in the end.
Eventually I would sell the rest of my Joes along with most of my Marvel Legends after moving.