#just figures 'yeah. it tracks we'd end up down here...anyway still have hero **** to do i guess'

[snowyfrostshadows]

Y'know.

The whole reuniting in the Underwhere thing is gonna be a bit of a mixed bag in this au...

[karltface]

Oddball mystery box!

Back in the day, we didn't have no interwebs. If we wanted to meet fellow geeks, we'd do it through fan clubs, and ads in nerdy magazines. Trade and sale by mail was the order of the day. It was a dark time, but there was something about bartering toys back and forth that.... it just hits different. And I've managed to strike up just such a relationship with an eBay seller!

We exchange boxes of crap a few times a year, collaborating to an extent, but also throwing in lots of surprises. Now that I'm covering mystery boxes on the regular, I think it's high time I started including these.

We'll start with Slithe. I'm not a huge fan of Thundercats, but this guy is still a favorite because he captures the Rankin-Bass animation style remarkably well. He's just got that look about him, y'know? Nobody drew wretched lizardfolk quite like Rankin-Bass. And the sculpting here outshines the rest of the line besides. Just a stellar piece all around, even without his axe.

Speaking of accessories- well, I'll get to that in a second. Here's Dr. Killemoff and a Radiation Ranger, from Toxic Crusaders. Rambo and Robocop may have been oddly adult properties to base cartoons on, but the Toxic Avenger? That's some next level shit. It was one of those environmentally conscious 'toons too, which is doubly hilarious in context.

Anyway, Doc here is an alien cockroach monster out to pollute the planet beyond repair, like we needed any help doing that. He's short his backpack and belt, but as a base figure, he's not a bad specimen. The Ranger (evil mooks) is damn near pristine.

I bring up accessories because this box nearly finishes out my Bonehead. Basically the leader of the punks that accidentally created Toxie in the first place, the 'toon has him subsequently crashing his bike into a barrel of acid rain, withering into a near-skeletal horror with a powerful grudge. Mine had only the gas mask, and now he's a knife away from completion. Yay!

Here's a couple of fun little guys: an evil soldier from Air Raiders, and the snake dude from Dino Riders.

Air Raiders is a strange little property, revolving around air-powered missiles and a sort of 70s sci-fi periodical aesthetic. Distant planet, unsafe atmosphere, air supply controlled by totalitarian government, etc. Y'know what, this guy needs visual context.

There we go. The vehicle isn't quite complete, but yeah. Lots of swooping curves and rubber-tipped missiles. The heroes are looking pretty screwed here. I should track down something for them to ride on, at least.

Dino Riders, I've covered before, but the quick and dirty is that anthro aliens are fighting future humans on prehistoric earth, and they've kitted out a bunch of dinosaurs with armor and weapons. Simply amazing.

Moving on, we have a wonderful surprise in the form of Burnheart's shield and... well, flamethrower. Tonka's Supernaturals mostly stuck with a medieval theme, but the evil knight totally had a weirdly futuristic weapon.

I don't pretend to understand that, but he's the only villain I don't have, and this will save me a fair bit of money. Also, my Leech now has his crossbow, and there's another gun for the parts bin.

Speaking of the parts bin, there's a decent pile of sci-fi bits in here. Most I recognize from Transformers, others are less certain. The biggest surprise is 3/4 of a sprue of Morph-o-Droid guns. Now that's a deep cut. I'd literally never heard of them until I texted the guy wondering what the hell some of this was, but it turns out I did in fact own a secondhand one as a kid. And now I'm half compelled to find another. Dammit.

This wasn't the most exciting breakdown for general audiences, I'm sure, but it made my week on this end. Hooray for old-school toy trades!