A little over ten years ago, I sat in my parents’ dining room, texting on…well, it wasn’t a flip phone, but it was one of those sliding ones with the keyboard. The girl on the other end asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was going through some pictures I’d taken of some new action figures (the first assortment of Black Series figures). She asked me how many action figures I had, and I told her. It was a lot, but not as many as I have now. And she told me: “That’s not that many.” As our conversations continued, she asked if I ever did anything with those pictures. I didn’t, except for posting the odd photo on a forum, but I realized I wanted to do more, and she told me I should.
I started off small, just writing a few thoughts here and there. My initial goal was a pretty small one, maybe just set up a Flickr page (yes, Flickr). I realized I wanted to write more than just a short caption for each picture. So, I set up a little Word template, and I made a folder on my laptop, and I wrote 200-300 words about each figure. After writing about 30 of the things, I realized maybe I should put all these words I was writing somewhere they could be read, and that’s when I started this site. Each day, I’d post those 200-300 words, alongside a single archival photo. I had no Wilson shot (added when a friend of mine struggled to understand the sizing of a 10-inch Spider-Man I’d reviewed), I had no turnarounds (added when I was living away from home and needed to fill more of my time), and not even a cool experimental end photo (added during the depths of the pandemic). It was a simpler time.
And here we are, ten years later. The site’s been such an important part of my life for those ten years. A decade is a long time for anyone, but I’ve had a lot happen in this particular decade. I fell in love, graduated college, moved away from home, came back, got married. And then…well, then things weren’t so great for a little while. And it was hard to carry on. But I did, and it was worth it. I fell in love again, and now I have a wife and two of the most amazing kids I could ever imagine. I can quite confidently say I wouldn’t be the person I am today without this site. Because of this site, I got a job I love, and I made some of my nearest and dearest friends. It’s brought me joy, hope, confidence, and a way to push through some of the very hardest things that life’s thrown at me. But enough of me droning on about all this mushy stuff. How about those hard numbers? Usually, I just focus in on one year, but when you’ve got a whole decade under your belt, why not scope out the whole thing?
Over the course of the last ten years, I’ve written just over 2.5 million words about 4,158 figures, 46 vehicles, 6 playsets, 5 movies, a radio, a not quite Nerf gun, a pizza, and one very lovely pink stapler. I’d say that’s a pretty good spread.
In the past decade, the site’s received 825,000 views. I’ve gotten 308 followers, and had 531 comments, excluding those made by myself (I’ve made 243 comments, for those curious).
Let’s look at the make-up of all those reviews. Breaking it down by franchises, Marvel is at the very top with 1401 reviews, Star Wars is less than half of that at 610, and DC is in third with 424. Looking at the toy lines, Marvel Legends takes the spot at the top with 761 reviews, followed by Minimates at 408, and then The Black Series wrap things up with 231. By virtue of being the primary manufacturer of the top two entries in both of the last two categories, Hasbro takes the number one spot for manufacturers, with 1591 reviews, almost half my total. Hasbro is also just the most used category in general on the site. Second place is Diamond Select Toys with 414, followed by Toy Biz with 278. As of today, I have reviewed 67.3% of my collection. The total number of pieces in my collection has grown by almost 3500 since I started this site, and that’s accounting for a lot of pieces moving back out during that time. Hey, 350 figures a year doesn’t sound too awful, right? That’s not even one a day!
At this point, I like to look at my favorite pieces to review from the last year. I’m going to do things just a little bit differently this year. Since I’ve crossed that 10 year marker, I’m gonna look at 10 of my favorites, 5 from the past year, and 5 from the rest of the decade. Let’s see how well I can manage that one!
Longshot figures seem to only occupy the extremes for me. Either they’re really disappointing, or I get caught off by how good they are. After the catastrophe that was the TB Legends Longshot, I knew this had to at least be better, but how much better I really didn’t expect.
While I’ve been a fan of G.I. Joe almost my whole life, I’ll admit to somewhat falling out of love with Classified recently. So, I was very happy to do genuinely enjoy a new Joe release as much as I did Super7’s take on Snake Eyes. I just had so much fun with this one.
Any Mekaneck figure is always predisposed to be one of my favorites, so his addition to Origins was already set to be a good one. But something about the aesthetic of this line works so well for him, to the point that not even having to buy a vehicle to get him hampered my excitement.
It’s no secret that my investment in Doctor Who was largely driven by Jess, and we had both fallen out of it during the Capaldi years. Likewise, I kind of got out of the toys. After Jess passed, I made my first real return to the show, and it was this set that really solidified the whole thing. I actually went to the trouble of ordering it from overseas and everything.
Super Powers is a core piece of my collection, and I’ve been loving getting closer and closer to a full set. My parents really surprised me with this guy for the holidays. He’s a figure I’ve wanted for a long while, and one I was very happy to finally get in hand.
Coming out of the lockdown segment of the pandemic, I had a lot of pent up reviewing energy. Getting so many Toy Biz Wolverines at once gave me a great way to let loose, as well as a great time to really delve into the Toy Biz era’s ups and downs. And I sure do love a chance to dive deep into Toy Biz lore, let me tell you.
And, of course, there’s the progenitor of the last choice. Without the Day of the Vipers, there would be no Day of the Wolverines, and that would be a shame. I mean, perhaps I would be more sane, but where’s the fun in that. The Day of the Vipers is directly tied in with the beginnings of my time with All Time Toys, and let me showcase my ability to super hyper fixate on all the intimate details of one single mold. There’s also just a crazy thrill to the mad dash of doing all those reviews in one day. It’s the sort of thing I maybe want to do again. Am I hinting at something? ….yeah, probably.
After one year of kicking around a small, little, goofy gimmick review of a figure with no head, I scrapped my vague plans of “doing something funny maybe with a Toy Biz Green Goblin figure” at the last minute and reviewed a pink stapler as if it were a figure. I’m gonna be honest, it’s a high I’ve been chasing every April 1st since. Set myself a very high bar very early there.
Doctor Who winds up on the list twice. Hey, there’s at least a good reason. This set was the very first set of action figures bought for me by Jess, and they’re central to a whole segment of my collection. Moreover, they solidified that this hobby of collecting and this website thing were going to be fully supported and absolutely weren’t going anywhere.
It’s hard to put together a list like this and not go for the original, not just my first review, but also my first (and second) action figure ever. From humble beginnings, I built both a 5000+ figure collection, and a 3000+ review site. Not so bad, all things considered.
As a final note, I’ve been doing this big wrap-up at the end of every year since I hit the first marker. Ten years feels like a nice cap to that. So, while I’m still planning to keeping on with reviewing, I’ll be packing up doing things like this going forward. Once more, I’d like to offer my sincere thanks to all my faithful readers, who’ve stuck with me along the way, and to those that have just joined me. It’s been a very interesting ten years, there’s no denying that.
And you know what? That’s pretty much it.
The Figure In Question 