WHatever happened to my toy robots collection? Part two. OR TRANSFORMERS:ZOMBIES

My uncle did a really nice thing for me after the Transformers toyline got cancelled back in '90. I remember I was around fifteen when he gave me a brand new, still in the box Optimus Prime and two Dinobots, also still in their packages. Years later in 2002 when the Commemorative series G1 reissues came out, I tried returning the favor by buying Optimus and Starscream for my cousin who was about 6 years old at the time. But instead of letting him have them, my uncle decided to keep them sealed until his kid was older. I thought it would be really cool for my cousin to have an Optimus Prime like I did when I was little so I couldn't understand why my uncle did that. But holy hell since I've been digging through the remains of my childhood toys I see how I was the Jeffrey Dahmer of toy robots. Maybe my uncle realized it runs in the family and was trying to suppress the robot mutilation gene from manifesting early in his kid. Good call! Join me now, my fellow citizens of Macrocrania, as we look at some of my original childhood Transformers, otherwise known as my collection of horrible undead mechanical zombie monsters.

My Optimus had the touch all right-the touch of death. My biggest complaint as a kid was that my Optimus didn't stand up good. I didn't realize that this was because I would crank his legs back and forth furiously like he was a one armed bandit until they eventually broke off. I took his head off and screwed it onto a G2 Prime so that it could 'live' on. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now it just weirds me out. At least I wasn't trying that with a dead chicken. G2 Chicken Head Prime would be awesome, though.

Sunstreaker and Wheeljack were very special to me. Sunstreaker was my first Transformer ever and Wheeljack was my favorite. In that Velveeta Rabbit children's storybook there's a line that goes something to the effect of if you really love a toy then it gets all beat up but that makes it real. I didn't just love these guys into real, I freakin' cannonized them. One thing I find interesting about Wheeljack is the color of the paint on his roof. I think that over time it has oxidized and turned from white to green. I don't think it was always that color but I can't say for sure because I've never seen any Wheeljacks in any condition with that color roof. It could be a super rare, super valuable paint color variant! Good thing I kept it in such pristine condition!

Gears was my first minicar and to this day I remember the time he lost his arm because he was my first broken Transformer experience. I don't quite remember how Huffer lost his arms. I think Huffer was just a matter of repeated stressing on the same areas leading to fractures that gave way over time. Powerglide just lost a pin somehow and I never found it. I have a Brawn with a broken arm, too, but that's not quite as spectacular as these amputees who got totally shafted by the Autobot heathcare system.

Hey try to guess which of these is the Bluestreak I got when I was a kid in '85 and which one I bought at a garage sale in 2002. Mine is the one with the blue sharpie marker paint job, missing doors, broken rear windows, floppy arms, a taped on windshield and missing rear passenger side bumper. The other one only has a broken roof and a missing tire. This otherwise pristine garage sale Bluestreak led me to the revelation that other kids stopped playing with their toys shortly after the first few parts fell off. I realized that on ebay a lot of 'junker' TFs are actually in great condition save the one or two major injuries inflicted upon them. Except for mine. Mine look like a vast mound of robo turds that Unicron pooped out.

I don't know why I keep all these broken toys. Over time they just continue to get more and more decayed but I refuse to throw them in the trash because they're my originals. Such devotion doesn't apply to other relationships in my life because if my dog broke her leg I'd be looking for garbage cans immediately. Even if I were to sell off my toy robots collection I would still keep these because I guess I'm sentimental like that. Join me next time and see why the reason I have four Megatrons now is because I'm overcompensating for what I did to my first one in 1985.