Web Diver: Pegasion W-11

In 2001 Takara released a new transforming toy line in Japan to accompany a new animated television series of the same name, Web Diver. Embedded in the larger "leader class" figures was essentially a video game. A lot of the designs incorporated animal designs and as such only seemed to appeal to certain transforming robot fans. While I didn't care for all of the designs and thus the their subsequent toys, there were several toys that I really liked enough to track down and import. As the toy line progressed the toy designs seemed to get more and more "sophisticated". One of these was the psuedo-Headmaster, Pegasion.

The packaging for a majority of the Web Diver figures shared the same yellow box with a hanger flap. The boxes featured the line's logo, along with pictures of the toy, their various modes and action features. Remember, the smaller toys were made to interact with a larger figure in the series and with the Web Diver video game. You can see on the sides of the box that Pegasion has multiple modes: moon buggy, head mode (Headmaster?) and a weapon mode (Targetmaster?). Can you see now why I was intrigued with this toy back in the day?

Pegasion is a Pegasus/Centaur hybrid of sorts. I really did the overall look, especially with the metallic blue armor. The moon buggy wheels are kind of ugly in this mode as they just are there, but if you can look past those you can see the beauty in this sculpt. The legs are well articulated and allow you to pull off some good action poses. Arms are on ball joints that also allow for a good range of motion. He come with two maroon swords that can be holstered of sorts to his sides.

Pegasion as a very knightly vibe going on. Lots of detail can be found in this mode, especially on the head. The metallic blue, maroon and white all blend together wonderfully to give him a very cool appearance.

Pegasion's moon buggy mode is rather cool in my own opinion. This is one of those vehicle modes however where it looks best head on or at an angle. I saw that because you can see the horse head and forearms at the back of the vehicle. The rear of the vehicle is also a little light or hollow which is odd. Despite these short comings, I love the overall look of the vehicle.

As the side of the box showed us, Pegasion features multiple modes other than his moon buggy mode. One of which is this head made. When the figure is put into this mode as seen it looks really odd, but when plugged into Daitalion is when things got pretty sweet.

Now all the sudden this goofy looking head mode doesn't look so bad, does it? There is a red LED light behind the black face visor that would interact w/ the video game or with Gradion. Pegasion also formed a claw type weapon that Daitalion could wield, but I never cared for how the weapon looked as-is or wielded by Daitalion so I didn't bother to photograph that mode. 

Overall Pegasion is a great figure. It's not without it's faults, but it's still a pretty good figure on it's own even though it's obviously meant to accompany Daitalion. I will mention there is another dual "headmaster/targetmaster" figure that interacts with Daitalion, but he was always second fiddle to Pegasion in my book.

Today most of the later released Web Diver figures are hard to come across on the secondary market and if you do happen to find them be prepared because they won't be cheap! If you're a fan of Transformers or some of Takara's other transforming toy lines (ex. Brave) then perhaps you would enjoy these. I only have a few Web Diver toys left in my collection these days, however it has more to do w/ a lack of space than anything else.

Wizards of the Coast Transformers TCG Booster Pack

Some time ago Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast announced that they were working on a collectible trading card game for the Transformers brand. Time went on and I forgot about it, that was until San Diego Comic Con earlier this summer. An exclusive preview pack was made available, but I was unable to get my hands on one. However the booster packs showed up at my local Target a week or so ago and I grabbed a few.

I know most of my readers here come for sports cards, particularly baseball. However I can't be the only trading card fan, who likes things outside of sports...right? Anyhow, here are the contents to one of the booster packs I purchased.

The booster packs retail for $3.99 each and contain 8 cards. 7 of the cards are traditional trading/playing card size while the included foil card is oversized. I'm not too sure how I like this as I can't put these cards in regular 9 pocket pages. I've yet to hit my LCS to see if they have anything that will fit these larger cards, but I hope I can find something.

If nothing else these larger character cards do offer a larger view of the great artwork. Only one side has the holofoil treatment however, that being the side featuring the character's robot mode. If I'm reading the small text at the bottom of the card correctly, Jazz here is an Uncommon card. (you'll have to excuse the fact that these oversized cards don't come across any larger in my scans)

These four cards are all Commons. I've yet to figure out how to play the actual game, I'm waiting to buy a starter deck before I try that...but it seems pretty straight forward for a card game.

These two cards are Uncommons. I particularly am fond of the card on the right featuring the Decepticon Thundercracker.

Lastly we have the pack's only Rare card, an upgrade as it appears for the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime.

Even though I don't read the IDW Transformer comics, I do recognize some of the art and the artists. The cards in hand are quite beautiful and I'm sure at some point I'll sit down and create a section for these cards in my Transformers Bio Card Database.

New Comic Wednesday - 11/28/18

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving last week. Because of the holiday I was able to post that week's new books, so this post will be a catch up of sorts. Before we get to last week's books, I wanted to share my haul from DCBS. As I've mentioned before, the majority of my monthly books are ordered through Discount Comic Book Service as the discounts they offer are very generous and much better than any local comic shop offers. I elect to have my books for each month shipped in one large shipment once a month to save money, that and I'm still getting caught up reading my current books. Below are the books I received in my latest DCBS order.

I've opted to buy all of the Ron Lim variant covers to Infinity Wars. I particularly love this cover w/ Thanos and Gamora.

I'm absolutely thrilled to see Humberto Ramos back on Amazing Spider-Man. He's one of my favorite artists period, but I particularly love his take on Spider-Man.

I've got to get caught up because I loved Spider-Verse and I can't wait to see how Spider-Geddon shakes out. I've been trying to stay away from any spoiler type material because I want to go into these stores "blind" as much as possible.

The Iceman issue was purchased not because of the Spidey appearance, but because of Firestar! I don't know what really became of her after Secret Empire so I'm anxious to read this issue.

I grabbed a few of the Battle Lines variants, including this issue of Weapon H featuring the Red Hulk.

New books for last Wednesday, 11/21/18:

Gobots? Yes please! I flipped through the book in the store and I love the vintage look the pages/art have. This one will be read this weekend.

I wasn't sure if I would bother with Web of Venom: Carnage Born, however I'm told that it ties in w/ Venom's title since Donny Cates is writing both. Never cared for the Carnage character...maybe Cates will change that?

Lately I've been trying to branch out from the larger publishers and check out some smaller indie titles. I started off w/ Rags from Antarctic Press (thanks to the awesome Key Collector app) and I loved it. I made sense to try another title of theirs so I grabbed Punchline #1. This one is more in the traditional superhero vein from what I know of the book. I plan to sit down this weekend and give it a read.

New comics for Wednesday, 11/28/18:

Jenny Frison is killing it with these Wonder Woman covers. They are simply gorgeous and worth the price of admission alone!

Two more installments in the Infinity Warps stories of Weapon Hex and Arach-Knight. I didn't think I'd care for the merger of these characters, but they are much cooler than I thought they'd be.

I'm still trying to play catch up w/ Daredevil so I have a few issues to find before I can sit down and find out how this title is "ending". I really enjoyed Uncanny X-Men #1 two weeks ago and I'm eagerly looking forward to reading last week and this week's new issues. As you can see, I have a lot that will be added to the backlog stack of books. Hopefully I can have a productive weekend and put a dent in the books that need to be read. Later!