[Ash from Carolina]

I blame GI Joe and Marvel comic books.

As a child I had a lot of things go bad that didn't make it into one of those ideal childhoods. Not the most horrible childhood, but not something that would not make for a good sitcom family. But GI Joe, comic books, and cartoons were always a bright happy spot in my childhood.

So I got into collecting GI Joe and into cartoons back before it was socially accepted for adults to collect toys or watch cartoons. Dropped out of comic books when people started acting like they were stocks or bonds. I dabbled with lots of toy lines but nothing really worked for me the way GI Joe did. Thus I skipped over the large scale super hero figures even though I liked super heroes.

But when the Marvel figures shank down to the GI Joe scale with the same articulation and nice sculpting it was just the best of both worlds. The heroes I loved to read about in the 80's combined with a toy that looked right at home with my Joe figures.

Transformers Classics worked for me because they were like the cartoons or comic books but other toy lines just haven't clicked with me the same way that GI Joe and Marvel Universe have. I mean I'd love to collect some small DC characters but the smaller scale Mattel stuff just looks horrible compared to a GI Joe figure.