A Robotech Primer For My Next Set of Reviews

I'm going to go ahead and just blame Maz for this up front; we'll get to the whys later.  Back in the 1980's, I collected a few other series like M.A.S.K., Star Wars, and Masters of the Universe.  While I had figures or vehicles from those series, I never really had a ton.  Out of the three aforementioned series, I maybe had more Masters of the Universe than of the other two.  While I may have had things from different series, Transformers remained my overall favorite.  Nothing could touch my love for Transformers.  Except for Robotech.

Image from https://marbal.wordpress.com/

I think that it's important for me to draw a distinction here.  When I talk about Robotech, I'm not talking about Macross.  What I loved was the Harmony Gold series that combined Macross, Super Dimension Calvary Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.  While I never really cared for the middle installment of Robotech, the first and third captivated me.  The stories were mature, and the alien baddies were awesome.  More than that, the mechs were just fantastic.

Robotech: New Generation

Sadly, as much as I loved Robotech, the toys were kind of a mess.  I remember one of the first Robotech toys I ever got was from my father in 1985.  He was at sea in Asia and shipped us a care package.  Inside was a set of Robolinks, a Super-Deformed Veritech, and a Veritech model.  The model was assembled and promptly broken because I was 8 and the model was more for an adult.  Breaking that model scared the crap out of me.  Were all toys that transformed this brittle?

A selection of Super-Deformed Veritechs

Keep in mind, that this was all before I had even seen the show.  Later in the year, the show premiered, and I was hooked.  But as I said earlier, the toys were a bit of a disaster.  It seemed that every store I went to had tons of the Matchbox stuff, but they were horrible.  The 3 3/4" figures were ugly, and the Veritechs didn't even transform.  I felt completely gypped.  All I wanted was a transforming Veritech fighter.  When I did get Robotech stuff for Christmas or a birthday, I was more than likely given something like this:

Dolza.  Image from Final Frontier Toys

It wasn't until 1987 that I really started to find and get Robotech figures that I wanted.  In one Christmas, I got all three Alpha fighters by Gakken, which were available at Children's World toy stores, an Invid Shock Trooper by Matchbox, and an Officer's Battlepod, also by Matchbox.  That was in addition to getting Fortress Maximus.  A few months later, I found Scott Bernard's Cyclone at Children's Palace.  I was in hog heaven, for I finally had what I was looking for: Transforming Robotech!  Still, no Valkyries.  Not even a stinking Jetfire to my name.

Photo from Scorched Earth Toys

Sadly, over the years and the many, many moves I made being a Navy Brat, I've lost everything with the exception of Rook's Alpha fighter, and it's in such horrible shape that I'd rather not let anyone ever see it.  It's a crying shame.

I had pretty much driven away my desire for anything associated with Robotech after many years of focusing on things like women, music, and other pursuits.  Even when my Transformers obsession reared it's ugly head around 2001, Robotech didn't even enter my mind.  Then I read Maz's Macross Project on his blog and just looking at the figures stirred something in me.  Once I read every single post and devoured every single picture on his blog about Macross, I scoured eBay like a man possessed.  One thing I learned doing all of this scouring is that Robotech figures are all freaking expensive, certainly too rich for my tastes considering that I'm trying the complete a G1 collection.  Why spend extra money when I already have a goal that I'm working towards?  This has forced me to watch on the sidelines.  That is until Toynami released some 1/100th scale figures to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Robotech.  Sold!  While not 1/55th scale, what I really want, maybe these would tide me over.  Stay tuned to see if they did the trick!