I think the fact that it took me some time to come up with five worthwhile candidates for this list is a testimonial to how lucky (you could read lucky as “spoiled,” but I’m going with lucky) I was as a kid. Being an only child meant I was able to get more than the lion’s share of toys. Which kind of makes sense as I’m a Leo. But even with all that good fortune, there were still toys that were hopelessly out of reach.
We all have a toy that rests at the top of our lists. Regardless of how awesome the other figures or characters are, there’s always going to be a #1. The one you’ll beat an old lady with a broomstick for if she’s standing between you and that sweet sweet toy. As a child, you walked down the aisle with sweaty palms, hoping you’d run across that figure.
But sadly, sometimes that toy just isn’t in the cards. Maybe somebody else just beat you to it. Maybe the store doesn’t carry that line. Maybe its just too expensive.
These are the top five toys that haunted a restless childhood yet were never seen.
G.I. Joe Storm Shadow, Version 2
Storm Shadow was a ninja, and ninjas are the coolest thing ever. In a fight between a dinosaur and a ninja, a ninja will win. Storm Shadow can beat the Living Tribunal. Storm Shadow once punched the Earth as hard as he could and made the Grand Canyon. Lucy never pulled the ball away from Storm Shadow because he kicked it before she knew he was there. He was not named after storms or shadows; they were named after him.
In conclusion, Storm Shadow is awesome and should be on the one hundred dollar bill.
When I picked up his first figure in 1984, I’m pretty sure I heard a choir singing and I was bathed in a golden light. That moment when a ninja was introduced into my favorite toy line should have songs sung about it. We had reached the mountaintop.
But then I learned that he had another figure. A version 2.
Another Storm Shadow figure? I must have this.
He showed up in the comic extremely quickly. Taunting me. “Buy my toy,” he said. “Buy my toy and know pure bliss.”
But, it was never to be. Somehow, that second version of Storm Shadow stayed just out of reach.
Super Powers Cyborg
This one killed me. Cyborg debuted in the third wave of Super Powers figures. The third wave being the last wave, it was the rarest wave of all. Plastic Man and Captain Marvel would also be in this wave, characters I would have lost my mind over, but Cyborg was the one I wanted most of all. I loved the Teen Titans comic, and Cyborg was the coolest Titan, with his gadgets and awesome cyberneticness and strong-guy vibe. In my head I could imagine all the awesome playtime I could have with him. Oh sure, I was later vindicated as I bought him both as a DC Direct figure and his stellar DC Universe Classics version, but oh so many years later I still feel the sting of a Cyborg never found.
Power Action Thrusting arms indeed.
Erector Set
Erector Sets were usually advertised in the backs of comics. Build anything you want, they told me. Real motors! Build tanks, cars, bridges, entire worlds!
Okay then. Must have.
But try finding them in the store. I might have been looking in the wrong place, or possibly looking in the wrong era. I know they exist. Somewhere, somewhen, kids played with Erector sets. I’ve seen the pictures. They built cities and vehicles and tiny robots and all types of cool stuff I could only imagine. I was missing out. I was missing out on something big.
I coulda been a contender, but Erector sets weren’t anywhere around me, and they were probably too expensive if they were.
Rhino from M.A.S.K.
This one I’ve managed to acquire in my later years, but it remained sadly out of reach when I was a kid. I had the entire first wave of M.A.S.K. Vehicles, but the Rhino was frustratingly, infuriatingly unfindable. I always wanted Boulder Hill as well, the gas station-turned-fortress, but the Rhino was the one that I was salivating after. I always found it odd that I could easily run across the USS Flagg — all seven feet and one hundred dollars of it — but no store seemed to want to carry the Rhino. Not Best, not Hills, not even Kmart.
Rhino was that special kind of deluxe toy that was not just content coming with just one figure, but two. M.A.S.K. Was awesome enough in that it featured transforming vehicles and also came with a poseable figure, but two figures? Oh Moses, smell the roses, that was toy nirvana.
I still remember an intensely vivid dream where I walked into my closet and found it lying there. In my dream, I had forgotten that I already had it.
The last one on the list is a big one. And I mean that in every way possible.
Transformers Fortress Maximus
Big toys are commonplace nowadays. But back in the ’80s, big toys were something special. They took up some major shelf real estate, and had a presence that made you step back and gawk just a bit. Did you ever see the USS Flagg on a shelf? A 7-foot-long aircraft carrier will make even the hardest of hearts crack a smile.
Well, Fortress Maximus was a 2-foot-tall transforming robot. It was the kind of toy that made all your other toys look like they had smoked when they were younger and stunted their grown. Fortress Maximus qualified as a “plus 1” at any respectable dinner. Fortress Maximus would allow you to use the carpool lane. Fortress Maximus was half the height of Peter Dinklage, and almost the same height as Verne Troyer.
It was a transforming robot that had a transforming robot for a head, and that second, smaller robot also had a head that transformed into an even smaller robot. Ideas like that you can crush and snort with a rolled up dollar bill and even the people around you will feel the effects.
If you’ve been paying attention to this article at all, you can probably guess that I never caught a glimpse of Fortress Maximus despite searching for him harder than Tommy Lee Jones searched for Han Solo in that movie where Han insisted he didn’t kill his wife. I searched every toy aisle, grocery aisle, clothing aisle and desert isle but didn’t find that beautiful 2-foot-tall bastard.
Sure, I could buy an exact replica of him now, or even track the original down on eBay for a small fortune. But without a time machine, that doesn’t help me back then.
That doesn’t help me at all!!
Anybody else out there never get that one toy you wanted oh so bad? Does it still haunt you to this day? Do you wake up screaming its name?