Hasbro or Palitoy? Hasbro any day for me

[Andy Khaliq]

To me I do not find the palitoy action force a patch on action force international heroes. they are straight limbed and do not do anything for me. I have lots of them carded and moc but I am purely on a mission to get a complete set of hasbro action force which I am not far off achieving. The search goes on.............................................

[Red Laser]

Welcome to the site snakeeyes not afraid of causing controversy I see. The Palitoy figures aren't bad but to bring it down to poseable limbs vs non-poseable the Hasbro action force is the one I prefer.

[Chopper]

Palitoy any day of the week. They may not be articulate but the figures were great because they mostly resemble real world soldiers. Well, the good guys did They are also cooler. I mean seriously, Cobralalalala?

I sat down and catalogued a lot of the later Hasbro AF stuff tho and did develop an attachment to them in the end but I won't be collecting them in earnest till I've got all of Palitoy, only about 5 to go now

[Sundance]

i like the characters and the story of but let's be honest, the fact that they can't bend their arms and legs sucks.

hasn't stopped me buying more of them... but...

[Thundershot]

I tend to treat the two lines as compleatly different toy collections myself...with the cut off point being jointed figures, like & co/ I treat as being G.I.Joe, with any thing before that as .

I like both as much as each other myself, but if I was ever forced to sell up any of my collection, I could happily get rid of both A.F & Joe's to keep hold of my beloved Star Wars figures.

[Ross SC]

how old are you snake eyes? not being personal, just betting you are nearer ironblood or sunshines age............
most of the people on this site are old enough to have played with palitoy as kids, which is why it trumps hasbro.
for me, it's hasbro for customising (way more scope, i dont like just repainting stuff) but as far as collecting stuff to display goes, im loving the palitoy stuff i laid my hands on @ my aunties & will collect more in the future.
only thing i REALLY dont like is 25th....... stupid chest joint!

[SteveD]

As much as I love my series 3 collection, most of my collecting is rooted in nostalgia. Therefore the fact that as a kid I sort of moved on to mask shortly after the introduction of cobra commander, zartan et al, so whilst I love series 3, and acknowledge that yes, they were more poseable and technically "better", my vote would go with series 2. Due to my age, series 1 was ever so slightly before my time - my first and only series 1 as a lad was af9.

It's sort of like if some one offered me a 1964 mustang, or a ford focus st. I respect the st - it's more useable and "better" as a modern car, but nostalgia and my heart would have me go with the 64 any day.

[The Kraken Wakes]

I cant honestly say - lots of things have to be taken into account for me, obviously the figures and vehicles but also the comics, cartoons, packaging and probably most importantly how old I was and stuff that what was happening in my life and the world at the time these things were coming out. A few years younger and something else would be my obsession now and I might have a fond rememberance for hasbro era AF, the same way I do for Star Wars stuff now.

For me they are both equal for different reasons and I collect both though my collection is heavily skewed towards Hasbro era stuff while my customs at the moment are all Palitoy ideas made from hasbro parts...

[mark]

Palitoy all the way for me!

[The Baron]

I think the key thing is age. I'm 35 now, Hasbro hit me at that impressionable age when Star Wars toys were all the go. Like SteveD I was just a tad too young for the 'Action Man in Miniature' range.

But there's no denying that my favourite figures were the repainted Joes. was my Leader and ALWAYS lived to fight another day!

We were also swept up in the aftermath of the Iranian Embassy siege, so the option of toys was the coolest thing ever ever ever, it was these that attracted me to the range, not the

When I got into the comic, then the s grew on me big time. Being suicidal, brainwashed fanatics led to hours of kamikaze play and mayhem. I also loved the specialist teams concept and the matching uniforms therein.

When arrived I felt betrayed. Now, had the toylines been an improvement it may have been an easier pill to swallow, but I don't think they were. The militaristic feel of was gone, the were gone, and by comparison, this new team seemed little more than a ragtag bunch of undisciplined misfits. I was also canny enough to realise that there was a rip-off factor involved. Half of the range were re-releases of toys I already owned with new stickers.

Also, both as a concept and as a design the are far cooler than . In the UK comic, the are little more than mercenaries. OK, they display signs of fanaticism as the stories progress but the reason for this is never really touched upon. There's just something about the having no will of their own, maybe even being trapped in their own minds while committing atrocities that just chills me, as much now as it did when I was 10. For my money, the figure design exudes a menace like no other.

But by then I was hooked on Charley's War and Johnny Red so continued to read Battle Action Force. I swiftly got to like the new characters and of course was overjoyed whenever , or made a return appearance.

By the time Hasbro Action Force and the Marvel UK comic hit the shelves the boat had sailed for me. I had moved on to Zoids. Again I continued to buy the comic as it had become my favourite medium, it was the Ancient Relics crossover which made me hunt out and buy the Transformers comics too and those are superb.

So as people have said, I don't think it's something you can really actually choose so much as it is a product of situation and environment. OK, so if I was 10 again and had a choice between Palitoy and Hasbro... I honestly don't know the answer! My heart says but that may well be hindsight and nostalgia talking.

I think the two are separate entities with shared genealogy. Aside from scale the two have little in common in either feel or design. But I must say that in making this site and going through the Hasbro UK archives I have discovered a new love of the later Action Force. Seeing Annie and Eddie's treasure trove didn't help much either!

Excellent thread, snakeeyes! Would you object if I modify your opening post to include a poll?