Recollecting: Into the Inferno

A few months back I wrote briefly about JC's Things, a local second-hand shop that I had previously ignored for years before finally checking it out. What I believed to be a junk furniture store ended up being so much more; a building filled to the brims with all sorts of outdated wares, stacks of records, VHS and decades-old greeting cards. I still haven't shared a glimpse at the treasures I uncovered during that inaugural visit. And here we are again, me mentioning the shop and refusing to show off the goods. That's because a more recent trip actually surpassed the original by a narrow margin.

My father only recently, the middle of this last year, retired from firefighting. I was blissfully unaware the inherent dangers of such a profession when I was a kid, content to visit my dad at the station. Something that afforded me plenty of opportunities to try on his gear and climb all over the various trucks. So, of course, I loved collecting toy-versions of engines; Hot Wheels and Tonka and, most importantly, Takara/Hasbro. No surprise then that Inferno was my first major Transformers toy.

That also means he was probably one of the first casualties; lost in the ether like so many of my childhood possessions. Carelessly tossed aside when something better came along. Oh, poor Inferno, forgotten and ignored, until a parent decided I no longer needed him, and either threw him away or donated him. Instead, I like to imagine him alongside the other fallen Transformers [and Gobots] from my youth, protecting Cybertron from the forces of evil.

Since he was originally released in 1985, I initially believed this Inferno to be part of Hasbro's Commemorative Series, reissues that were made available in Toys"R"Us during the '00s. The condition was a little too good to be a legit '85-version, wasn't it? I mean, sure, he's missing both his hands and any additional accessories, but the plastic was so crisp and clean that it looked like he just came out of the package. A little digging revealed that this was, however, a G1 Inferno and not a reissue. Something to do with the forearms being retooled on later releases to remove the "missile-firing" action that the original, this very same one, possessed.

So, yes, despite a few missing pieces, I'd say he was a solid score for a measly two bucks.