Oh Man, This is Heavy...

Have you guys ever had one of those collecting weekends that turns out to have a theme? I did that this past weekend. It was almost spooky. I was just doing my normal thing, but somehow, with very little effort on my part, my weekend became THE WEEKEND OF BACK TO THE FUTURE DELOREANS!

Allow me to explain...

So, on Friday night, i had to get out after several hours of cranking out art on the computer. So I made my usual stops at my fevorite used book stores and then on a whim, decided to check out Toys R Us, to see if anything new came out. Lo and behold, I spotted this little baby...

The Minimates Time Machine! I'm not a huge Minimates fan, in fact up until then I've only had one, a Batman (and now have a couple more from a recent care package, which are now turning me into a full blown Minimates lover, but more on that later), but I remember passing this up a while back and then never seeing it again. So there I was, face to face with another one and the best part? It was on clearance!This must have been a return or they found it stashed behind some Mega Bloks or something, but I don't care; It's mine now!

Then, on Sunday, I find out last minute that my local twice-a-year toy show was happening, and I manage to swing by for a couple of hours. While milling around and rooting through the various sellers' boxes, I spot this puppy on a dealer's table...

 Boo-YA! Johnny Lightning Time Machine! And this is the build-it-your-damn-self version, which is just fine with me. The guy only wanted $5 for it and I couldn't throw a Lincoln at him fast enough. That's Time Machine number two.

Then, to top it off, that night, while at the grocery store to pick my usual pile of junk food, I walk by an Easter display of Hot Wheels cars and BAM! There's the elusive Hot Wheels Time Machine! I say elusive because although many of you out there have been finding them left and right, I live in an area infested with neckbeard scalpers and can never find anything good.

The Hot Wheels Time Machine is an absolute beauty and goes damn well with my Ecto-1 and 1966 Batmobile.

I really love that Hot Wheels is doing this. I hope they make the A-Team van next!

I cracked open the Minimates set and  have to say that car itself is bigger on cuteness than accuracy, but then again, so are Minimates figures; That's the point of them.

But the double gull-wing doors are PIMP!

Ah yes, I can see where the Mr. Fusion goes...

The Johnny Lightning Time Machine took a little work to put together. I had to bust out some super glue and everything. But I threw on the headphones, listened to some Kevin Smith podcasts (it's my new thing while working) and put that baby together.

And let me tell you, this car is amazing! The detail on it it out of this world.

Looking at them side by side, the Johnny Lighting version clearly outshines the Hot Wheels version. But then again, the Hot Wheels version retails for $1, and the Johnny Lightning one went for much more originally.

They're also slightly different in scale, as you can see from the pic below...

Oddly enough, though, the more detailed Johnny Lightning version is lacking the classic OUTTATIME license plate, where the Hot Wheels version clearly has it. Go figure.

Anyway, that's the tale of me having no toy Back to the Future Deloreans in my collection on Friday, to having three of them by Sunday evening. That, my friends is a collecting hat trick and doesn't happen often.

I guess it was my... destiny...