Veterans Day: The Jason Morgan Story Part 1
Posted by: iamratchet
Today we will start our tribute to Veterans day by sharing a story from a fellow collector and friend. His name is Jason Morgan. His story will be one that should touch us all. We will continue through the weekend with his story.
My name is Jason B. Morgan,
I am from Ronceverte, WV, a small town located in the historic Greenbrier Valley.
I am a 44 year old husband, father to an awesome 3 year old little boy, an ARMY Combat Vet, and an avid Transformers fan.
I was first introduced to the Transformers back in 1984 when I saw issue #3 of the MARVEL comic series on the rack of my local drug store, seeing Spider-Man wrapping up a giant ticked off looking robot just appealed to me. Not long after that I received my first Transformer at a Sunday School gift exchange, a G1 Gears, who just happened to be featured in issue #3 of the comic. I then recall going to a Video Store and renting “The Ultimate Doom” along with a VCR. I lived in the country and only got 3 channels on our antenna, so I didn’t get to see the cartoon series regularly, unless I visited my Grandparents in town.
Like almost every other child of the 80’s my collection of Transformers came from Christmases, Birthdays, or just flat out saving up my allowances. Thanks to the comics which I now purchased regularly and the shows I would get to periodically watch, I grew to love the characters and stories of the Transformers. I suffered from asthma as a child and never really participated in any extracurricular activities, I enjoyed playing with my toys and coming up with grand adventures of my own.
Yes, I was shocked when Optimus Prime was killed in ’86, unfortunately I only read it in the MARVEL comics adaptation, I never saw the movie until it was released on VHS.
Alas as one grows up, one leaves childish things behind to pursue other interests and my collection of bots were placed in the attic. I still enjoyed the cartoons and collected the MARVEL series up until it’s conclusion in 1991, the same year I graduated High School. A few years later I did the unthinkable, I traded my whole Transformers collection for a Super Nintendo system with a couple of games.
Fast-forward to 1996, I was channel surfing one morning and stumbled across a television show called “Beast Wars”, and as luck would have it, it was the pilot episode. Needless to say I was impressed and my VCR was set to record every episode from then on. I happened to be employed as a Loss Prevention Manager at our local K-Mart and the very same day I watched Beast Wars for the first time was the same day our store stocked up on the figures. I remember picking up and putting down that purple dinosaur Megatron over and over throughout my shift until I finally decided to buy him after I got off.
My first Transformer toy purchase in 7 years and I absolutely loved him, I actually ended up buying up most of the Predacons because I liked their forms better than the Maximals.
My Transformers collecting had been renewed.
