The release of the Kre-O Terrordrome set was bittersweet. The set was probably the most highly anticipated, and also the most accurate to the original toy design. The Cobra launch base was finally the source of several demanded Kreons. I don’t know if I’d count Mainframe high among them personally, but he was a welcome addition thanks to his specialty,
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By KansasBrawler For the longest time, the original Joe Con Iron Anvil was a big hole in my collection. I had just learned about the GIJCC in college and really wished I’d been able to get to Joe Con in Minneapolis that year, but it wasn’t to be. When I was finally able to go to my first Joe Con
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Airborne was one of the first GI Joes, along with Scrap Iron, that made me realize Hasbro was reusing parts to create multiple characters. The kneepads and boots were a dead giveaway. The backpack was another suspiciously familiar accessory. Was he borrowing it from Duke, or vice versa? Much of the success of a minifigure based on existing material, especially
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By KansasBrawler I was in high school when I first started getting into the online Joe collecting community. I don’t recall how I originally found YoJoe.com anymore, but it became a go-to site for me when I was killing time online back in the days of dial-up Internet service. It was a great resource for me when it came to
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Oh, what could have been. When the collectors club announced its series of small-scale versions of the Adventure Team, I was excited about the possibilities. Sure, it would be great to integrate these legendary members of the GI Joe legacy into the smaller scale, but I was imagining the translations of the Adventure Team’s vehicles, accessories and mission-specific outfits as
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By KansasBrawler When Hasbro added Stalker to Tiger Force, I thought it was a great decision. I always used Flint as my de facto Tiger Force leader, but I always used Flint a lot as a Joe squad leader, so it didn’t feel right having him lead his own special squad, too. However, when I purchased the Tiger Force set
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Nemesis Enforcer is a character whose figures haven’t seemed to quite capture the menace conveyed in his appearance in the animated GI Joe movie. The character was a hulking brute, possessed of incredible strength, and his look was one of the coolest of Cobra-La’s weird denizens. The original action figure was detailed, and included the unique wing and tentacle accessories
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By KansasBrawler I’ve always had kind of a strange relationship with Recondo. I didn’t know about the character as a kid, but once I met him in the comics when I was in high school, I was hooked. The only Recondo I had in high school was the SpyTroops version that, while a good figure, really looked nothing like him.
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The Jet Pack Trooper was one of my favorite new Cobra troop types introduced in the 25th Anniversary line. This Kre-O version, introduced in the third wave of blind bag figures, exploits one of the strengths of the block format: buildable accessories. A jetpack may not seem like an exciting feature to add to a figure, especially since they’ve been
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By KansasBrawler I don’t quite know why, but as a kid I was somewhat fascinated with Tiger Force Lifeline. My guess is that it’s because my brother had the original 1986 version and I liked him but didn’t want a figure identical to my big brother’s, and the Tiger Force version would have allowed me have my own version of
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