Grunt (2003)
I’ve covered Grunt in his Spy Troops incarnation before, but after taking pics of a few other disguised figures last week, I’ve wanted to take another look at him. Many of the Spy Troops series snap on armor, leg and arm bracers and helmets were less than convincing. Some were of a downright humorous effect.
Grunt’s Cobra getup doesn’t look too bad, considering the relative goofiness of other disguises like Shipwreck’s foray into cosplay. The pieces of the Cobra CLAWS uniform aren’t too badly oversized or ill-fitting. In fact, the helmet is pretty convincing as add-on headgear. It might even make the basis for a custom of MASK leader and future Joe team member Matt Trakker’s Ultraflash mask.
Outside of the costume, Grunt is an effective figure. Being one of the original 1982 crew, he surprisingly hasn’t had a great number of figures over the years. The early 2000s series was quite good to him, and this mold hit shelves four times in two years.
Again, the packaging works the contents of the two-pack into its backstory copy. Grunt is infiltrating a Cobra command center and runs afoul of Destro. The text even makes reference to the GI Joe comic in its mention of the Trans-Carpathian mountains. A nice little extra touch, and the sort of package based universe building that’s been sadly absent from main line GI Joes toys in recent years.
The Spy Troops Joes certainly provided a bit of toyetic fun, if not realism. If you can bend your brain just a bit, it makes for a smile producing series of toys. Get a large group of them together, and you just might be impressed by the line’s cohesiveness. Maybe I’ll get a Spy Troops class picture posted some time down the road.
Looks like someone took my advice on that chest piece…..
I have this guy so he is my favorite Grunt by default. Personally, i think he looks better without that costume on.
Ten years ago I loved this figure…
That’s a solid Grunt figure for the era. I like it.
I miss the days when the file cards would include references to the comic or cartoon continuities. It added so much to the line. I cringed when I first saw the Retaliation packaging, but at least they tried to incorporate the Arashikage ninja clan stuff as per the movie.
Solid figure & disguise. His disguise helmet actually looks like the one from the Cobra CLAWS card art, while the actual CLAWS figure does not. That was cool card art of CLAWS, too.
The helmet would be cooler without the teddy bear ears.
Wow, I never looked at the “disguised” versions of many of the SpyTroops. Grunt would be totally spotted in a group of CLAWS, but all the pieces really look cool!