So I guess the idea here was to create a sort of homage to the Crimson Guard for all of us 80s Joe freaks. The all too brief file card states: CRIMSON NEO-VIPERS are masters of power and lethality within the COBRA ranks. They guard the leaders of COBRA and willingly submit to agonizing procedures to obtain exceptional abilities and
Read moreFor the foreseeable future, my Field Reports are going to focus on what I’ve currently got on display. That means, by and large, everything I’ll be talking about is modern style. I still have a great deal of love for the vintage Joes, but I played with those figures a lot. Accessories have gone missing over the years or have
Read moreHere’s an intriguing concept, personal bodyguards for Cobra Commander. I thought he already had them in the Crimson Guard? Anyway, this figure is a mashup in need of a little more mashing. The Range Viper head sculpt I find to be one of the oddest in the RAH line. Is the top of the helmet supposed to resemble exposed brain?
Read moreI always found the classic HISS driver to be an odd duck, even when I was a kid. He spent all of his days inside the HISS canopy and only came out when Destro would want to drive and kick him out. Here was a guy in red among an entire army of blue. He looked too thin and I
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By Past Nastification One day, very soon, Rob is going to scold me. “Those aren’t action figures! They’re dolls!” he’ll exclaim as he tries to make me understand that Sweet Street figures have no place on a GI Joe action figure review site. “I already tolerated the review of those Tina Fey and Amy Pohler figures!” And he’d be right.
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By Past Nastification When GI Joe relaunched as “A Real American Hero” in 1982 and into 1983, there seemed to be two cardinal artistic rules about good guys and bad guys within the toy structure: 1. Good guys didn’t hide their faces (except for Snake-Eyes, of course). Figures like Tripwire and Snow Job, with only exposed partial faces, were frustrating.
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By KansasBrawler After Psyche-Out and Repeater arrived in the first FSS 3.0 shipment, the GIJCC took a while to release more characters I really wanted. I liked a lot of the other figures in that subscription series (otherwise I wouldn’t have bought in), but I was really looking forward to Big Ben and Crimson Guard Immortal, so of course, those
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Bring on the bad guys! Now here’s the beginning of what really separates the relaunched GI Joe from his forebears, and many of his imitators. You’ve heard it before: a hero is only as good as his villains. Whether it’s myth, literature, film, comics, or any other form of storytelling, the rogues gallery is often as interesting as the protagonist.
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By KansasBrawler Growing up, I never had the original Snow Serpent, but ever since I got back into G.I. Joe in high school during the relatively early days of the Internet, I’ve always been strangely obsessed with the original version. It was impressively well-detailed. I liked the look so much, I instantly snapped up the Joe Vs. Cobra version and
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The Cobra Officer goes way way back to the beginnings of the relaunched 1980s GI Joe line. Though the differences between it and the Cobra soldier seemed small to me as a kid, I now see how unique that figure appears next to his rank and file comrade. Such was not the case with this officer, available as part of
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