Schrage (2005 Comic Pack)
I hear tell that the Oktober Guard is making the news lately in the GI Joe world. While I appreciate all that the modern style has done for bringing realistically styled and proportionate figures to collectors, at heart I’m an old curmudgeon who really loves the old O-ring construction.
So Schrage came to us back in the halcyon days of the comic packs, when Hasbro managed to offer up a bevy of fan requested comic based figures. I can remember wanting toy versions of the Oktober Guard back in the day, and the 2000’s comic packs fulfilled my wishes. For the most part, the figures were tasteful and effective reuses of old molds, along with new heads. Some figures, like Horrorshow, had more extensive newly made parts.
Schrage uses most of the Big Ben mold, a figure that also lent itself to other comic pack figures, including Rock ‘N Roll. The mold effectively portrays the original comic appearances of the character, from the cap to the crossed bandoliers. All in all, it’s a solid translation of the character from the comic page. Spasiba, Hasbro.
I freaking love Schrage. He looks just like he jumped out of a Herb Trimpe or Michael Golden comic. A perfect use of the Big Ben mold to deliver a long requested and beloved character from the brand’s earliest days. Those Oktober Guard figures from the comic packs would have made for an AWESOME style transition had they been released just before 1983, ideally sporting the swivel-arm battle grip. In fact, I always display the Oktober Guard in between the first two series of figures to make my point.
The arms came from Headman.
I swear, I saw a bunch of these at Tuesday Morning a while back, and had I been a Joe fan then, I would’ve snatched them up!
Schrage is one of my favorite figures in my collection. O-ring will never die!
I have ’em all!
Great Oktober Guard!
I’ve found the Oktober Guard has grown on me as time has passed. When these figures were released, they seemed a bit tired since we had gotten so many uses of the Big Ben and Red Star mold. 7 years later (hard to believe it’s been that long!), though, the proximity of those releases is less fresh and these figures stand better on their own.
Schrage is fairly well done and I’d put him behind Horrorshow as the 2nd best OG figure. The colors and head are nice. It’s too bad these guys never got repainted in some form. They are somewhat hard to find, so a repaint set likely would have been well received. I still don’t know why Master Collector won’t release at least an ARAH style 2 pack at the con to appeal to vintage collectors. Repainting 2 or 3 of these OG figures would fit their con theme, not intrude upon the anniversary style sets they want to peddle and be a bone to throw to ARAH collectors. But, since it makes sense, that’s probably the reason it will never happen.
The Red Star mold (up till Colonel Brehkov, Stormavik and Sgt. Zubenkov’s release) hadn’t seen reuse since the 1998 Brehkov figure, so it’s just the Big Ben mold that’s been done the most since then.
This figure is far better than the Schrage that the GIJCC threw together for the ’12 convention set. And it’s still the best of the Guard figures from the comic packs.