Snake Eyes (2004)
The Desert Patrol Squad six pack was a decent enough set (aside from the horrific Dusty) that presented a nicely unified look, as well as a new GI Joe sub-team.
The 1991 Snake Eyes mold is one of my favorites, but with the patterned pants contrasted against the dark torso and boots, it really looks like the team’s premiere ninja is wearing a pair of crazily patterned pajama pants. 2005’s Heavy Assault Squad version was a much better combination of colors, with the same pattern painted in subdued tones.
The camo pattern featured on the Desert Patrol Squad set is somewhat similar to the cancelled desert figures that were to be included in a desert headquarters in the 1998 line. One of those intended figures was to use the original Outback mold, another of my vintage favorites. It’s too bad that figure never saw the light of day. It looks like a pretty amazing repaint. Wait a minute, isn’t this a Snake Eyes post? Sorry.
It wouldn’t be a 2000s era release without strange and inappropriate weapons choices. The rifle isn’t a necessarily bad inclusion, though it saw fairly heavy use at the time. The frustrating part of the accessory complement is the lack of any signature Snake Eyes weapons. Although I do have piles of ninja swords to give him thanks to the umpteen other versions of the character, it would have been nice to see a little more attention to detail.
Again, the 1991 mold is full of great detail, and the extra paint app that separates the vest from web gear really brings them out. I like to pick up every version of the mold that’s out there. I’d buy this mold even if it was given Jean-Claude Van Damme’s head and named Guile. Oh that’s right, I did. More about that later.
I would’ve replaced Snake Eyes and Stalker in this set with Flint (using the 1994 mold) and Roadblock (using the 1992 mold). Dusty would’ve been Low-Light, and Dusty himself would use the 1991 mold.
This figure is a throwback to Snake Eyes’ commando origins from the first year of the line. It would have been cool to get an all-black version which homaged the 1982 original. In my opinion, that’s what Hasbro should have done back in ’91.
The sculpt itself is superbly detailed. The head certainly seems inspired by his ‘ 82 progenitor. Look at the visor and mask, it’s all there. The RAH franchise was nearing its first decade when this figure was first released so it’s likely that someone at Hasbro was looking back at the early stuff when they designed this guy.
The unproduced ’98 desert headquarters was a real heartbreaker for me. It would have been my chance at getting a version of the ’83 classic fresh off the shelves. Having Outback return for the ride would have proved a tasty icing on the proverbial cake. I remember holding out hope by the time I joined the USENET groups in 2000 and reading that there were still rumors that it might somehow surface. What a huge letdown that was.
The coloring of the pants is what ruins this figure. It’s a classic mold and if they had just made the pants match the rest of the figure, it’d be pretty cool. But, it still doesn’t make sense that a figure intended for the desert would be dressed in black.
Nice pants! This reminds me of a custom project I’m working on: The rest of the original 13 done in tan to join Grunt and Clutch.
Let me guess–the easiest you’ll make is Breaker. I know I’ve done it, and others have.
I really wanted to like this figure when it came out. The 1991 Snake Eyes mold was really cool and more importantly, we hadn’t seen it dozens of times since 1991. But then seeing the figure in person at a Toys R Us, the colors just really failed it. His paint job is nicely done but also badly mismatched. It looks like Hasbro lost the top part to a full desert camo Snake Eyes and the bottom part of a cool night-ops Snake Eyes and just decided to make lemonade with those lemons and slap them together. The set was actually pretty nice, but between this Snake Eyes’ awkward color scheme, the truly atrocious LifeStretchDusty, and the somewhat bizarre-looking camo bellbottoms on Tunnel Rat (another figure we’d seen far too much of by that point in my opinion, and I’m a huge Tunnel Rat fan), I just couldn’t ever pull the trigger on it.
@ Acer-The easiest would be Breaker-If I had his head. Hawk is a no-brainer. The most challenging would be Stalker.Which desert camo pattern to use? Every body else would be pretty straight forward. I’m sure in the 30 plus years of Joe History “tanning up” the OG13 has been done millions of times.I do my customs based on what I want to see in my display case-not based on how “original” the idea is.
Great colors!
I didn’t like the desert camo pattern they used. It didn’t translate well to 3 3/4″ scale. Snake-Eyes here looks like he’s wearing tights and black Spider-Man boots. The Heavy Assault version looks like he borrowing some colorful spandex pants from an 80’s hard rock band.
I think we called that choco-camo, back in the days of 2004.
That Guile figure you mention, is one I bought so I could steal his pants. Now this (well most of this) 2004 Snake Eyes is my main Snake Eyes.
I used to love that gun in the photo (bought cheap VvV figures just for that gun in 2004), too, but since Marauder, Inc. came on the scene, I just don’t like that Hasbro gun now.
Either way, the softer plastic hands on this 2004 Snake Eyes makes arming him with different weapons fun.