Snake Eyes (2012 Ninja Showdown)
So it’s common knowledge now that the initial figures in the Retaliation line were designed without much influence from the movie itself. While some find this frustrating, I think it’s interesting. Letting the GI Joe design team go wild on more figures without being influenced by movie costumes is a good thing. So we ended up with a few strange figures, like the Cobra Trooper, that exist in a world between Pursuit of Cobra and the movie universe, but I don’t mind. After all, I’m still enamored of some of the more out-there figures from the new sculpt era.
Speaking of which, this Snake Eyes shares a few things in common with one of his counterparts from the Valor vs. Venom series. Both come from the more commando aspect of the character, and wear fatigue pants with kneepads along with a tighter ninja superhero look up top. Both also feature a removable tactical vest. Even the head sculpts are similar. The VvV version had a kind of loose fitting mask that looked different from anything we’d seen before on Snake Eyes. This new figure echoes it almost exactly.
Snake Eyes shines in his articulation, incorporating the new rocker ankles. They allow for so much poseability; I’m amazed at what a small improvement can add to a figure.
At this point, it’s a tough sell for me to buy any more snake-eyes figures at this point. I have about 10 (3 vintage) and I don’t need any more for the rest of my life. I miss the great diversity of the vintage line.Why Hasbro thinks the same characters (Duke, Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow) need to be constantly at retail is absolutely ridiculous….The vintage line conceptualy was the complete opposite, where specialties stayed the same, but new charcters were intoduced,which to me is way more realistic-when I was in the army and later the NY National Guard, turnover was pretty steady.
Jeremy couldn’t have said it better.
That is a great review you wrote, but I’m honestly burned out on the dozens of post-Vintage era figures of leads such as Snakes, Stormy, and Duke. Expect Dwayne’s Roadblock to join the club after the second movie is finally released, or for that point, Joe Colton of all people if Willis makes a strong impression with the fans. Just imagine having to cover 20 different Bruce Willis figures.
Great figure!
Retaliation Agent Mouse is awesome:
http://www.joedios.com/dioramas/showimage.php?i=41939&c=7&orderby=lastpostdateline&direction=DESC&cutoffdate=-1 !
😉
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