Hard to believe it’s been almost eight years since I started this project. It’s probably even harder to believe that in those years, I’ve not covered the original Storm Shadow figure. 1984 Storm Shadow: the figure that launched five-dozen variations and pushed GI Joe into places the brand had never been before. As much responsible for hooking American kids on
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By Past Nastification The Medi-Vipers’ origin date waaaay back to the Marvel Comics run, where they popped up from time to time. They wore the old-fashioned head mirrors on their masked faces. If you’re wondering what a “head mirror” is, it’s the reflective circle on the metal band going around the Medi-Viper’s forwhead. Doctors used to wear them and I’m
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By KansasBrawler Ever since I rediscovered the Joe brand in high school during the relaunch era, I’ve been strangely fascinated with a few vintage figures I didn’t have as a kid. Usually, my figure tastes tend to skew towards ones I had as a kid because I have strong memories of them and, for the most part (save Battle Corps
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By Past Nastification The fingerprint of Devil’s Due is all over this Zartan, although nothing on the packaging would indicate it. DD might have been denied any credit deserved for this design, but it made for a nice figure. It’s not a direct take on Zartan’s DD appearances, but more of a blending of them with elements of Zartan’s ARAH
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By KansasBrawler Overall, the 25th Anniversary line, while far from perfect, did a great job at referencing just about every facet of the small scale Joe brand’s history. One of the biggest surprises for me was the Cobra Night Watch set. I passed on the original set pretty easily when it first came out during the new sculpt era. I
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One of the great elements of the relaunched Joes of the 80s were the options in lower price points. For a little more dough than what you’d spend on a figure, you could pick up a nice accessory like the SNAKE armor. If Mom and Dad wouldn’t plunk down a tenner for a VAMP, they might just go for an
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The HISS tank! I almost can’t believe I haven’t covered Cobra’s most famous and versatile ground vehicle after lo these almost eight years. It’s cliche to put this forth, but what can you say about this toy? I can think of a few things, and some are no quite sunshine memories and rainbow nostalgia. The HISS was for me, until
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Apologies for the less than pristine figure, but that’s how these guys are often found. The Viper Pilot is of course the standard original Cobra trooper mold, with a silver sigil in place of red. Something about the silver paint used for the chest emblem just doesn’t hold up to play over the years. Like the HISS driver I posted
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There aren’t many GI Joe figures that made it through to this day from my original childhood collection. I was much more conscientious with Star Wars in that respect, maintaining all of my original toys. The Joes and Cobras unfortunately fell by the wayside, for the most part. I had thought that the only figures that survived the teenage-years purge
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When I got my first couple of Joe figures I was having fun with toys that were something new and fresh after years of Star Wars fanaticism. It took the addition of the 1983 series to totally bring me around to being a Joe fan first and foremost. At a time when early looks at new product just couldn’t happen,
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