If I needed to sum up what makes Major Bludd a great GI Joe villain with one word, it would be character. With the first year Cobra troops being nameless, faceless minions, the organization needed an injection of personality in its second outing. Major Bludd, as one of the major Cobra-associated agents of 1983, added some variety to the bad
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By KansasBrawler Copperhead and I go way back, though strangely, my love of the Water Moccasin is fairly recent. That’s because the Copperhead I knew back in the day was KansasBrother’s Python Patrol version. I thought he was really cool but had I known he was first released with an equally cool vehicle, I would have thought he was even
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Cobra’s only 1982 accessory was this monster, the legendary Missile Command Headquarters. Yep, no jeeps, jets or tanks for The Enemy’s inaugural year, just a cardboard playset. I don’t mean that as a knock, because I love this set, not despite but because of its construction. As a Star Wars kid, my cardboard-based imagination was already primed by the cantina,
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By KansasBrawler It may be hard to beat the look of the vintage Alley Viper, but man did Hasbro come close with the Resolute Alley Viper Cobra set. I don’t recall seeing Alley Vipers in the Resolute cartoon. However, it’s also been a really long time since I’ve watched it, so I may just have missed them when I first
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Cobra Commander. Is there a more iconic 80s bad guy? Okay, Skeletor and Megatron are without a doubt equals in the pantheon of action figure villains. Those two guys however can’t hold a candle to the Commander’s sense of style. After all, could Skelly or Megs have rocked two different styles of headgear equally well, or dared to wear two
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Cobra wouldn’t be where it is today without the legions of nameless and faceless troopers that make up the backbone of its ranks. In the early 80s, these voluminous villains were perfect fodder and foil for the Joe team. Before the myriad Vipers and all of their specialization that would come, we were happy to collect hordes of blueshirts to
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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 Past Nastification The original Cobra Mortal figure was a repainted Snake-Eyes figure for Argentinian kids back in the early 80’s. In 2006, the GI Joe Collectors’ Club made this version. Aside from the arms (which are the ’83 swivel-arm battle grip version upgrades for the American figures using that style of arm) and the waist (an ’86 Roadblock one),
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By KansasBrawler Not every figure in a multipack can be a winner. In the Extreme Conditions: Arctic set, the weak figure is the Viper listed as a heavy weapons specialist. The figure itself is decent, however, some of the decisions Hasbro made with it mean it doesn’t work well as an arctic figure. If this were a regular heavy weapons
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By Past Nastification Oh, boy. He’ll always win the arm wrestling contests, but never the beauty pageants. This is 2004’s Venomous Maximus. I don’t like too much science fiction in my GI Joe. Dr. Venom’s brainwave scanner was that first step too far in my young mind. However, as I get older I realize it doesn’t really matter and it’s
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