I will arm wrestle anyone who impugns the quiet dignity of the Cobra Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball. Like the finest art, the Pogo and its package presentation bring the inherent beauty of the natural world into sharp contrast. The fact that the Pogo does not exist except in tiny plastic toy form does not rob it of the same power
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By KansasBrawler I don’t know why, but until recently, I’ve never been that big on Joe boats. I remember loving the Tiger Fish as a kid, but I really don’t have any strong memories attached to any other water vehicles from the Joe line. However, the 25th Anniversary really started turning me around on that thanks to their amazing new
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By Past Nastification This figure is in my collection, but I have no recollection of it. I discovered it the other day and it triggered absolutely no memories. Hasbro pumped out a ton of figures during the Rise of Cobra run, and this is one of them. The more I look at it, the more I like it. Like many
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I’ve only partaken of a single FSS product thus far. While I’d love to dive in to the offerings, finances have prevented me from doing so. I managed to find the money to pick up Iron Klaw from the first set, mainly because I’m a huge GI Joe Extreme mark. Some of the package art for the 25th anniversary as
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The original Alley Viper figure was an unknown to me until I came back to collecting in the early 90s. The concept instantly hooked me, and the color scheme and helmet design were extra touches of oddness that drew me to the trooper. When the Battle Corps versions hit, I was able to build a squad of the yellow and
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By KansasBrawler Part of what I loved about the Joe line as a kid was the wide range of specialties that characters had. Sure, there was some overlap between guys like Grunt and Footloose (though the original Grunt was before my time), but generally speaking, there weren’t too many duplicated specialists. When it came to specialties, one of the more
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Quick Kick gets some grief for his look, particularly when folks take his specialty out of context, or more often, when discussing his first appearance in the Sunbow cartoon. What good is a shoeless and shirtless martial artist in a military setting, they might ask. It’s also easy to point out the oddness of his being so attired in the
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If there’s been one (make that two) figures Joe ‘toon and comic fans have yearned for over the years, it’s Tomax and Xamot in their Extensive Enterprises business suits. I should have prefaced that by saying adult Joe fans, since I certainly didn’t give a whit about having any business-suited action figures during my childhood Joe years. It’s only with
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The Viper has a storied history of releases during the new sculpt era. One would think such an iconic Cobra trooper would have been a slam-dunk success, a license to print money where army builders were concerned. Not so, thanks to weird mold choices and color schemes. Blue gave way to greens, browns and greys, and the 1986 BAT legs
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The Steel Brigade made a surprise return to the Joe mythos at the tail end of the new sculpt era. It was a welcome sight for me, as I’ve always liked both the SB concept as well as the unique helmet design. Though the familiar design made an appearance (and was removable!) as part of 2004’s Anti-Venom squad, we got
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