Spirit is a favorite that goes all the way back to 1984 for me. I can still recall picking up the figure at Children’s Palace. I was enamored with the character from the sight of a tiny version of his card art on a package back, and the specialty, tracker, along with the presence of an eagle companion, placed him
Read more
By KansasBrawler Battle Force 2000 is a bit of a strange subteam for me. It was another one that KansasBrother and I only had one figure each from growing up, but it never really captured my attention all that much as an adult. However, having a brother who’s your partner in Joe crime is a bit of an interesting thing
Read more
By KansasBrawler Zap is another figure I have a weirdly complicated relationship with. I wasn’t old enough for the original Zap figure to have been on my radar. The first time I met Zap was in 1991 when he joined the Super Sonic Fighters. The filecard mentioned that he was one of the original Joes and while I didn’t know
Read more
1980s GI Joe often gets the brunt of jokes about wacky uniforms. If I had a nickel for every time a (usually online) media outlet writer made an overly precious observation comparing the toy/cartoon cast to the Village People, I’d have a pretty hefty piggy bank. Yes—haha—the GI Joe team had several colorful characters within the ranks, and 1985 was
Read more
I could say that time has not been kind to some of the 25th anniversary figures, but plenty of these guys looked pretty darned goofy when they first hit the pegs. Funky arms and a pin head (and matching pin head helmet) sink this figure into the disappointment category. At least he was included with some sort of tank, albeit
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
The hits keep coming with the Red Lasers Army custom figures. Last year’s mix of army builders and named characters piqued my interest as soon as I saw them. The early ARAH era parts speak to me in a way that takes me right back to 1983. There’s something about the slimmer, less detailed builds of the early Joes that
Read more
By KansasBrawler Growing up, I never knew about Night Force. I didn’t hear about it until I was in high school and was wandering around the Joe online collecting community for the first time. I’m guessing that was because until probably the early 90s, there were no Toys ‘R’ Us stores anywhere near me so I didn’t see their ads.
Read more