Ultimate Flint (2013)
Note to the Reader: the Joe A Day writer has been fighting a cold for three weeks, and is feeling more than a little surly and irritable. That may or may not explain the tone of today’s post. As you were.
I see the Ultimate descriptor given to some of the most recent GI Joe figures, and I think, is it really necessary? Just what does is mean? Is it the modern equivalent of Extreme? Then I realize that the term serves to illustrate the collector-pleasing nature of modern GI Joe. Let’s be honest and call them the Hey Fans, We Finally Got It Closer to How You Wanted It Flint. So this Flint looks nice, has a bevy of weapons, can assume all sorts of amazing poses, but he’s not really…exciting.
Granted, it’s a nice representation of the on-screen character, but overall it leaves me with a little feeling of “so what?” At first, I thought that’s not the fault of the toy makers, since they’re just translating the movie into plastic. Then as I considered it a bit more, I realized that this was ultimately Hasbro’s movie, and they must have had some input into the costume designs. Granted, the Retaliation costumes weren’t the monochromatic (minus a few pairs of Nice Pants) affairs of the Rise of Cobra, but the overall realistic style still doesn’t really translate into a dynamic looking toy that jumps off the pegs at the first 6 to 12 year old who looks at it. While there were other reasons for the less than impressive performance of the toys among the younger set, consider also Joe’s current competition on the action figure aisle’s pegs. How can Duke, Snake Eyes and the old crew compete against Iron Man, the Avengers, and worse yet, against the likes of Legos and Skylanders? On the positive side, Flint came with a parachute. Is that Ultimate?
He might be the ultimate movie version but “Ultimate” to me means the Concept Case figure that Hasbro won’t release. In fact, all of those Concept Case prototypes are pretty much the Ultimate versions for each character.
P.S. Take a couple of Tylenol Cold caplets, drink lots of water and orange juice. That should help some.
And yet they lumped the removable beret with the first one….
Also, I have to ask–as of late, for a few of the recent entries, my comments haven’t posted. They weren’t explicit or anything, it’s just that when I click submit, the page refreshes as if it were submitting the comment, but then when it fully loads: nada. Any explanation?
It’s most likely due to the server issues I’ve been having. I apologize for the availability issues of late. I’ve had the admin side go down in the middle of drafting a post recently. I’m looking for a more reliable webhost. Just FYI for everyone, I have comments set to automatically post without needing to be moderated. The only exceptions are when a comment contains more than one hyperlink, and I have to approve them because the system thinks they could be spam.
It’s not a bad looking figure, but I wouldn’t even know it’s Flint just from looking at it. Without the beret, it just looks like some other Joe. For me, Tiger Force Flint is the ultimate Flint figure.
I agree, Hasbro probably had input prior to character designs. But “ultimately”, I’m guessing the movie production hires it’s own designers and be TPTB for how their actors should look and then Hasbro just gets reference copies of official designs to use for the toy line.
What about the Hall of Heroes Flint? It’s got an adjustment to the 25th Duke torso that makes sitting down all the more better…
Its certainly a hard time to be a collector with retailers refusing to take much stock as kids dont care about action figures anymore. I know many considerer series 14 “silly” but twenty years ago, shops in my region were still making a healthy income from G I Joe sales. Now all we get is overpriced surplus from R.O.C and only at a few collectables shops.
As for “ultimate” Flint, he should be decked out in his Sunbow uniform, have a removeable beret and come in a two pack-with his wife
Rob, I’ll agree with you that this Flint probably doesn’t deserve the moniker of “Ultimate” because it’s not a classic Flint look, it is insanely movie accurate, right down to the annoyingly missing removable beret. I don’t remember Flint wearing a beret at all, save maybe the awards ceremony at the end. From that standpoint, its accuracy could be “Ultimate” but I do wish they’d saved that designation for a real Flint rather than a movie Flint. That would be like giving us a movie-based Storm Shadow and calling him “Ultimate.” That’s not what I think of when it comes to an ultimate version of that character. That said, the figure is a bit better than I think you give it credit for…
@KB True, I was probably too hard on it, but I’m feeling like a real curmudgeon of late when it comes to many of the modern figures. What I had thought were going to be a series of fun late line movie figs have left me cold. Maybe it’s all due to being at the end of yet another iteration of modern Joe (much like the end of the 30th line). I suppose I’m also just waiting for the shoe to drop on Joe’s 50th anniversary, and where the brand goes from here. I’m hoping for a short period of homage next year and then a bold and fresh relaunch after another hiatus. But it probably won’t happen that way.
What’s cool is the end of this line is giving us a buttload of army builders, which is giving us plenty of good reason to keep buying them up until the pegs are empty.
Great face sculpt b.t.w.!
He’s certainly the Ultimate Movie Flint. Good figure and a great base for customs too.