30th Anniversary Thrasher

by KansasBrawler

I’m going to deal with this right away. I know Hasbro named him “Thunder” but for the purposes of this review I’m calling this guy Thrasher. That’s who he’s an update of, that’s what I’m calling him. Growing up, I never had that many fond memories of the Dreadnoks—Monkeywrench and Gnawgahyde were only one my brother or I had and I have fond memories for Monkeywrench as you’ll know from an earlier Field Report. I generally missed out on the original Dreadnoks and the few added later in the line. The only Dreadnok I had was the Ninja Force Zartan and he his filecard didn’t even mention the Dreadnoks so I never knew about that connection. However, when I first wandered into the online Joe collecting community in high school, I did learn I sort of had a Dreadnok vehicle…the Street Fighter II Beast Blaster was the old Dreadnok Thunder Machine with missile launchers on its front instead of a pair of machine guns. The Thunder Machine was a great Dreadnok vehicle though I never really had any ties to its driver, Thrasher. However, when the Dreadnoks got some love from Hasbro during the tail end of the 30th Anniversary line through an online exclusive set, it made perfect sense for Thrasher to get an update (even if they can’t call him by his actual name).

The figure is pretty simple. From the neck down, Thrasher is just a PoC Zartan, which is a good choice. The body is relatively plain and the shirtless look is what Thrasher was rocking back in the day. Honestly, I think PoC Zartan is one of the better generic bodies Hasbro has and I’m happy to see it used as much as possible when it makes sense to do so (and that’s a good thing, since its parts got a lot of use in the Dreadnoks set). Thrasher does get a brand new head and I really like it. It does a great job of mimicking the look of the original while at the same time not looking quite as doughy as the original Thrasher’s head did. His expression is pretty neutral, but it still really does look like that rich kid in school that was such a tool that you just wanted to punch in the face. I like that they managed to capture some of the original figure’s personality in a relatively neutral face sculpt. I don’t know how to describe it beyond the fact that Thrasher just has a very punchable face and in his portrayals in Joe media, he was definitely the one that was so obnoxious you just wanted to smack him. I also really like that they kept the original gloves from PoC Zartan instead of switching them out for bare hands. They look like they’d be good gloves to wear in a fist-fight because they’re heavy duty and have studs over the knuckles to do more damage. The legs are kind of plain, but really, Dreadnoks don’t generally wear wacky pants. They’re in stuff they’d be wearing while biking or drinking or working on their bikes and the PoC Zartan legs do a good job of looking like regular pants while having the additional detail of some nice kneepads on them.

Of course, without a decent paint job, all the nice mold details in the world won’t matter and Thrasher doesn’t fare too badly on the paint side of things. First of all, the color placement is pretty spot on compared to the original Thrasher. A few liberties were taken, like moving the brown off his shoulders to his arm bands, but they even kept the mismatched black and gray gloves. Thrasher still has his very 80s neon green lightning bolts on the left side of his head. The shirt is a nice green but is a few shades brighter than the green on the original figure…not that I really have a problem with that. He’s a Dreadnok from the 80s and that was a pretty brightly colored decade. Honestly, I wouldn’t have had any problem at all had the shirt been the same color as his green hair stripes. His pants are a very nice dark blue and that really offsets the almost gunmetal gray color he gets for the kneepads and boots. Details like the elbow pads on his leather arm bands also get a touch of color which is something I don’t think happened even on the original use of this mold. There was a lot of attention given to this figure’s paint job and he looks really sharp.

While the Dreadnok pack wasn’t something I was frothing at the mouth for, quite a few of the Dreadnoks that I had no opinions about or attachments to really turned out well and surprised me. Let’s be fair, the Field Reports of my modern collection are what I currently have on display and I liked Thrasher enough to use a shelf slot on him. He’s a solid figure that took my opinion from not having one to liking Thrasher as a character. There’s not much to him, he’s a spoiled kid who grew up into a thug who likes to

smash things but the Hasbro design team really found a way to translate that personality into a figure. He’s a great update to a classic character. It’s just kind of a shame that there haven’t been any good Dreadnok vehicles in the modern line since Thrasher (and Zanzibar for that matter) are two Dreadnoks defined more by their vehicles than anything else. Even without the vehicle, though, Thrasher stands out as a solid addition to the Dreadnok ranks. Thrasher’s accessories are pretty sparse, but they do a very faithful job of giving him what the original figure had. Taking advantage of the more modular nature of the modern figures, Thrasher gets a really faithfully recreated version of his lacrosse pad armor. According to the Hasbro Concept Case, this piece was originally going to see use on the Dreadnok Kaos Crew, a Dreadnok army builder. While that figure never saw the light of day, the pads got reunited with their original owner and they do look really sharp. All the original parts are there, from the torn up green belly shirt to the “v”s on his chest but they were really able to ramp up the detail with stitching and textures. His other accessory is an update to his lacrosse stick of death and man, while the original one looked pretty goofy, this one looks absolutely menacing. The spiked ball is a bit larger proportionally and looks really wicked permanently attached to the lacrosse stick. Details like the sculpted strings for the strap and the sculpted grip tape on the main body of the stick also get black paint, however, it would have been nice if they’d been able to paint the strap the ball is attached to, if nothing else for completeness’ sake.