By Past Nastification Based on the real world Saab Draken, the Cobra Liquidator is also close in design to the Cobra jet flown by Major Bludd in the opening scene of Sunbow’s The MASS Device. It was probably a coincidence that Hasbro chose to source the Draken as a Cobra Jet, as Sunbow had nothing to do with the GI
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In comics, a talented artist can elevate the material on which they’re working. Such is the case with this cover from the first comic series based on the GI Joe Extreme toy line. A quick aside–the series didn’t have the word extreme in its title (though it appears twice in the tagline). Did Hasbro already have a feeling for the
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By KansasBrawler I don’t know why, but I’ve always had more of an affinity for the Cobra figures than the Joes. Don’t get me wrong, the Joe characters were great, but I thought the Cobra figures looked more striking. I always liked the more fantastical elements of the Joe line and, generally speaking, the Cobra figures were allowed to be
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I didn’t have any of the PAC/RAT vehicles as a kid, but I remember thinking they were pretty cool in their appearance in the Revenge of Cobra mini-series. They even made cute R2-D2 like sounds. The explosive packaging is anything but cute. In fact, it’s awesome.
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By Jason Royalty Backyard Battles’ Jason is back with another great feature with Joes in the wild! Stay tuned for two more parts of this shoot coming soon!
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By KansasBrawler I’ve always liked the Crimson Guard. The concept of elite Cobra operatives who are not only dangerous on the battlefield but dangerous inside the American home front as well is really cool. However, to me, the figure has always relegated him to the status of Cobra Commander’s bodyguard. That’s neat enough, but I’ve always thought the Crimson Guards
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By Past Nastification We’ve looked at potential vehicles and action figures in Sunbow’s The MASS Device miniseries. Now let’s finish the series by looking at potential playsets. Cobra Castle: If you’re old enough to remember the wonderful Marx Toys Navarone playset, just scale it up in your mind. The Terror Drome is a great playset. However, it was designed to
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By KansasBrawler By the end of the relaunch era, I was a bit tired of the vintage Firefly figure. I’d never had it as a kid, but I had at least three versions of it by the time that era of the Joe line had ended. It’s not a bad mold, but it had gotten awfully overexposed by the end
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The Big Jim series from Mattel is endlessly interesting to me. What started out in in the 70s as a toyline in a pure adventure/sports vein morphed into a spy series full of crazy characters (with some package art provided by Jack Kirby!) and continued well into the 80s with heavy sci-fi elements. If you dig into its history, you’ll
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When I was a kid reader of Marvel comics, my main source of comics were newsstands at 7-11 and QuickTrip. Because of the often spotty distribution of some titles, I often missed several issue stretches of my favorite series. My early GI Joe comic collection skipped from issues 2, to 7, then to 17. I narrowly missed the events in
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