The SAW Viper troop has a nasty reputation among fans of the Marvel GI Joe comic, as one of its members murdered several members of the Joe team. The original figure’s uniform was certainly unique among Cobra troop builders, in terms of design and color. With a slender build and futuristic helmet, the SAW Viper’s look belied his specialty. Looking
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Ah yes, remember the training montage in Rise of Cobra? Wherein Duke not only bested Snake Eyes in hand-to-hand combat, but Brendan Fraser also cameo-ed by rolling up on a goofy three-wheeler. It was the oddest intro in GI Joe lore since Torpedo was met in the MASS Device to rousing cries of, “Hey, ‘Pedo!” Yikes. Anyways, feel free to
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Mummies and GI Joe go way back–all the way to the 70s. As a kid just barely aware of the large scale Joes that predated my childhood Real American Heros, I was somehow aware of the original search for the mummy set. Maybe it was the Peter Pan book and record. As an adult collector, I think that set perfectly
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By Past Nastification The modern era has given us new versions of Blowtorch. The first, from 2009, is a modern interpretation of the classic 1984 design. It’s packed with detail and sculpting. Plus extra gear that would indicate Blowtorch has some cross-training as a firefighter, which makes sense. Like many modern era figures, the added articulation doesn’t mean that the
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By Past Nastification Continuing from the 80s original, Blowtorch got a second figure almost 20 years later. I was delighted to see the new color set was a light brown uniform with gold armor and black accouterments. The gold is a little much, but I can live with it. This is a new sculpt era figure with some sculpting issues.
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Ready for an understatement? The Sigma 6 cartoon series is not well regarded. Part of the 4KidsTV block, it was a good-looking show, but weak plots and mediocre voice acting killed any excitement I might have had for it. That’s right, I actually looked forward to the show. I realize it wasn’t aimed at my generation (or age for that
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By Past Nastification The further away from it we get, the more quality I find in the New Sculpt era. This isn’t a whitewashing of the badness, but a taking in of the good despite the bad. Ripper made his NS debut in 2002. Unlike many of the NS figures, this one has no real proportion issues. It smoothly bridges
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By Past Nastification Introduced as a Target exclusive for the Rise of Cobra line, the 2009 Grand Slam is my favorite version of the character. The previous 25A-style Grand Slam had silver colored pads instead of this one’s metallic ice blue ones. The silver pad Grand Slam also shared a head with 25A Flash, making it a head-to-toe repaint. The
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The early issues of the Marvel GI Joe comic in particular presented the characters with varying differences among their uniforms. Herb Trimpe, Mike Vosburg and others had an artistic license that isn’t seen much in the current era of highly focused marketing. That’s a shame, as I find the resulting anachronisms interesting. There’s not much heart to the modern adherence
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This figure was inspired by the unique looking version of the team’s popular commando seen on an early sticker set. I picked up a ton of extra comic pack sets to flesh out my original thirteen Joes in the format, so I found it easy to piece together a version of the Snake Eyes figure that never was. The legend
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