The AGP is one of those vehicles about which I find myself saying, “Oh yeah, that exists.” I’m not trying to be rude, but the thing just doesn’t hold much interest for me. I also have no nostalgia for it, since I wasn’t collecting the toys at the time of its release. Even among the Iron Grenadiers vehicles, it seems
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By KansasBrawler Kids can be funny sometimes. I don’t mean in the lame Kids Say the Darndest Things way, but it’s interesting to watch how your opinion of a toy changes after seeing a kid’s eyes light up while they’re playing with it. I was talking with a couple of Hasbro design team folks near the “free play” area they’d
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Aside from a starkly decorated Sears exclusive, Hasbro’s Atomic Man didn’t get the benefit of a coffin box. Instead, like other later line releases, he was packaged on a blister card. Granted, he got a nice pose out of the deal, but the fully painted box of old was surely missed. The UK got a throwback of sorts with its
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I’ve always had a thing for GI Joe pilot figures. Ace, although he spent a lot of time in the cockpit of his Skystriker, was a favorite of mine as a kid. Years later, when I began to collect the 1960s GI Joes, I gravitated toward the Scramble Pilot and even the Air Police. At the same time (the mid
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From the 1991 Hasbro international catalog comes the Arctic Blast. I love the snowy background in this one. Very Wampa ice cave.
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By KansasBrawler I’ve mentioned before that I think the Joe line needs to inject new characters into the mythos every now and then or the brand will stagnate. That’s what was so great about some of the later waves of Rise of Cobra figures. There were some modern remakes of less appreciated Joes like Charbroil and Kamakura but there were
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Pilot figures can be a little boring. More than any other “driver” figure, they are less useful out of their vehicle. My original Ace didn’t get to do much outside of his Skystriker other than stand around it, waiting for battle, or repairing it. Yeah, I was a kid and didn’t know much about ground crews. I figured since Han
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I’ve been a fan of the Alley Viper concept since I first learned of it upon returning to GI Joe collecting in 1991. The oddity of the design drew me in. Here was an urban operative outfitted in orange and blue, wearing a face shield that looks like it blocks all vision. Weird, yet intriguing. I picked up several examples
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Normally, I can find something positive to say about pretty much anything I cover here, but I’m having a hard time with AVAC. The parts choice is just too heavily based on 25th anniversary to ignite my interest, and the individual details too recognizable as their original components. I suppose you could call it a Crimson Flashtan. That’s about all
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By KansasBrawler This is another one of those Kre-O pairings that doesn’t quite make sense, but they’re who’s left so I guess they go together. If I want to force a theme on Alpine and Night Viper, I guess I could point to the fact that I wanted both these figures as a kid but never found them on the
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