Gallows was released as a part of the Steel Brigade vs. Plague Troopers pack. Aside from the mini-gun, he bears little resemblance to his comic counterpart, a SAW Viper. The Joe vs. Cobra Snake Eyes body somehow works well as a new character in this case, due in part to the mold’s lack of overt ninja styling. The new head
Read moreSo I guess at some point Dr. Mindbender gave up on a fully humanoid appearance for his battle androids and opted to crib from Terminator. I can’t believe a man as smart as Mindbender would need to blatantly copy like that. I suppose there’s no accounting for style plagiarism, as he also dressed like a 19th century Eastern European Chippendales
Read moreFemale figures don’t sell. It’s a marketing mantra all too familiar to action figure collectors. We don’t like to believe it, but it really is true. As much as we communicate via forums, Twitter and the like, sometimes we mistake the loudness of our online voices for greatness in number. The fact is, those of us who are online are not the
Read moreThe Steel Brigade has made select yet memorable appearances since the end of the Real American Hero line. Coming at the end of the new sculpt era, the Direct to Consumer Steel Brigade vs. The Plague set was a welcome addition of both new enemies and a modern take on the venerable faceless Joe grunts. Red Zone is the leader
Read moreDespite being a relatively popular character and making frequent comic appearances, Cover Girl only received two figures (23 years apart) in the course of the GI Joe non-movie lines. I’d rather not mention the straight up fugly movie version. Released as part of a fans’ choice comic pack that also included Devil’s Due versions of Spirit and Serpentor clone Hannibal,
Read moreWell, here I am again, trying to spread some love for the 2000’s Joes. There were some genuine diamonds in the rough of this now forgotten era. Case in point: Guillotine, part of one of the DTC/Toys R Us exclusive packs that brought to a close the “new sculpt” era. The multi packs of the time were hit or miss,
Read moreAs a kid, I watched the GI Joe cartoon and read the comic book. Most of the time, the cartoon designs closely followed the look of the action figures. The comic book however, due to its nature of changing artists, often presented character looks that changed slightly from artist to artist. Zartan was one whose look could be interpreted many
Read moreI’ve covered Hasbro’s noble attempt at online only sales or DTC in my Med Alert entry, so I won’t go throuh the details of that ambitious but unsuccessful program again. That’s not to give the line’s figures short shrift, as there were some real gems in it. Major Bludd was one of the major Joe characters that didn’t get a
Read moreAlso known as General Hawk, this version of the modern Joe team’s commanding officer was released as part of the Direct to Consumer comic packs. This series of packs tried to more closely represent the characters as they appeared on the comic page. As such, General Hawk has his comic look of a blond crew cut, rather than the longer
Read moreDirect To Consumer or DTC, Hasbro’s experiment with selling online directly to the collector market was an ambitious and hopeful idea. From a collector point of view it was great. No more putting up with hunting down product in store after store or ordering from a middleman online. No sir, Hasbro was going to make available an entire line of
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