By KansasBrawler I think every Joe fan out there has that one figure that makes them realize the brand is doing something special. I don’t know what that figure would have been for me in the vintage line, but during the relaunch era it was probably Barrel Roll. That figure was the perfect combination of design and character and it
Read more
By KansasBrawler Part of what made me love the Kre-O line so much was that it referenced just about every facet of the Joe brand’s history. We got some great callbacks to the Adventure Team years, we got Bulletman, and of course we got a lot of A Real American Hero Joes. However, for me, what was even better is
Read more
By KansasBrawler Ninja Force is a pretty controversial part of Joe history. To help offset the losses in market share that the Joe brand was suffering due to the rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (a brand Kirk Bozigian said Hasbro passed on back in the day), Hasbro decided to focus on the ninja thing a bit more and
Read more
By KansasBrawler I don’t know why, but I’ve always been a little fascinated by battle damaged figures. I always wished Hasbro had dabbled in battle damage, especially since they had the B.A.T., which they could damage without making parents uncomfortable since it was a robot. I got my wish with the Defense of Cobra Island set and I was very
Read more
By KansasBrawler I’ve talked before about how much I love the modern versions of Storm Shadow based on the 1988 Storm Shadow. That was my Storm Shadow so any time I see something that references that figure, I have to pick it up. In the 50th Anniversary line, the Classic Clash two-pack gave us a Storm Shadow based on that
Read more
By KansasBrawler During my Joe Con coverage, I mentioned that the loose, complete figures I picked up all had something in common. Major Storm should have been a hint, but here we go—all those characters were featured on the box art of The General. I got ridiculously lucky at my local comic shop and ran into a 99.9% complete General
Read more
By KansasBrawler FSS 3.0 Muskrat is kind of a big deal for me since he’s about the only member of the lineup I wasn’t exposed to as a kid. Yes, I had Battle Corps Muskrat growing up, but that guy is so bizarre, looking back, I don’t know if I ever used him as Muskrat. He was usually a cyborg
Read more
By KansasBrawler Once again, it’s time to review the weakest figure out of a multi-pack. For the Marauders set, that dubious distinction belongs to Spirit. While I appreciate that he’s not just a complete repaint of the Pursuit of Cobra version, I kind of wish he was. I think I would have liked that look a lot better than this
Read more
By KansasBrawler I think my favorite part of the 2000s Joe relaunch was the new uniform the artists at Devil’s Due Publishing designed for Storm Shadow. It was a unique look, but it really worked well for the character and it was honestly a pretty cool design. I was kind of shocked that, considering all the versions of Storm Shadow
Read more
By KansasBrawler I have a relatively complicated relationship with Sci-Fi. He’s one of the few figures my brother had growing up that I really wanted in my collection. For the most part, I preferred Cobras while my brother preferred the Joes, but Sci-Fi really appealed to me for some reason. My gut instinct says that it’s because he was a
Read more