By KansasBrawler I love when new characters are introduced into the Joe brand. While Rise of Cobra was mostly about reinterpreting classic characters into a new aesthetic, the last wave of figures brought in some brand new characters. Though they weren’t all gems, from the moment I saw Night Adder I was hooked. Cobra’s never had a dog handler and
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By Past Nastification As a non-golfer, I had no reference for the name “Rip It”. Once I understood that it was a golf term, my bewilderment turned to amusement. The filecard explains how Rip It learned golf as a means of understanding terrain, so it’s a good way to link what could have been a silly name to a figure.
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By KansasBrawler Ninjas have always been a rather controversial element in Joe history. Personally, I have no problems with them. Storm Shadow was established as a ninja from day one and shifting Snake Eyes over to the ninja category makes sense from a certain standpoint. However, during the 90s, the ninja ranks of both the Joe and Cobra teams expanded
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By Past Nastification Unlike his teammate GI Jane, a recently reviewed figure, GI Joe got an action figure in 1:18 scale during the initial ARAH run. I’ll be referring to this figure and the character as “General Colton” for this review, not GI Joe, as to avoid confusion with the toy line as a whole. As the Hasbro/Marvel timeline would
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By KansasBrawler I know many Joe fans consider 1989 the best year for Joes, but as someone who was born just a little later, I have a lot stronger memories of the 1990 assortment. Yes, there were a lot of rehashed specialties but as someone who wasn’t old enough to be with the Joe line since 1982, Freefall was my
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By KansasBrawler I’ll be the first to admit that the 25th Anniversary line had its problems. However, if there was one thing it handled well, it was character diversity. Yes, there were a lot of Dukes, Snake Eyeses and Cobra Commanders, but Hasbro also tapped the back bench of the Joe team pretty often. One of the earliest examples of
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By Past Nastification Released at the tail end of the New Sculpt era, GI Jane utilized the Bombstrike body. It was the best female body, or at least tied with Cover Girl, from that era. This was the second and last use of the body, which is a shame. It would have nice to have seen this recolored several times
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By KansasBrawler Having already reviewed the Retaliation Ultimate Cobra Commander, this figure is a lot tougher to like. However, I still have to applaud at the good work Hasbro did with the first 25th Anniversary Cobra Commander figure. Yes, I got extremely tired of seeing this mold by the end of the 25th Anniversary line, but there are a surprisingly
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By KansasBrawler Growing up, I never had the original Snow Serpent, but ever since I got back into G.I. Joe in high school during the relatively early days of the Internet, I’ve always been strangely obsessed with the original version. It was impressively well-detailed. I liked the look so much, I instantly snapped up the Joe Vs. Cobra version and
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By Past Nastification The label “fortress” appears nowhere on the box, but it feels like the right word. The fortress was the anchor piece of the playset in which the previously-reviewed Imitation Vamp was also included. Released as part of the “Heroes Playset” and found at Family Dollar, the fortress is a mess. A wonderful, adorable mess that is impossible
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