By KansasBrawler Sometimes an action figure really just captures your imagination. I don’t know why, but I’ve always really loved jetpacks, and the crazier-looking the better. At Joe Con in 2009, the Hasbro team found a way to make me buy another movie Ripcord figure—by making him into the Desert Battle jetpack trooper. While I wasn’t wild about Marlon Wayans’s
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I was just remembering that I had a Zarana figure as a kid, but not Zandar. Why? Who knows, maybe I just found her look more interesting. Zandar today seems to me to be sort of clownish. Oh well. I was surprised to see her show up in the Kre-O line when she did, although I suppose the limited number
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Shipwreck went from traditional sailor to combat diver in the Battle Corps era, and Hasbro was happy to keep him in that role for his next few iterations. I can’t help but remember the mold being used to create the character Stinky Diver in Action League Now. The Real American Hero Collection paired him up with Sidetrack, and was available
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By YT Storm Shadow was the fourth figure Sideshow released in their GI Joe line. Like a lot of us, Storm Shadow was a favorite of mine as a kid. Overall he is a very faithful reproduction of the ARAH original. Although they did give him long sleeves, I believe to cover the very unattractive arms of their Prometheus body.
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By KansasBrawler Felix “Mercenary” Stratton has always been, hands down, my favorite Renegade. As a kid, I was really captivated by the idea of a guy who defected from Cobra and fought for the Joes instead. That was a unique angle and I liked it from the moment Sergeant Slaughter first introduced use to Mercer during G.I. Joe: The Movie.
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The Collectors’ Club offered up several environmental themed figure sets in 2006-2007. That first year was a sort of odd in-between for the GI Joe figures based on the Real American Hero era, with the end of the online DTC experiment, the continuation of Sigma 6 at retail, and just before the explosion of the 25th Anniversary nostalgia bomb. These
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The original Tripwire actually got a lot of play on my Joe team back in the 80s. It seemed that for a while, no matter what sort of mission I cooked up for my squad, they came across a situation demanding Mr. Skoog’s unique specialty. Now that I think about it, navigating a group of toy soldiers through a minefield
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By KansasBrawler The Original 13 Joes have always had something of a mythical standing in the Joe collecting community. It’s not really a surprise since they were the ones that started it all. However, it’s always kind of baffled me that with as much as people criticized the 25th Anniversary Joe line for parts reuse that the Original 13 are
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The 1980s GI Joe line continued the tradition of compelling package art that began all the way back in 1964. The gritty, realistic paintings of Joe’s original incarnation sold a world of adventure via a cardboard coffin box. The Adventure Team era took things to a bold new level in selling a toy based on box art (what 70s kid
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The Toys R Us exclusive Night Force multipack was an odd duck, particularly in comparison to its 80s predecessor. Re-imagined as a squad clad in darkly patterned uniforms, it was a much more cohesive looking group than the original. It was nice however to see the set appear as an exclusive at the same retailer where it originated. Remember when
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