The Joe formerly known as Shockwave for a time shared a dubious honor with the fan favorite Decepticon of the same name. Both were renamed to the much less threatening and apparently less copyright infringing name Shockblast . Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? I’m not too excited about most of the modern versions of classic Joes, but
Read moreYesterday I covered a modern interpretation of a classic Cobra trooper, one that wasn’t a direct copy of an old figure into the modern aesthetic. Today’s figure goes a different route towards remaking something that came before. The Alley Viper of 1989 was an odd duck, to say the least. Not a bad figure, just incredibly outside of the norm
Read more1986 Vipers are the darlings of vintage army building collectors. I have a few; enough for a squad. I never bought dozens and dozens of them to stand in neat rank and file, even when they were plentiful and cheap. Such is not the case with the Valor vs. Venom Viper mold. I went nuts on buying this figure. Why?
Read moreThere are lesser known GI Joe characters that discussing from time to time seem like breaking new ground. Then there are the big guys that have been major players in the toy line, comics, and cartoons and whose ground has not only been broken, but entire homes, strip malls, and condos have been built upon it. Stalker belongs to the
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I remember when images of the Assault on Cobra Island 7 pack and the FLAK and CLAW pack hit the internet. I had been wondering when Outback, one of my favorite RAH figures, would get his due in the modern style. I thought it could be incredible figure, given the new style’s ability to portray larger body types. I envisioned
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The original Tripwire was one of the first Joes whose accessories impressed me more than the figure. I remember creating a little mine field on the carpet and searching them out using his detector. The mines were soon lost in the carpet, by the way. That was about the extent of my play with him. I don’t think I ever
Read moreImagine piloting a vehicle that puts so much stress on your body that you have out of body experiences. That is the most trippy thing I’ve read on a GI Joe file card. Talk about dangerous and a liability for your air forces. Once again, Cobra pushes the limits of safety for its troops, and puts itself at a combat
Read moreThis isn’t the first time the Joe team has had action figure versions of its “greenshirt” force, a group of generic soldiers that first filled out the ranks among the named characters of the Sunbow animated series. If there was a battle scene, chances are these guys were running around in the background, shooting or running to man a cannon.
Read moreI was disappointed in Zartan’s movie treatment. Although his presence was comparatively brief, I found his characterization a little too far toward the creepy end of the spectrum. He was too much of a sociopathic cold blooded killer. I wonder if the writers were inspired by the X-Men film’s shapechanger, Mystique. Either way, he didn’t have much of the appeal
Read moreMan, has Hasbro been in love with Heavy Duty since his debut or what? Being a recent addition from just two years earlier, he got a spot on the Armor Tech team alongside longtime Joes like Duke, Hawk and Rock N Roll. Considering the color scheme, I would have assumed that he was Stalker, but not so. Then again, a
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