From the ridiculous to the sublime. Yesterday’s convention exclusive was an odd concept with a crazed color palette. Tonight, it’s a prime example of the effective repainting of an originally disappointing figure. To me, the first version of Gristle holds a certain distinction for being an example of the end of the first generation Real American Hero years. 1993 and
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By KansasBrawler Retaliation really fleshed out the concept of a G.I. Joe team. While I like the idea of a Joe team being nothing but named operatives, a military group can’t realistically work like that. I’m all for nameless, faceless Joe troopers. While they had those in Rise of Cobra as well, they didn’t fit in with their named counterparts.
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By KansasBrawler I’ve mentioned before how much I love it when new characters are added to the Joe line. I enjoy getting to meet a new character for the first time and learn his or her story far more than I like getting new interpretations on characters I already know. Sometimes new versions of old characters are necessary, but my
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Well, it was worth the wait. Modern Joe collectors have been waiting (patiently?) for an upgraded Gung Ho for quite a few years. When the concept case version surfaced at JoeCon few years back, many were wondering just how and when Hasbro would get the figure to us. During last year’s 50th Anniversary Toys R Us line, we saw other
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By Acer In 1994, 3.75″ G.I. Joe was on the way out, but Hasbro/Kenner sought to give many of the figure molds purpose in their upcoming lines based on the movie adaptations of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. In the case of the Street Fighter line, probably because of the then-popularity of the movie’s star Jean-Claude Van Damme, the toymaker
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Poor Robert Graves. He started his career in 1982 as the “face” of GI Joe on many of the re-branded toy’s products, but since the modern era began, he’s been relegated to the realm exclusive toys. From the 25th anniversary to today, he’s been left out of the wide release single carded figure assortments. I guess Hasbro thinks he’s just
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The original Sky Hawk is by no means a bad toy, in fact it was my go-to small size Joe vehicle after I got it back in the 80s. I think I was mostly enamored of it by its presence in the opening battle of the Revenge of Cobra mini-series. Next to the Star Wars Snowspeeder, it was one of
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Thanks to the wondrous Internet Archive, we can all play hundreds of emulated classic video games online. We can even embed them on goofy blogs like mine–oh, and into tweets too! We’re living in an age of an embarrassment of riches when it comes to on-demand time wasting. Isn’t it glorious? GI Joe saw a game released for the Atari
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By Hit & Run G.I. Joe: The Movie was first released in 1987, while intended to hit theaters in 1986, production errors held the movie up and due to poor tickets sales of Transformers: The Movie and My Little Pony: The Movie, the film was sent direct to video and first appeared as a TV movie special. Channel 11 WPIX
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In 1993, the Street Fighter II video game characters made their way into the 3 & 3/4 inch o-ring format (and were officially part of the GI Joe line thanks to a tiny logo on the packaging). The fighting figures also appeared in the revamped twelve inch Hall of Fame format. While the idea of these characters inhabiting the world
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