In 1992, the sub-group mania begun the previous year continued, as two new groups appeared on toy shelves, the Drug Elimination Force and Ninja Force. Like the other groups, each one featured both packaging and action features different from the main line releases. The Ninja Force burst on the GI Joe scene with shockingly bright hot pink packaging, “real ninja action” and soft
Read moreSo here’s yet another version of the Joe team’s top sergeant. Duke garners mixed feelings amongst collectors, whether they consider themselves fans of the comic, the cartoon or even just the figures. Some can’t stand him and consider him a usurper of Hawk in the comics. I’ve never really had a big problem with Duke, and I don’t necessarily see his presence
Read more1991, the year I got back into Joe collecting, was also sort of the birth of my adult geekdom. It began for me with the release of Heir to the Empire, the Star Wars novel that appeared to be the sequel story we had never gotten. The sudden appearance of a new Star Wars book was exciting. Did it mean
Read moreEven though 1987 was the last year that I collected Joes as a kid, I still find myself looking back to that year with as many fond memories of the year’s figures as anything from ’82 to ’86. One of my all-time faves (Battle Armor Cobra Commander) was released that year. He was one of the two Joe figures that
Read moreEver happen to pass a wreck on the highway and notice that most everyone going by it has to slow down and gawk out of morbid curiosity? That’s what happened to me when I came across this figure a while back. Absolutely nothing about it works, yet I couldn’t seem to bring myself to pass it up as a subject
Read moreIn the world of toy collecting, there are many expressions and terms that the normal world hasn’t heard in our geeky context. Loose, complete and carded are a few common ones used to describe a toy’s condition, and they make sense once you’ve been indoctrinated into the culture. I won’t even go into the many acronyms that litter the collector
Read moreMercer is an interesting character who’s been sadly underused in the GI Joe comics and cartoons. The idea of a Cobra defector could make for a lot of intriguing story possibilities. He showed up in a few issues of the Devil’s Due comic, the animated movie, and two episodes of the DIC cartoon, and that’s pretty much been it. This
Read moreWhenever the Joes encountered a tech or computer issue back in the day, they generally relied on their communications specialists. First, it was Breaker (and Sparks in the toon), then later Dial-Tone. Short-Fuze, Clutch and Steeler’s out-of-the-blue design and build of a killer satellite in the MASS Device mini-series doesn’t count, by the way–that ridiculous thing was shot down in
Read moreWhat’s the most ridiculous military specialty you’ve heard of for a Joe team member? How about veterinarian? Maybe it’s not ridiculous for the Joe team. After all, somebody’s gotta be around to give Junkyard, Order, Lamont, Sandstorm, Max and Timber their parvo and heartworm shots. Dr. Link Talbot made his debut in the Valor vs. Venom series, the storyline in
Read moreFemale figures don’t sell. It’s a marketing mantra all too familiar to action figure collectors. We don’t like to believe it, but it really is true. As much as we communicate via forums, Twitter and the like, sometimes we mistake the loudness of our online voices for greatness in number. The fact is, those of us who are online are not the
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