By KansasBrawler While some folks may not have liked the movie, the Rise of Cobra line was very effective at what it did—getting screen-accurate action figures out quite quickly. However, some of my favorite pieces were the repaints. Without even trying, I amassed a pretty impressive army of Neo-Vipers and I’m fine with that. I really liked the movie’s take
Read moreBy 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 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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The relaunch era vehicles for the most part don’t get much attention or respect. Only a few garner the kind of good will associated with the 80s and 90s toys. Much of the output doesn’t appeal to a collector’s sensibilities, and aspects like scale, realism and fit/finish skew toward a younger demographic than we’re accustomed to. Early 2000s vehicles like
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By KansasBrawler I don’t have any childhood memories of Night Vulture. Truthfully, I don’t recall seeing any of the Air Commandos figures on the pegs when I was a kid. However, I definitely remember a scene out of a diostory that I can’t find online anymore (if anyone else remembers the sequence I’m about to describe, please let me know
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Wrapping up the SDCC version of the Danger at the Docks set, here’s the Cobra Night Raft. If you’re a vintage 80s Joe fan, you’ll remember this vehicle as famously featuring Firefly on its packaging. I don’t think there’s a more iconic pairing of figure and vehicle from the era. Here, the raft is matched up with the Cobra Eel.
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By KansasBrawler I’ve never been much of an army-builder. I’ve never really seen the point of assembling large quantities of identical looking figures. Intellectually, I understand the appeal…there have been some great shots in Joe dio-stories of massive groups of all the Cobra specialties being addressed by Cobra Commander before his big scheme takes off. Rob’s army-building post from a
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By KansasBrawler This figure is kind of a tough nut for me to crack. I don’t normally fall in line with parts of the Joe fandom that think X figure is unnecessary and has taken the spot of someone better, but I really don’t know what to make of the Ice Ninja Night Creeper the GIJCC did in FSS 4.
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By KansasBrawler I know some of the choices made in Rise of Cobra were pretty contentious. I didn’t love everything Hasbro and Paramount did either, however, I thought that, on balance, there was more good than bad there. One of the best decisions I think they made was tapping the Cobra Neo-Viper as the primary Cobra foot soldier. I have
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By KansasBrawler By my nearest estimation, I must have seen G.I. Joe: The Movie for the first time sometime in either 1989 or 1990 on the USA Network during their afternoon block of cartoons. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with Cobra-La. I don’t consider many figures “missing” from my childhood collection, but I remember being disappointed as a kid that
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