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 moreIn 1983, Airborne was one of my favorite figures. The sculpt, accessories and colors worked together to create a figure that was so different from my previous team which consisted of Flash, Grunt and Snake-Eyes. When I got Scrap-Iron in ’84, I noticed that certain parts of him looked–familiar. I knew that the first series of Joes looked alike, but
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 moreWhat can I say about Firefly that hasn’t been said before? He’s the ultimate mystery man of Cobra, a saboteur garbed in grey camouflage, his face forever hidden behind his trademark mask. His figure origin dates back to the watershed year of 1984, when all-time Joe classics like Storm Shadow, Baroness and Thunder were unleashed for the first time. Okay
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 moreTextures. They’re not something that I think about often in terms of the RAH toy line. Other than armor, I can’t recall a lot of figures whose uniform reflected some kind of different surfaces among pants, shirts, etc. Early in the line, sculpted details like folds and bloused pants weren’t depicted in much detail, if at all. I’ve wondered if that was
Read moreSo here’s Bazooka in his away jersey. I was never a big fan of either the figure or character back in the day. The figure just didn’t hold much interest for me, and I didn’t care for the cartoon version’s “sack of hammers” persona. I have since come to like both of the figures based on the original mold. I
Read moreLet me tell you about a love affair that’s been going on since 1985. It involves a 3.75 inch plastic ninja commando. It began when I first saw the Revenge of Cobra mini-series. I already had an ’82 Snake-Eyes and it was one of my favorite GI Joe figures. But when I saw his new design in that mini-series,
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