Dr. Mindbender (25th Anniversary)

by KansasBrawler

I’ve always been a fan of the more sci-fi elements of G.I. Joe. Growing up on the cartoon, that meant an instant affinity for Dr. Mindbender. He looked pretty crazy, but man, he really appealed to my kid brain. Dr. Mindbender was one of the first named Cobras I remember having and I thought he was really cool. From the cape to the mustache and monocle, he looked very distinct compared to the rest of my Cobras. I’m very glad Hasbro was able to get this figure out in the Defense of Cobra Island pack. I was happy when I picked them up at Joe Con back in 2009 and I’m glad the entire set is in my collection even if the intervening years haven’t been terribly kind to most of the figures in the set. There are a lot of memories attached to most of the figures in that set. Plus, Dr. Mindbender being the only named Cobra in that set kind of took me back to my childhood where Dr. Mindbender was my default Cobra leader for a while since I didn’t have any other named Cobras until I added the battle armored Cobra Commander a little later. The 25th Anniversary Dr. Mindbender is far from perfect, but I do like that he’s returned to his original, crazy roots. The Valor Vs. Venom Dr. Mindbender is great, but there’s still something really charming about a mad scientist who’s shirtless and wears metal suspenders.

Dr. Mindbender is your typical 25th Anniversary figure in that there’s some good parts reuse and some bad parts reuse, with a few new pieces thrown in for good measure. For the good, he’s using Tomax’s arms and the Crimson Guard legs. Tomax/Xamot had probably the best set of bare arms Hasbro designed during the 25th Anniversary line. The proportions were good so they looked natural and they were versatile enough that their use on other bare-armed figures wasn’t going to be out of place. The Crimson Guard legs are also a good choice. Dr. Mindbender wore some pretty fancy pants back in the day. While the Crimson Guard legs aren’t as fancy as 1986 Mindbender’s pants and his big funky boots, the general look is still there with rather high boots and a holster on the leg. I do however miss Dr. Mindbender’s armored codpiece. It made the pants looks a bit fancier and kind of helped complete the metal suspender ensemble. Unfortunately, not all of the parts choices were great. Dr. Mindbender uses Gung-Ho’s torso. This piece was dated when it first came out. The sculpting is downright awful. His muscles don’t look like muscles plus he’s lacking nipples. I realize that’s an odd criticism to have, but other bare torsos Hasbro has made had them and really between the lack of nipples and the blocky, unnatural sculpting for his musculature, the two issues really reinforce each other on making the torso look bad. Mindbender’s new pieces do help mitigate some of the torso problems by covering them up, but that Gung-Ho torso is still pretty glaringly awful. Helping to cover his terrible Gung-Ho torso, Mindbender gets a brand new pair of metal suspenders. Hasbro did a great job recreating this classic piece at least in terms of detailing. The details are very sharp and they even went as far as including the Cobra sigil on the back of the suspenders even though it’s going to be hidden by his cape most of the time. Unfortunately, their construction leaves a little to be desired. I’m not quite sure what causes the issue, but the suspenders ride rather high on his shoulders, which makes them look a little unnatural. Add in the fact that they bunch together in the front and they just look a little awkward. Thankfully, his other piece manages to help you hide the awkwardness even more. Dr. Mindbender has a very fancy looking Cobra cape. I’m really glad Hasbro went back to Mindbender’s soft good roots instead of the plastic cape he wore during much of the SpyTroops era. A plastic cape with a neutral sculpt can look a little strange, but so does a permanently wind-swept plastic one. A soft goods cape looks very natural when hanging neutrally, but you can also coax some poses out of it as well. The not-so-good doctor’s new head looks appropriately menacing. That’s not a face you would want to see coming off the battlefield if you were an injured Cobra trooper, not because he’s mad at you, but because it looks like he’s planning on doing something unnatural with your body.

Dr. Mindbender’s signature look is only partly made by sculpting. You also need to have some unusual colors to make him look like his old self. Most of Dr. Mindbenders colors come from the plastic he’s molded out of. The flesh tone looks good…it’s definitely a step above some of the molded skin tones we saw back during the SpyTroops era. The purple for his pants is a nice vibrant shade. The detailing on his boots—like buckles and buttons—get attention from the paint team and really help make Mindbender look like a more complete figure. The black wash on his suspenders is a little heavy, but at the same time, it’s not atrocious, and again, we see buckles getting some paint attention. Mindbender’s head does relatively well on the paint department, but mine did wind up with a little stray black on the side of his head, which is kind of a shame. Paint slop only really bothers me if it’s A) incredibly noticeable or B) on the head and unfortunately for Mindbender, this meets both categories. The black dot really stands out against his skintone and it’s on his head. I understand that not every figure can get a perfect paint job, but it bothers me when it happens and I don’t have the ability to check the figure before I buy it. The Cobra sigil on Mindbender’s cape also looks amazing. The silver is vibrant yet looks relatively durable. Doing details like that on soft goods is always a bit of a risk because they can’t get damaged a bit more easily, but I’ve had Dr. Mindbender for four years now and the sigil is holding up very well. The head scratcher for me is Dr. Mindbender’s gloves. It’s pretty clear they were molded in the flesh tone and then painted black. That just seems like an odd decision to me. I would think that it would be more expensive to do it that way, as opposed to just molding them out of black plastic. Still, Mindbender looks great and they did a very good job replicating his original 1986 look.

Dr. Mindbender was another figure that was always defined by his accessories, and unfortunately, Hasbro didn’t go quite far enough to make Mindbender shine here. I’m pleased they recreated his cape and suspenders, but the rest of his gear winds up getting the short shrift. Back in the day, Mindbender came with a mental probe, a machine that you could connect it to and a pistol. However, the 25th Anniversary Mindbender only got the probe. I’ll admit, Hasbro did a great job recreating it, but I think it loses most of its impact by not having the portable brainwashing machine it attached to. The Crimson Guard legs have a loop on them to hold a large revolver. This would have been a great stand-in for Mindbender’s old pistol and would have given me more reason to like the reuse of the Crimson Guard legs. Unfortunately, the idea of arming Dr. Mindbender also must have fallen by the wayside. While I’m glad he got his mindprobe, it just reminds me that there were more accessories Hasbro needed to recreate to really make Dr. Mindbender work and they opted not to do that. I do wonder whether Mindbender would have gotten all his mind-bending equipment had he been able to see release as an individual figure, but that’s a moot point. As it stands, Mindbender gets enough gear to be Mindbender-esque, but not enough to fully recreate Cobra’s resident mad scientist. The Defense of Cobra Island set was a must-have for me. Between the two of us, my brother and I had all of the figures that were in that set when we were kids and were figures I have fond memories of playing with them growing up. Dr. Mindbender’s inclusion was a natural fit, since he’s a relatively popular, named Cobra character that had yet to be updated. I do wish they would have used the 25th Anniversary Quick Kick torso instead of the dated Gung-Ho torso, but criticisms aside, he definitely looks like the Dr. Mindbender I grew up with and that’s all I could really ask for. The loss of accessories was a bit of a disappointment, but the mindprobe still looks pretty menacing on its own. I’ll have to admit, my portrayal of Mindbender back in the day was heavily influenced by his appearances on the Sunbow cartoon. When you look at the filecard, Dr. Mindbender was a pretty twisted dude. I do wonder if that’s part of why Dr. Mindbender didn’t get attention earlier in the line. Apparently, according to the Bellomo book, whatever Hasbro had originally planned for him was considered “too inappropriate” for a children’s toyline. Even with the changes, that second paragraph is still pretty spooky and the quote about him at the bottom of the filecard isn’t exactly comforting either. Still, I’m very glad to see Dr. Mindbender return to the line. He’s a classic Cobra villain and one that I remember using a lot back in the day, though more as an interrogator with a mean streak thinking back on it than as a “master of mind control.”