Iron Anvil (2005)
With Joecon nearly upon us, and the announcement of this year’s enemy force as the Iron Grenadiers, I was reminded of a past year’s set, and its wonderful new troopers, the Iron Anvils.
I’ll be honest, I was not much of a fan of Destro’s private army in the past, mostly due to the fact that it debuted during the time I was away from Joe collecting. Although, I do remember thumbing through the Toys R Us Sunday paper circular from time to time, checking out the pictures of recent toys. Most of it looked interesting, if strange. It wasn’t until I returned to collecting that I even looked into the Grenadiers, and later that I read deeper into the Marvel comics run to check them out.
By the time of the 2005 convention, I was kooking forward to a new addition to Destro’s troops. The Iron Anvils did not disappoint. The figure hits the mark with me in a couple of key areas. Most impressively, the mold. This is one of my favorite reuses of a vintage o-ring figure. The 1994 Viper mold on which it was based was a victim of a lackluster color scheme, and a shortage of paint apps that didn’t take full advantage of its sculpted details. The collectors club went all out, picking out bits of the mold previously hidden among solid color.
The working parachutes are another great plus for me. The club regularly does its parachute drop figures, but this is a first to include several of them in the actual con set. Imagine taking your con figures out in the backyard and tossing them into the air, parachutes deployed! Yeah, I don’t think so. But hey, the chutes are red foil with the Destro logo–too cool. Finally the weapon choice is pretty nice. I’ve always liked the Annihilator submachine gun, and the inclusion of the 1994 Viper’s jagged dagger is great.
The dagger was a reuse of the one that came with the 1988 Hydro-Viper.
Which reminds me, speaking of club exclusives–looks like the planned Eel-colored Hydro-viper set, o-ringed Cobra Divers, and Moray-colored Hydro-sleds were cancelled, I take it?
Pics don’t do this figure justice. It is really nice in person. And, unlike so many con figs, this is criminally cheap these days.
The year 1988 rekindled my interest in Joes mostly due to the line’s brief return to its military roots. (Lots of new characters wearing awesome camouflages and more realistic vehicles such as the Desert Fox and Warthog.) One of the highlights was Destro breaking away from Cobra and the introduction of his Iron Grenadiers. I’ve always preferred their red/black/gold color scheme, used here on the otherwise forgettable ’94 Viper. Bringing out the details certainly worked wonders for this figure.
Great figure!
My brother used to give me so much grief because the 1994 Viper was one of the last figured I bought as the line was dying and I absolutely loved it. But he just couldn’t see passed the purple and orange. I know it’s a bizarre color combination but the paint job the Collectors’ Club did on it to make it into an Iron Anvil just goes to show how much good stuff there was in that mold that was just never realized because of its terrible original colors.
It would be nice to have the Iron Anvil appear in GI Joe art or in the comics. The figures background is quite interesting and the brief description of the suits technology can be used to highlight the character (dropping out of helicopters without parashoot and engaging in hand to hand combat.