Repeater (1989 Night Force)
So you’re an ’82-86 fan. You’ve heard the conventional wisdom that post-’86 figures just got too colorful and lost too much of Joe’s military look. Now you’re looking for a post-86 Joe to debunk the idea. Well, look no further than the Toys R Us exclusive Night Force sub-set of ’88-89. According to the packaging:
“NIGHT FORCE is a covert team specializing in nightime surveillance and defensive operations. Missions conducted in the darkness have special problems, which the NIGHT FORCE squad has overcome with enhanced skills, sophisticated hardware and advanced technology. They use the element of surprise to vanquish the enemy, striking under cover of darkness and disappearing into the night, mission accomplished!”
The series took previously released figures and gave them muted, darker color schemes. There were dark browns, greens, greys, blues and even black mixed into the set. Some fairly colorful characters like Sneak Peek, Crazylegs and Psyche-Out finally got some decent outfits in the set. Heck, even Lightfoot was finally able to venture outside without embarrassment in his new Night Force attire.
The most interesting aspect of Repeater is I suppose his steadi-cam machine gun. I know it’s cool and a crib from the marines’ weapons in Aliens, but I still don’t quite understand its use. Hey, this is GI Joe–you gotta just roll with the unexplained stuff sometimes, or you’ll go nuts.
His arm’s sure gotta hurt at the end of the day. Actually, Repeater is one of my favorites from 1988, a year where nearly every figure turned out a winner. I like his portrayal in the comics as Larry Hama put him to good use during several missions. My only gripe with the NF releases is the lack of paint details overall but they’re still a neat concept which enjoys a lot of fan support to this day.
Why every Repeater I see (and the one I have) has the right foot bigger then the left? 🙂
I like the original Repeater just as much, if not more than this version.
I only had two NF toy growing up, Outback and Crazy Legs, which were both improvements over the originals. I agree the lack of paint details is disappointing, and the cost these exclusives go for means I’ll probably never obtain them.
Nice group, but I’ve felt Night Force are overvalued on the aftermarket. Toys R Us was a big retailer in the 80’s and these were readily available back then, might’ve had a higher production run that some mainline releases now.