Rock Trooper Guile (1994)

When I started this blog, I wanted to keep things wide open in terms of what I’d talk about. Sure, the main Joe lines have enough figures that I’ll probably burn out on this before even coming close to running out of subjects. I also didn’t want to ignore the effect that the success the 3 3/4″ Joes have had on Hasbro and other toy companies eager to try to duplicate it with other lines. Today it’s a spin-off of sorts, not in terms of story or characters, but based purely on molds. It’s Col. Guile, from the Street Fighter movie line.

The Street Fighter video game line was a spin off of the Joe line released in 1993, and the packaging even featured the Joe logo–well, it was on there, albeit small. One year later,when the Street Fighter movie was released, Hasbro also put out a series of movie-based figures. These were not associated with GI Joe in name, however they did continue to use Joe parts. Judging by his package description, Colonel Guile here is a first-class UN peacekeeper/world traveler/ass-kicker. He’ll track down terrorists wherever they hide. And if they’re hiding in foliage that is green, red and blue this is the perfect outfit to wear to catch them unawares.

The body here is completely based on the 1991 Dusty figure, along with a newly sculpted likeness of the Muscles From Brussels, Jean-Claude Van Damme. The resemblance is pretty good; I can actually tell this is supposed to be Van Damme. Hasbro did a wonderful job of capturing the actor’s single expression of blank indifference. And this was years before the technology existed to allow Hasbro’s sculptors to capture all the subtle character nuances of actor Channing Tatum in their 2009 GI Joe movie Duke figures.