Scarlett was one of the first group of Joes to be released in the 25th anniversary series. She was also among the first few modern style comic packs, alongside a uniquely designed Hawk. While the deco of the main line figure hewed closer to the card art and original 1982 toy, the comic pack version put Scarlett in a much
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The Cobra Officer goes way way back to the beginnings of the relaunched 1980s GI Joe line. Though the differences between it and the Cobra soldier seemed small to me as a kid, I now see how unique that figure appears next to his rank and file comrade. Such was not the case with this officer, available as part of
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By KansasBrawler There are not a lot of figures in my collection that actually make me sad inside. Sometimes, there may be a bad figure, but I can usually find at least one redeeming quality. Unfortunately, 25th Anniversary Lt. Falcon isn’t one of those figures. That’s a big shame because I liked KansasBrother’s 1987 Falcon—so much, in fact, that I
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By KansasBrawler Sometimes, it’s hard to improve on a classic, but other times, a character’s original design isn’t the best. Hawk (then a colonel) was first released in 1982 alongside the rest of his team as the operator of the Mobile Missile System. However, due to a combination of being a vehicle driver and sharing a lot of his look
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Are you an original Destro fan or Iron Grenadiers Destro fan? I find there are elements of both that I enjoy, be it action figure or comic portrayal. The 25th anniversary series focused on this particular mold several times, and the comic interpretation got quite a lot of exposure in just a couple of years. While the other repaints of
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The Desert Assault Squad set was an interesting mix of known and new Cobra troopers. Along with Frankensteined figures, the pack also included two straight remolds of the 25th anniversary style CGs. I’ll admit that I initially found their placement in a desert theme to be out of character for the type, since these guys have not only functioned as
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By KansasBrawler Zap is another figure I have a weirdly complicated relationship with. I wasn’t old enough for the original Zap figure to have been on my radar. The first time I met Zap was in 1991 when he joined the Super Sonic Fighters. The filecard mentioned that he was one of the original Joes and while I didn’t know
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By KansasBrawler Over the years, I’ve become increasingly of two minds about the figures in the Cobra Island sets. The Joes especially haven’t held up well over the years. I was very excited to get everyone in the set, but now, I’m hard-pressed to find one that I’ve kept on display since I moved and needed to downsize my display
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I could say that time has not been kind to some of the 25th anniversary figures, but plenty of these guys looked pretty darned goofy when they first hit the pegs. Funky arms and a pin head (and matching pin head helmet) sink this figure into the disappointment category. At least he was included with some sort of tank, albeit
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By KansasBrawler There are very few figures I’d consider missing from my childhood collection. However, the one glaring omission was the Crimson Guard. I thought that they looked so cool when I first saw them on a cardback but I never saw one at a store. Not having the Crimson Guard as a kid means I’m kind of that the
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