Mummies and GI Joe go way back–all the way to the 70s. As a kid just barely aware of the large scale Joes that predated my childhood Real American Heros, I was somehow aware of the original search for the mummy set. Maybe it was the Peter Pan book and record. As an adult collector, I think that set perfectly
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If there’s one thing that the ARAH line got right from the get-go, it was the figures’ packaging. From the bold design elements to the focus on the specialty and personality of each character, the success story of the marketing arm of the series was laid. While the figures themselves improved from year to year in those first few assortments,
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Female figures don’t sell. That’s the inside story action figure collectors have heard for years which supposedly accounted for the boys’ toys industry’s lack of ladies among the males in the toy aisles. Of course, things are somewhat different now, with prominent female characters marketed within brands like Star Wars, Marvel, DC and others. Kudos by the way to DC
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Some figures sell themselves based on concept, others need a boost from their packaging. Buzzer didn’t need any help to snare me back in the day, although I will say the in-your-face chainsaw helped steer me a bit toward his favor over the other ‘Noks that day. The unique feature to the packaging art here is the presence of a
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It’s Jack Kirby’s 100th birthday, and I wouldn’t be a good geek if I didn’t pay tribute. Although the man didn’t contribute to the GI Joe brand, he did some work on Mattel’s Adventure Team-styled competitor Big Jim. While the Big Jim concept was interesting and the toys decent, things had to be shaken up a bit in light of
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Sci-Fi was a worthy update to Flash, although I still have a soft spot for the original laser rifle trooper. I had no problem with the character’s bright uniform, and I absolutely loved this package art. It strikes you immediately and really sells the specialty. For a Star Wars kid, it was a no-brainer pick.
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I have a lot of fun playing a bit of clean-up with card art images. The Adventure Team sets didn’t often offer a lot of real estate to show off product paintings, but the carded outfits gave up a little more package width to showcase the set. The paintings were often evocative, and certainly helped to fire one’s imagination. This
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As a kid, the MP figures were some of my favorites. Both Mutt & Junkyard and Law & Order saw lots of use in my Joe team. The animal companion concept was a unique feature of the 80s line, and the dogs in particular were great. Junkyard and Order were quite formidable fighters in my Joeverse. While 1987 had more
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GI Joe’s reliance on new editions of the big names like Duke and Snake Eyes can get a little tiresome. While Duke can be given any number of outfits, Snakes is more limited to black and well, black. At times, his limited wardrobe changes from media are mined for subject matter. This one hails from issue 2 of the Marvel
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I can’t believe I’ve been so remiss to not yet share the card art for Snow Job. He’s one of my (many) faves from 1983, and one of the reasons why I got hooked on Joes that year. I don’t think I need to do much more gabbing at this point; I’ll just let the images speak for themselves. Although
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