I am a sucker for the towed artillery that peppered the early years of the Real American Hero line. These weapons bring a variety to the battlefield beyond tanks and fast-attack wheeled attack vehicles. It’s a shame the trend didn’t continue into the later 80s and 90s. I suppose Hasbro figured cannons just weren’t as interesting as variations on tanks
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Does it get any sweeter than the Polar Battle Bear? I think not. Since 1983, this has been my go-to winter/arctic vehicle. Yes, I even elevate it above the Snow Cat. Why? Well, you can easily amass a fleet of them, and more importantly it’s the only driverless vehicle that I instantly identify with a single-carded figure. Who? My favorite
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One of the great elements of the relaunched Joes of the 80s were the options in lower price points. For a little more dough than what you’d spend on a figure, you could pick up a nice accessory like the SNAKE armor. If Mom and Dad wouldn’t plunk down a tenner for a VAMP, they might just go for an
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The HISS tank! I almost can’t believe I haven’t covered Cobra’s most famous and versatile ground vehicle after lo these almost eight years. It’s cliche to put this forth, but what can you say about this toy? I can think of a few things, and some are no quite sunshine memories and rainbow nostalgia. The HISS was for me, until
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By KansasBrawler Copperhead and I go way back, though strangely, my love of the Water Moccasin is fairly recent. That’s because the Copperhead I knew back in the day was KansasBrother’s Python Patrol version. I thought he was really cool but had I known he was first released with an equally cool vehicle, I would have thought he was even
Read moreHere it is, the first big vehicle of the Real American Hero era. It’s strange to think that this was the high price point item when the line would later produce truly gargantuan items like the Flagg, Terrordrome, Defiant and General. For the fledgling relaunch, the MOBAT was the big toy to have. It may not have the size or
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I hate to sound like a broken record, but here’s another all-time Classic GI Joe accessory/vehicle. Is it really a vehicle? I say yes, anything you strap to your person that allows you to fly about a la Buck Rogers or Commando Cody counts. Technically I guess you become the vehicle, but I’m not one for semantics. The JUMP was
Read moreWhenever I consider my favorite 80s GI Joe vehicles, I have a hard time choosing between the VAMP and the RAM. I’m still torn to this day. Can I pick them both? Oh crap, the JUMP is on that list too–I need three all-time favorites, at the least. Rock ‘n Roll was the riding the cycle in both stories featured
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The HAL is a monster! I’d venture to say it’s the most intimidating bit of stand-alone artillery the Joes have in their arsenal. I know the Rolling Thunder as a portable missile platform is more impressive for long range capability, but this thing just looks mean on the battlefield. Cobra was seriously outgunned in the early days of the toy
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The Joe team’s original surface to air cannon, the FLAK is a smaller, stationary weapon that saw action for several years during the relaunch era. As a toy, it may not be exciting from a modern standpoint in that it doesn’t fire a missile, make a noise or light up. However from a 1982 perspective, the weapon is highly detailed,
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