Zombie Initiative Outback

by KansasBrawler

Every good zombie story needs that one character who is prepared for the zombie outbreak. For the Zombie Initiative, the GIJCC decided to make it be Outback—and I love that choice. As the Joe’s resident survival expert, Outback has the requisite skills to survive a full-on zombie apocalypse and while that’s not quite what happened in the Zombie Initiative convention comic, he’s still a great fit for the theme. I see a lot of influences from modern zombie fiction here on Outback and he’s definitely the most zombie movie-inspired member of the Zombie Hunter team.

Joe Con sets are always defined by great part reuse. All of Outback’s parts come from Pursuit of Cobra figures and everything comes together really well to make an effective, albeit slightly different take on Outback. From his neck to his knees, Outback uses Recondo parts. The neck hunch has been fixed and it gives Outback an appropriate amount of bulk. I’ve always thought he should be a bit bigger of a guy. While I don’t see Outback as a guy who lives at the gym, I can also see that just from spending his time in the wilderness honing his survival skills that he will be in a bit better shape than even the average Joe. I like the thigh armor for Outback. I can see him wanting a little extra protection from zombies and it can serve double duty protecting his legs from injury in the field. My only real problem is that I don’t think Recondo’s lower arms fit well with the theme of the set. While I like the wraps, I really don’t like the darts on his left arm. It worked in the context of Recondo, but there’s no less-than lethal
option for dealing with zombies. E.C.O. Force has worked up a cure to Compound Z, but the Zombie Hunter team’s mission was more about raiding the Cobra facility creating them. Curing Toxo-Zombies isn’t a priority on that mission. It’s a search and destroy mission, pure and simple. I wish there had been a way that they could have put the generic wraps on both arms. I think it would have worked a little better that way. Over the Recondo torso, Outback gets to wear the vest that Pursuit of Cobra Zartan’s had as part of his Sandstorm disguise. That’s a good call. Looking at the images of both Outback and Recondo on YoJoe, the torso looks okay without a vest, but it really looks much better with one. The Sandstorm vest is a great call. It’s got a great survival vibe, with a neckerchief, a hood, a satchel, and a canteen all built in to the piece. It’s definitely something I can see being very useful for a guy who spends a lot of time away from the base, foraging for his food and possibly equipment. Outback’s lower legs and knees come from Jungle Assault Duke. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure how well these parts would mesh with Outback’s slightly bulkier upper legs when I first saw images of the figure, but once I had the figure in hand, they really do work well together. That said, I do wish Outback had the cuffs of his pants tucked into his boots. If there’s one Joe that’s going to do that all the time, it’s going to be the survival expert who spends most of him time out in the field where you don’t want your pants picking up hitchhikers or catching on brush and leaving traces of your presence. Topping off the mold is Pursuit of Cobra Snow Job’s head. Apparently, Hasbro was looking at making a zombie-hunter Outback at one point in the modern line (which is what inspired the GIJCC’s figure) but they were going to do a new head with a backwards baseball cap. While parts of me would have loved to have seen what the guys at Boss Fight Studio would have been able to do with this idea, but I think Snow Job’s head works well enough. It’s not as good as it could have been, but I can still sort of see Outback in the head sculpt. I like Outback wearing a knit cap and thermal vision goggles. My only complaint is that I don’t know why Outback would be wearing ear protectors while hunting zombies. Yes, as someone who likes to go out to the range, I understand the desire to protect your hearing, but in a zombie-hunting scenario, having heavy-duty ear protection on would be more of a danger than the risk to your hearing caused by shooting without ear protection. You’d want to be able to hear the zombies approaching. That said, it’s a good look, and Snow Job’s slightly bushier beard works well for Outback and I can kind of see this as a version of Outback who’s been out living off the land in the wake of a zombie apocalypse a bit longer and has been unable to shave in a while. Though I do wish the GIJCC could have gone with the slightly more unique design that Hasbro came up with at least in concept art, the Snow Job head makes a decent enough stand-in that I think the look works well.

While the parts selection is great, it’s the paintwork that really helps sell this as Outback to me. Outback has pretty consistently worn a white shirt and green pants. That’s exactly what he’s wearing here at its most basic. The forearm wraps and neckerchief are also green. While white might not be an idea color for forest survival, his shirt is mostly covered by his dark gray vest. It provides some necessary darkening on the figure. The gray paint for his thigh armor is a similar color to his vest molded in gray and his knit cap is also gray. The look comes together very well, though I am a little unsure about the brown on his shirt. Is it supposed to be camouflage or is it mud? If it’s camouflage, it’s not that uniformly applied, but if it’s mud, I think they made a bad call by not also weathering his pants a bit. I see it as mud, personally, but that unfortunately means I find myself wishing his pants had some stains on them as well. The red and orange on his head sculpt are very well-applied though the orange does look a bit too thick. When the head was used for Snow Job, the hair details for his beard seemed sharper. Here they feel just a little muted. Despite my minor gripes, though, this is a very well-painted figure and once again I have to praise the GIJCC’s paint team for doing such an excellent job on him.

I find myself a bit of two minds on Outback’s gear. While I find it great, I find his backpack to be just a bit disappointing because mine doesn’t hold the gear as well as it should from photos of Outback I’ve seen around the Internet. I’ve improvised some good solutions and he can carry everything on him, but I was kind of annoyed when I first got him out of the box and had to spend a lot of time fiddling with his gear to get him to carry it well. The Pursuit of Cobra Snow Job backpack is a great piece, but I also had to fiddle a lot to get it to work with the vest. I’m not sure if this was a common problem or not, but it did negatively impact my enjoyment. Heck, for the first couple weeks I had the figure, the backpack was sitting at his feet because I couldn’t get it on there. It was only after about 10 minutes of work that I could finally get the backpack post, the vest’s hole and Outback’s backpack hole to line up properly. It was honestly pretty annoying. However, once I got it on, I was really willing to forgive the annoyance because it looks really good on his back. It’s a great piece and I love the built in antenna for his satellite phone and a place to carrying his water can. There’s also a rack that can carry equipment, but it doesn’t really hold the equipment he came with that well. It worked great for Snow Job’s skis and ski poles, but I had a devil of a time getting much of anything to stay hooked on there. I did eventually get everything on there, but it took a lot more fiddling than I was led to believe it would from other reviews and photos. For firearms, Outback gets Pursuit of Cobra Recondo’s rifle and the shotgun that came with Retaliation Joe Colton. These are both great pieces. I can see Outback using the rifle either for hunting game or eliminating zombies at long range. It’s something that’s useful both as a zombie hunter and a survivalist. His shotgun is great to have at closer quarters since, if zombie movies have taught us nothing else, it’s that shotguns are absolutely devastating to zombies at close range. My only real complaint is that E.C.O. Force Flint from the Zombie Initiative set also has this shotgun. I kind of wish they would have given him a different shotgun just so I didn’t have two people armed with the same primary weapon. The shotgun they used with 25th Anniversary Falcon would have been a great alternate shotgun and it’s not a piece we’ve seen a lot of since its initial 25th Anniversary use. That being said, though, it’s a pretty minor gripe when my only complaint about his firearms is that we’re seeing the same great mold twice in the same set. For bladed weapons, Outback has three different options for silent work. Starting off with what he shares with Recondo, he’s carrying one of Recondo’s axes. I can see him using this to help in constructing makeshift barricades or shelters, but it’s also a great weapon of last resort, being able to smash in a zombie’s skull with a relatively heavy axe blade. His machete and knife both come from Pursuit of Cobra Shadow Tracker. I can see the machete being very useful, again as a tool to cut through brush and as a way to quietly dispatch a lone zombie shambling around. However, I’m not 100% sold on the use of the notched knife. The piece looks really cool, but I’m not sure how practical it would be in dealing with zombies. The axe and the machete both have a hefty feel to them and that they’d have enough force behind them to split skulls and destroy brains, but the knife seems like something more useful in dispatching a living target than an undead one.

Outback was the member of the Zombie Hunter team I thought had the potential to be the strongest and happily, he really lived up to it. I can see this version of Outback both in the capacity that he was used in the comic book, as part of a rescue team assisting the Steel Brigade in taking out the Cobra Compound Z facility, but I can also see him in a bit more of a post-apocalyptic setting. If there’s any Joe that’s likely to wind up out in the cold but still alive in the wake of a major Cobra biological attack, it would be Outback. He has the skills and equipment to survive in even the most difficult of situations, including the aftermath of a zombie attack. Outback is so committed to the fight against Cobra that he’ll keep working against them to the very end, even if Cobra itself isn’t around, but their zombies still are. I’ve said before that I love figures who, just by looking at them, give me a wide variety of ideas for adventures. Outback’s definitely got that in spades and I love him for that. The figure is excellent, and his equipment is perfect for him. He’s definitely the strongest member of the Zombie Hunters team and though initially parts of me were hoping the set would be pure E.C.O. Warriors versus zombies, I think the Zombie Hunter team is a great addition and Outback is the perfect man to lead the squad.