The hits keep coming with the Red Lasers Army custom figures. Last year’s mix of army builders and named characters piqued my interest as soon as I saw them. The early ARAH era parts speak to me in a way that takes me right back to 1983. There’s something about the slimmer, less detailed builds of the early Joes that
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I’ve long thought I could tie GI Joe and Visionaries together in a way that goes beyond the figures’ construction style. Now I don’t have to try to make up some sort of half-baked No-Prize explanation connecting the world of Prysmos to the larger Sunbow Cartoonic Universe. That’s my original term, by the way–feel free to use it. Hasbro is
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One day, I’m going to have a big ole GI Joe themed party. Most likely for my birthday, or possibly the birthday of this blog. Ten years sounds good, if (Lord willing) it and I am still around. At said future party, I imagine that I will most certainly acknowledge all eras of GI Joe, from the original military-accurate 1960s
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I’m a catalog nut, and particularly enjoy diorama setups from the golden age ads of the 1980s. I pored over the Sears, Wards and JC Penney catalogs enough to call them up from memory. As such, I’ve been on the lookout for ads that I haven’t seen before. UK department store Argos is of course unknown to me, but I
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By KansasBrawler When Resolute Cobra Commander was first released as a single carded figure, I wasn’t really that interested in him. Sure, he was a bit of a different than the standard Cobra Commander, but unlike Duke, I didn’t feel there enough changes to warrant adding him to my collection. After all, I already had a lot of Cobra Commander
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One of the unique features of the 1960s boxed GI Joe sets were the photo packages. Most were also different from other offerings in that the photos pictured more contemporary subjects than the World War II and Korea era featured on much of the painted packages. I particularly enjoy the juxtaposition of the gritty photo at left with the highly
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Before the days of the Local Comic Shop, my purchases were irregular in terms of titles as well as individual issues. As a kid with limited funds, I was picking up whatever looked interesting on the cover. Being a Marvel Zombie, I was mostly into Spider-Man, the Avengers and X-Men. Of course, GI Joe made the cut as well, and
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I don’t think any figure quite sums up the crazy possibilities (with maybe the exception of Lightning Mobutu) of what’s possible when a knock-off toy maker throws caution to the wind and goes all-out on a ridiculous concept. Witness Condor Strike, a baseball/-themed me-too corollary of 1980s GI Joe, produced years later in the 1990s. The most apt comparison I
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By KansasBrawler Growing up, I never knew about Night Force. I didn’t hear about it until I was in high school and was wandering around the Joe online collecting community for the first time. I’m guessing that was because until probably the early 90s, there were no Toys ‘R’ Us stores anywhere near me so I didn’t see their ads.
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I don’t even remember where or when I found this scan of an Eaton’s catalog GI Joe page (apologies if anyone knows where it originated) but I’m in love with the basic but dramatic lighting effects. Often these dio shots feature realistic skies to match the terrain, but this setup goes for a more evocative tone. There’s also some craziness
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