Carcass is a perfect fit into the whacked-out end of the Real American Hero era, coming from the second series of Star Brigade, in which the fiction suddenly included interstellar travel and an alien empire. The figure design itself, which recalls something I think I may have doodled in the margins of my third grade English workbook, crosses an alligator
Read moreI thought in honor of Father’s Day, I’d cover a figure that’s not only the father of all subsequent GI Joe figures, but also the father of all toys that could be considered “action figures”. I don’t pretend to know 1/100th of what’s known of the history of the original GI Joe, but that doesn’t keep me from appreciating its
Read moreWhile I wasn’t the biggest fan of the 25th anniversary line, with its hit and miss updates of vintage figures, I did find a few figures that really struck my fancy. Most of the figures I enjoyed were either new characters or designs that hadn’t been a part of the RAH line. The rehashing of old figures into new articulation
Read moreAs much as I liked the Pursuit of Cobra line, I found its versions of Cobra Commander to be lacking. The Pursuit of Cobra relied too much on the movie look, which didn’t work for me; even the third wave version’s addition of the classic helmet didn’t impress. In fact, I haven’t found a Commander figure that has really struck me since
Read moreWhen I first saw pictures of the Retaliation Cobra Trooper, I thought, hey, looks like the Joe line is getting back some color, albeit electric blue. The design doesn’t follow what we’ve seen of the movie troopers in trailers and pictures. They seem to be outfitted in an urban camo and black helmets, resembling a paramilitary security force more than
Read moreAnyone up for an intense baseball analogy today? No? Well, too bad, because here’s Hardball, the Joe team’s grenadier. The baseball references are so thick here, its hard to see much else in the midst of them. He’s wearing a jersey and cap. Fine, no big deal. His name sounds suspiciously similar to that of the supposed inventor of baseball.
Read moreTo make it easier to find, as it’ll be forced way down the page in a few days, the podcast special has been linked on the Features page. Hooray for shameless self promotion!
Read moreDuring the Joe A Day podcast special, one of the readers brought up last year’s Nice Pants theme week. While I’m not quite ready to dig up that old chestnut, I was drawn hypnotically to another movie figure’s dungarees while sifting through my storage bins. Sgt. Stone made a controversial appearance (to me, at least) in the Rise of Cobra.
Read moreFor me, if there’s a posterboy for goofball Joes, it’s this version of Muskrat. Yeah, I know there’s the cult of Crystal Ball, and even the Esoteric Order of Big Brawler, but those guys are also fringe weirdos for other reasons. Musky here is an everyman’s fool. The poor guy just looks damn goofy, and it’s not purely due to
Read more1985’s Airtight was the first figure I posted one year ago. He represented for me the strangeness that’s been a part of the small GI Joe line since early on in the Real American Hero line. While some have decried the use of bright colors near the end of the RAH run, I still posit that electric hues on Joe
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