Baroness (2002)

First off, I’m sorry for your having to see this figure. Accept my most sincere apologies and I beg you not to harbor any ill will toward me. I know that looking upon its hideous countenance may forever turn you away from this site, but please, gentle reader, I plead for your mercy. For as the purpose of this blog is to bring to light a new Joe subject each day, I must therefore reach at times into the darkest recesses of the collection.

Consider if you will, the Baroness, one of the most popular characters of the GI Joe brand. Quite an amazing feat, considering that the classic 1984 figure was a female in a marketplace dominated by males. Marketing gurus probably figured little boys wouldn’t play with a small toy woman. Wow, were they ever wrong. Consider the sadness of those little boys, now grown men, when this figure hit shelves in ’02, looking like a cyborg librarian.

In all seriousness, I get the look that the line was going for at the time. The Baroness isn’t the only figure to be stylized to the hilt. Many of the early figures were passed through some kind of anime filter on their journey to the pegs. I don’t know that Hasbro could have lived up to fan expectations anyway, considering this was the first new Baroness mold since 1984. I could beat up on it all day long, but that’s missing the point. Yes, it’s ugly, but I think it’s just a side effect of the style. That’s what I told myself back in ’02 anyway. It helped me sleep at night. The good news is the Baronesss got some vindication with a decent figure later in the decade.

7 comments

  • At least she looks a lot less like Michael Jackson than the ’84 version.

  • Not one single human proportion anywhere on that figure. What a mess. The psychotic librarian look here is wretched.

  • Let’s just say that the new sculpt era tended to favor newer characters over the classics. The head on that Baroness is plain fugly. I’m talking knock-off fugly. Glad they tried to go for the sleek black leather look that Russ Heath gave her for the comic series, but still… a dud is a dud.

  • The short hair was the only good Idea, here.

  • Since they foolishy did away with o-ring in GI JOE vs COBRA, then quickly decided to bring them back…to meet deadlines, this “wave 3” of “new asculpts” was given to Takara to sculpt. So the figures from that wave, Flint, Snow Serpent, Beach-Head, Blowtorch, Baroness, Snake-Eyes and Dr. Mindbender, all have quirks (to put it kindly).

  • What was up with the red highlights in the hair? trying to emulate Scarlett? Forget it, the figure is horrible. Baroness is one of those character I feel they have never gotten right since V1.

  • I kind of like it.

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