Feast your eyes upon the gloriousness that is Enemy Leader, a part of also-ran American (and National) Defense’s Demon Enemy line, and also released in the similarly packaged Commando Ranger (and Demon Ranger) line as “The Killer.” Whatever moniker you choose, isn’t this the most beautifully realized four inches of plastic that have ever been popped out of a steel
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When did Nintendo’s Mario join the Joes? In all seriousness, figures like Slip-Stream amaze me because the face is not an idealized, chiseled image of an idealized male, but more of an everyman. It’s something that the small Joe line has done since the beginning. Just look at Grunt from the first series. Not an attractive guy. Sure, the team
Read moreShort-Fuze is one of those original Joes who never really got his.moment in the sun. He was pretty quickly relegated to history after the first series of figures, and never received a revival in later years like Hawk or Grunt. The closest he came was with Downtown, another blonde mortarman, who could have easily been given the name (and actually
Read moreSometimes character variants seem like quick cash grabs or simple excuses to keep main characters on the pegs. These days, Snake Eyes, Duke and Storm Shadow make regular appearances in each new series. Back in the 80’s, Cobra Commander wouldn’t get a new figure on the shelves until 1987. However, this mail-in was available three years before. Unlike other early
Read moreIf the Joes got their top pilot in 1983 with Ace, Cobra followed suit the next year with Wild Weasel. The two even had a very memorable dogfight in the pages of the Marvel comic. However, that’s not my first memory of him. I first recall seeing him in Marvel issue 25 during the swamp battle with Zartan. Seeing a
Read moreTalk about a turnaround on a figure. The first Deep Six was a toy with a fun action element, but was also essentially a brick with moving arms. This one finally gets the Joes’ deep diver into the traditional articulation style, but not without one disappointment–the helmet. While the first Deep Six was outfitted in a bulky pressure suit that
Read moreI first got into GI Joes when the toys had shrunk down to become the Real American Hero of the 1980’s. I didn’t have much knowledge of or exposure to the Joes that had come before. A neighbor had a few Adventure Team figures and the AT HQ, but I had no idea what they were at the time (being
Read moreI only have memories of a few of the 1987 vehicles. I stopped buying Joes early that year, and the only ’87 vehicle I picked up was the Sky Sweeper. Yeah, not the best choice of a vehicle to go out of the line. I did look through the year’s catalog, and thought that the Cobra Sea Ray looked interesting.
Read moreI can’t lie, I think this is Airman John, the pilot character in Remco’s GI Joe wannabe, American Defense, but I can’t be sure. The mold was repurposed many times for the line and its offshoots. Just off the top of my head, Remco also produced US Forces, American Force and US Military using the same group of molds. There
Read moreThe battlefield accessory concept was another brilliant piece of marketing for the Real American Hero line. For a small price point you could provide your troops with an added element of play. While the cannon, machine gun and missile unit sets were cool additions to my arsenal, I particularly enjoyed the small base type emplacements. The Cobra bunker is somewhat
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