Anyone 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 moreFlint was another figure that I obtained back in the day via a trade with a grade school friend. Unfortunately, I can’t recall what or who I traded to get him. I do know that he was complete initially, but I soon lost his shotgun. Even sans weapon, Flint quickly became one of my favorite Joes, and was in a
Read moreDoc was among the first group of replacements in the Joe comic, and I still remember seeing the commerical one morning before school. I just had to have the Polar Battle Bear afterwards. As wonderful as the toys and comic were, the one-two punch of marketing brilliance in an animated comic book commercial was equally important in getting us little
Read moreRemember the 80’s, when the Real American Hero line was still based in a not-too-distant future military style based on a great deal of cutting edge equipment, like anti-aircraft guns that could be strapped to a soldier’s back? Surely nothing so silly would have been released in Joe’s halcyon decade, right? Well, it was 1987, the same year that Cobra
Read moreA few days ago I wrote about a Cobra figure that looked like an Iron Grenadier but was not. Today, it’s the opposite, an Iron Grenadier that doesn’t look like one. In fact, I’m not really sure what this figure looks like. It is dang weird though. Wild Boar is the strange driver of a strange vehicle, the Razorback. I
Read moreWell, Joe fans, even though the proverbial rug has been pulled out from under us, we mustn’t fret too long. After all, the release of a movie, though it may provide a boost to sales for a bit, is not the fuel of fandom. It’s you and I, getting our GI Joe geek on with old product as well as
Read moreStar Vipers hold the distinction of being surgically altered to be more effective at piloting their spacecraft. I just can’t see the draw in joining Cobra, unless you’re really hard up for a job. Between these guys and the Toxo-Vipers, I can only imagine the EEOC and OSHA issues that are going on in the organization. Maybe that’s why Cobra
Read moreI have a different perspective when looking back on 1988-1990 figures. Those were the years during which I wasn’t collecting, so the years on either side hold different kinds of memories for me and also seem to affect my opinions. The ’82-87 period is most definitely colored by nostalgia, particularly the first four years. 1991 began my adult collecting, and
Read moreAre you a green Clutch fan or a tan Clutch fan? That’s a tough choice. It’s not a question of Kirk vs. Picard, Death Star vs. Enterprise or Elvis vs. Beatles proportions, but still worth consideration in geek circles. While the first version is all about the iconic first 1982 series, the later tan version stands for me as a
Read moreIf you asked ten year old me who my favorite Joe figure was, I probably would have said the name of the latest figure I had gotten. Yeah, even back then I could find something to like about each one. For a while around Christmas 1983, Airborne was my favorite. ’83 was the year that I really got into Joes,
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