When you think of GI Joe, you usually think of epic batttles, bullets (or lasers if you’re watching the cartoon) flying and heroic daring-do. There’s also a part of every military organization (or any organization) that does its job day-in day-out outside of the spotlight and glory. I’m talking about support personnel. For every person in the field, there’s ten
Read moreChuckles is another figure from the 1987 series that’s usually met with derision. Most of the discussion around him seems to centered around his shirt. I’ll agree that at first it’s an odd choice for a Joe to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt. But you’ve got to think that when the designers were thinking up a look for an undercover
Read moreGreg Scott was a brilliant scientist who designed robotic suits. His lab was attacked by Destro, his technology stolen and he was left for dead. And you thought you’ve had bad days at work. So the Joe team finds him and uses his own tech to “rebuild” him. Now he’s a cyborg. I wonder if when they turned him on
Read moreMajor Bludd is definitely one of the seminal Cobra villains. His nature as a mercenary was played up in the comic, but not as much in the cartoon. In the comics he was given a depth of character not possible in a 22 minute toy commercial. While he was heavily involved in the power struggle between Cobra Commander, Destro and
Read moreHave you ever seen a snow ninja? How about a snow ninja who wears a samurai helmet? How about a snow ninja who hails from Hollis, Queens, NY? How about a snow ninja from Hollis, Queens, NY who also wears high top sneakers? Well, you’ve seen it now. This is Bushido, the Ninja Force’s snow ninja. Why does the Joe
Read moreShipwreck is one of those characters that folks seem to love or hate. This is probably mostly due to his portrayal in the Sunbow animated series. He was brash and sarcastic, and marched to his own drummer. This combined with voice actor Neil Ross’ Jack Nicholson imitation put off many fans as he seemed like such an over the top
Read moreThe Pursuit of Cobra line has been a source of both joy and frustration for me. When I first saw the prototypes at the 2009 Joecon in Kansas City, I was excited by the designs that built upon the articulation improvements of the movie line, yet paid homage to classic designs. Overall, the series has been great, and I think
Read moreThe last year of the Joe line was a strange affair. Hasbro tried changing a few thing up a bit, like the card design, but it was ultimately too late. The toy world at that point had moved beyond the small Joes. Hasbro just couldn’t catch lightning in a bottle again, no matter how many concepts and tweaks they tried
Read moreWhoa! What’s going on here? Is this another Funskool figure? No, its Snake Eyes’ irradiated version from the MASS device mini-series DVD pack. In the first GI Joe cartoon mini-series, the Joes were searching for catalytic elements to power their own version of Cobra’s transportation device. One of the elements was highly radioactive. Snake Eyes made an apparent sacrifice to
Read moreSome Joe fans have a love-hate relationship with the team’s First Sergeant. In the cartoon, he was the de-facto leader until Hawk came around in the second season. In the comic, Hawk was the Joe honcho from the beginning, and Duke was a Johnny Come Lately second in command two years into the series run. Since his first figure appearance
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