Joe Toys That Could Have Been: MASS Device Figures Part 3

By Past Nastification 

Finishing up the figures that could have been generated from the iconic first GI Joe animated mini-series. There are some great ones in this group. Stay tuned for playsets coming soon!

Cobra Space Trooper: Lazy Sunbow gave Star Wars’ Stormtroopers new helmets and slightly different colors and hoped no one would notice.  I noticed, but I’d be happy to see these figures made.  

Civilians: The Joes have to save someone… as in everyone.  In the early 80’s Fisher-Price Adventure People, various Mego lines, and a few human Star Wars figures provided civilians for the Joes to protect and for Cobra to terrorize.  Maybe Hasbro could go ahead and make a generic pack of butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers?  

Cobra Snakebot: Bigger than the SNAKES, which the Joes fought in the radioactive mine, the Cobra Snakebots would be around 15ft tall.  Plus a long pink tongue!  

Airborne: Animated Airborne looking almost nothing like his fatigue-clad action figure.  Decked out in a turquoise jump suit with brass bracelets, the weirdness alone justifies a figure.

Torpedo on Land: Torpedo was the Joes’ first SEAL, of which the L stands for Land.  But when on land, the action figure’s wetsuit design was out-of-place.  Sunbow threw him in blue trousers and a white t-shirt.  To Sunbow’s credit, the trousers actually look like the ones worn by the OG13.  

Cover Girl: Hasbro’s ’83 Cover Girl had short auburn hair with a brown upper half and a tan lower half.  Sunbow initially gave her long blonde hair with an olive uniform.  Both designs are pretty good, with Sunbow’s being good enough to deserve production.  

Pidge: Before becoming the pilot of Voltron’s Green Lion, Pidge apparently hung out with Duke when they were teenagers.  We saw him in a memory projection.  Do we really need an action figure of the dork that Duke protected?  No, but creating figures outside of the 20-50 age range in which most action figures seem to exist is overdue.  Throw in some old folks, too, Hasbro.

6 comments

  • Airborne looks suspiciously like StarDuster in that photo.

    The space Cobras look like they’re wearing Effects’ helmet. But, they would have made much better Astro Vipers.

    • You’re right, that’s exactly who Airborne looks like in that photo. And now that I’m thinking about Starduster, why was his figure given a black visor, instead of a clear one. In my opinion, a clear visor would have looked much better. And it would have matched much better with the color of the helmet. And that Cobra space trooper’s helmet, looks to me a little bit like Boba Fett’s helmet, but without the antenna.

  • Cant really comment. I’ve spent all day, thinking that the Saw viper is in charge of 2016 🙁

  • Pretty Blonde Covergirl is the one I’d want most from this series. 🙂

  • The characters from this list that need to be made, in o-ring versions, of course, are the Cobra Space Trooper, Torpedo On Land with that same exact uniform, Blonde Hair Cover Girl, (but made with a new head with long hair, that can fit in the torso of the 1983 figure, repainted in the colors of this mini series version,). As for Duke’s friend, he can be made into a Joe figure, they just have to make sure that his military specialties are correct for the character. Like maybe computer related stuff, like maybe a computer hacker, or something like that. And something else that needs to made, that I do not know if it was ever actually made, is that Cobra laser rifle that the Cobra Space Trooper is shooting with. Which was also used by all of the other Cobra troopers in the Sunbow cartoons. The Joe laser rifles were made, but sadly, those were released only with the 1983 Snow Job figure. The Hasbro folks back then could have made those rifles in a tan, or light brown color, like the ones that the Joes had in the cartoons, and sold them. I truly believe that they would have made some money selling like ten, or twenty of those rifles in a blistered card, with ten, or twenty of the Sunbow Cobra laser rifles, in the same pack together. And one last thing that I would like to add, besides thanking you for doing these three amazing articles, is also to comment that I hope that you also get to do other articles about the supporting characters from the other mini series, and the tv show, and the original movie (the B.E.T., and Golobulus’ hovering whatever that thing is). And then the DIC series (Evy the female Range-Viper, and also Skull Buster the male Range-Viper). Thank you again for doing these great articles.

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