Short-Fuze (2008)

Well, here’s another original 80’s Joe team member done up in the modern construction style. I thought the entire reason for remaking these guys was to get them into the more detailed, more articulated format of today. Unfortunately, the play value and overall look leave me cold. I can’t stand the giraffe neck and tiny head.

The head is a reuse from the mail in exclusive Doc. It approximates the spectacled look from the comic, but the head (and even the glasses themselves) don’t really resemble the comic Short-Fuze. The rest of the body construction is decent enough, though I still can’t bring myself to like the arms. They’re just too limited in movement. On a positive note, there’s a greater attention to painted detail on the uniform, with all of the pouches, clips, grenades and such given different colors from the molded plastic.

The 25th anniversary figure helmets have been frustrating to me. They certainly don’t hold to the “snap-on, stay-on” promise of the old figures. In fact, I would more likely dub it “won’t fit, falls off.” The original figure’s visor is also missing, which is disappointing. The old visors are such simple things, but they add a further touch of individuality that’s really missed.

19 comments

  • Steven B. Williams

    I’m glad that the Doc head got reused for another character despite the fact that it didn’t work out well. Maybe the head could be used again for a quazi-hippie Dreadnok or something. Atleast Short-Fuze has some nice accessories. Now that we have a modern version of the original figure, how about an updated Short-Fuze?

  • Dude, you complain a lot about the 25th style. Broken record…

  • I wish I had gotten the Ultimate Battle Pack if I ever found it on clearance. But yeah, if only we had time travel–because then we could take samples of product from ’08 and ’09, show them to Hasbro designers, and then we wouldn’t have stuff with errors such as this.

  • I can forgive everything but the craptastic helmet. Those vintage helmets and visors were so innovative for their time that you’d think Hasbro would have kicked things up even higher, twenty-five years later.

  • Yeah, I never quite understood why the Snake Eyes arms weren’t good enough for him. The original Cobra Trooper arms had some problems and honestly, by that point, even if there was some sort of “Snake Eyes arms embargo” at Hasbro, I’m shocked that they couldn’t come up with something better that Cobra Trooper arms. I’ll admit, the head doesn’t bother me that much since I never had that much invested into Short Fuze, but I totally agree on the relative lameness of the helmets they used in this era. On the plus side, though, now that I have Dollar General Duke in my collection I can do a nice easy head swap between Short Fuze and Duke and have a Short Fuze with the proper webgear and a decent-ish (minus the Cobra Trooper arms) stand in for Grunt to finally fill out the Original 13 in new sculpt form.

    • An even better head-swap would be 30th Lifeline with his hair painted blond.

      • Oh yes, and about the arms: it’s even more odd when you consider that Hasbro actually went to the trouble of creating new, bare hands for the 25th Snake Eyes body… and the only figure they’ve ever used them with was Radioactive Snake Eyes from the Sunbow DVD battle-packs.

      • Agreed, but considering how hard it was for me to find ONE Lifeline where I’m at, I can’t really afford to sacrifice his head for Short Fuze. I like Lifeline a lot more…;)

  • Alright. They finally made a short fuse with glasses

  • Thanks for the info. I’ll probably pick up the comic pack version if i can. I understand the 25th stuff can be hard to pose

  • Complain away Rob. This figure and Steeler from the UBP were the final straw with me and the 25th style, I’ve since sold em all and gone back to completing my ARAH collection, and like you Im enjoying seeking out non Hasbro O-ring product. There’s a lot out there!

  • I like the body. I’m even fine with articulation because my figures are displayed fairly statically anyway. But I HATE this head as Short Fuze. Hopefully Hasbro of the Club gives him a proper update soon.

  • I’m ok with this figure. Short-Fuse has never been that inportant to me, so this one was just fine to fill in the gap for the 25th original 13.

  • The further we get away from the 25th, the more one realizes it was a clever way to manipulate fans into buying a lot of crap figures, I for one got suckered by the retro card art and not having a good memory of the original o-ring figures style. As far as Short-Fuze here, this was a sub-par figure that actually still has some monetary value, but as said before, take the dollar general duke and paint his web gear black and maybe a head swap and you got yourself a better version!

  • I think the comic pack was the best rendition of this character.

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