By Past Nastification Sometimes Hasbro does fun things with GI Joe molds. For its Incredible Hulk movie line, it used recolored GI Joe figures as part of the Hulkbuster team. Hulk, schmulk. To my eye, this is just a disguised GI Joe figure. This Hulkbuster utilized the 2004 Shipwreck mold, done in slate-colored plastic, topped off with a helmet. There
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If there’s one thing Lanard packs into its vehicles, play value is it. I can’t think of any other budget toy maker that gives kids as much bang for their buck. While such things may not be a collector’s cup of tea, little ones dig action features. The Havoc Chopper is a neat little one-man copter. The silhouette is similar
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By Past Nastification GI Joe was dead, at least in 1:18th scale, in 1996. Like many of us now in our mid 40’s, even if 1:18 GI Joe wasn’t dead then, it would have been dead to me anyway. I had outgrown it around 1988 and wouldn’t rediscover my love of GI Joe as adult collector/customizer until the Stars ‘n
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The news of a possible return of Kay-Bee toys reminds me of the defunct chain’s mall stores and the oddities often found within. A visit was equally likely to result in deep disappointment at finding the same-old same-old for ridiculous prices as it was shock and surprise at happening upon a rare or unusual item. KB is the place that
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During my last search for blog subjects, I ran across my set of Mortal Kombat figures, including the movie versions. Though neither the game nor film-based figures were part of the GI Joe mythos (unlike the initial StreetFighter II assortment) the toys were produced using GI Joe parts. Rayden doesn’t look too much like his game self, but bears a
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I know what you might be thinking: Have you finally gone off the deep end, Rob? Are you so burned out from the daily grind that you’re just throwing up whatever toys strike your fancy? No and no, although I do wish I could let loose and write about a broader range of toys. Maybe I’ll start a sister blog
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Released by Chinese minifigure maker Dargo, the series with the supremely odd title Outfight Gold offers military styled figures in an all-gold color scheme. When I first saw a picture of the eight figure set, I was reminded of Mego’s Eagle Force, the 1981 die-cast action figure series. One beret wearing figure in particular brought to mind the group’s leader,
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I’ve long thought I could tie GI Joe and Visionaries together in a way that goes beyond the figures’ construction style. Now I don’t have to try to make up some sort of half-baked No-Prize explanation connecting the world of Prysmos to the larger Sunbow Cartoonic Universe. That’s my original term, by the way–feel free to use it. Hasbro is
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I don’t think any figure quite sums up the crazy possibilities (with maybe the exception of Lightning Mobutu) of what’s possible when a knock-off toy maker throws caution to the wind and goes all-out on a ridiculous concept. Witness Condor Strike, a baseball/-themed me-too corollary of 1980s GI Joe, produced years later in the 1990s. The most apt comparison I
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By Past Nastification When the grocery store is three blocks out of the way, and all you really need is milk, Family Dollar is there. It doesn’t have to be milk. Maybe it’s shoelaces. Or batteries. Whatever sundry items you need, Family Dollar probably has them. And this time of year, they also carry various GI Joe knock-off items as
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