How do you know when your toy line is a big success? When other companies scramble to catch some of your lightning in a bottle of their own. Sometimes it’s successful, sometimes it isn’t. Remco’s Sgt. Rock line, based on the long-running DC war comic, sought to capitalize on Hasbro’s small scaled GI Joe relaunch. The company even went as
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No, it’s not the title of an 80s Turkish action film knock-off pastiche of The Karate Kid and Rambo (but it should be). It is a wonderful knock-off set of action figures inspired by both GI Joe and Rambo. Either way, what’s not to like? It’s Remco Joe! RemJoe! I sucked up a bunch of these two-packs at K-Mart back
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The latest refresh of Lanard’s CORPS action figure line was a pleasant surprise. Introducing a new storyline depicting the conflict between the CORPS! and villainous group The Curse, the set has also given us newly sculpted figures and two female characters. As usual however, are a group of repainted older releases. Ogre’s mold has been used several times in the
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Lanard’s Action Rescue series, focused on fire, rescue and police themes is an interesting line to collect. Within Hasbro’s 1/18 scale GI Joe world, we don’t get much material that can be used to replicate real-world people and vehicles within play patterns. I know as a kid I would have liked to have a few regular folks, or at least
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Mattel’s Heroes in Action series was set of small scale figures produced in 1975. It’s interesting to see all-out military figures from this time, considering that Hasbro’s GI Joe had been transitioned over to an adventure theme. Maybe Mattel were banking on the longevity of a war comic like Sgt. Rock to sell these to kids. I’ve seen this ad
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In 1973, while the GI Joe line was well into its Adventure Team period, competitor Mattel introduced Big Jim, a less militaristic adventure and sports based 10 inch figure, as an alternative. Unlike Joe, Big Jim from its beginnings incorporated action features into the figures. The toys’ biceps bulged when arms bent at the elbows. In 1975, Big Jim’s image
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Before Lanard rebranded its CORPS! line a few years ago, it had been using the Total Soldier title for other military toys. Most examples I’ve seen have included slightly smaller, reduced articulation figures as pack-ins. Think Chap Mei, if you want an idea of what I’m talking about. Each year at the annual Lanard sale, there seem to be a
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Lanard’s CORPS! line, which has been around since 1986, surprisingly didn’t add any clearly labeled antagonist group until the late 2000’s. Although cats like Whispering Willie and Crowbar were Mad Max-esque types, they didn’t seem to belong to a named group. I guess they were meant to meander into your Cobra forces and blend in with the Dreadnoks. Anyway, the
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We’re going off the rails tonight, but it’s still tangentially Joe related–in my eyes, at least. I’m fascinated by the myriad me-too military toy lines that arose in the early 80s after GI Joe’s relaunch broke into the big time. Sure, Hasbro cribbed the o-ring and rivet format from Mego/Takara (and Hasbro itself by proxy if you want to get
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It’s easy to forget the the Street Fighter sub-line was actually branded as part of the GI Joe line. Considering that the popular fighting game characters simply jumped into Joe’s universe unchanged, the confusion is warranted. Hasbro was obviously a bit sheepish about connecting the two as well, since the packages minimized the Real American Hero’s logo. They weren’t shy
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