By KansasBrawler I’ll be the first to admit that the 25th Anniversary line had its problems. However, if there was one thing it handled well, it was character diversity. Yes, there were a lot of Dukes, Snake Eyeses and Cobra Commanders, but Hasbro also tapped the back bench of the Joe team pretty often. One of the earliest examples of
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By Past Nastification Released at the tail end of the New Sculpt era, GI Jane utilized the Bombstrike body. It was the best female body, or at least tied with Cover Girl, from that era. This was the second and last use of the body, which is a shame. It would have nice to have seen this recolored several times
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I grabbed this image way back in the 2000s from an eBay auction. If you were into collecting back then, you probably remember the plethora of auctions originating from China. Among these were pre-release offerings of figures that made it to retail, but more interesting were the toys we never saw on shelves. This Cobra Officer image was labeled as
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By KansasBrawler Having already reviewed the Retaliation Ultimate Cobra Commander, this figure is a lot tougher to like. However, I still have to applaud at the good work Hasbro did with the first 25th Anniversary Cobra Commander figure. Yes, I got extremely tired of seeing this mold by the end of the 25th Anniversary line, but there are a surprisingly
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By KansasBrawler Growing up, I never had the original Snow Serpent, but ever since I got back into G.I. Joe in high school during the relatively early days of the Internet, I’ve always been strangely obsessed with the original version. It was impressively well-detailed. I liked the look so much, I instantly snapped up the Joe Vs. Cobra version and
Read moreBy Past Nastification Say, it’s Shipwreck! Wait, that’s not Shipwreck, but only because it has Alpine arms! It’s… Footloose? Yes, it’s Footloose. Despite being a near head-to-toe repaint, not to mention the too-short chest/back, this is a pretty enjoyable figure. Most of the body, even the head, came from an earlier boat driver/SEAL version of Shipwreck. Topping the parts off
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By KansasBrawler This is a hard figure for me to review. I generally like variations on a theme, however, my least favorite variation is the “battle damaged” version. The modern Joe line has done it well with the Battle Damaged BAT from the Defense of Cobra Island set, but I think part of what made that particular figure work is
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Lanard’s twelve inch Ultra CORPS! line filled a niche that the large scale GI Joe series wasn’t focused too heavily in at the time. Although the Joes were available as both real-world military and large scale versions of then current small figures, the execution of the scaled up little guys was lacking. With few exceptions, Hasbro had forgone full cloth
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Oh you gotta love the 25th Anniversary San Diego Comicon variant figures. Yesterday I recounted a tale of the joys of toy collecting in the 90s, when figures appeared in dump bins like manna from heaven, plentiful and inexpensive. Today, witness the horrors of snagging online exclusives. The Lord giveth, and Hasbrotoyshop pisseth off. This is the last SDCC GI
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Time to revisit a figure that’s become one of my favorite modern o-ring Joes. I’ve harped on it before; I really really miss these guys. I really miss GI Joe in general. Maybe we’ll see him return to toy departments some day. Looking at the comic pack figures through the lens of the recent rise of factory custom o-ring Joes
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