By KansasBrawler The Joe team has always been a bit ahead of its time. While Americans weren’t familiar with the concept of embedded journalists until the second Gulf War, the Joe team has had someone on the team whose job is to record and broadcast information about the fight against Cobra since the late 80s in the form of Scoop.
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While the internet is a wonderful tool and an amazing resource, there’s something about holding a book in one’s hands that can’t be fully replicate online. As a toy collector, I like to flip through pages and gaze at printed photos as much as I like to swipe and scroll on a screen. As such, I like to have toy
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It’s not often that we focus on modern card art in a TPOP feature, but I find the Retaliation line look speaks to an issue that’s all to common in action figure series these days. Without sounding like a grumpy old guy (too late), today’s packages are missing something. Since 2012, package backs (at least from Hasbro) have become even
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By KansasBrawler Of all the Joes that never got a proper update during the 25th Anniversary, I think I was most disappointed about Leatherneck. Yes, he got released with a desert A.W.E. Striker, but he was such a poorly done FrankenJoe that I don’t even count that figure and it was re-released in more vintage-styled colors with a hard to
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By KansasBrawler Every team needs a communications expert and considering Battle Force 2000 was the Joe’s experimental weapons team, it made sense that they get their own communications expert so he can test out any experimental communications gear. His timing for joining Battle Force 2000 was kind of crappy, though, as he was released a year after the rest of
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Lift-Ticket made his way into the modern era along with the amazing Eaglehawk helicopter, part of the Retaliation toy line. Of course, neither the vehicle or driver appeared in the film, but that’s not a bit deal. At least we got a new version of the classic Tomahawk and a nicely accessorized pilot out of the deal. Time has really
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By KansasBrawler For me to like an international figure, it has to be a pretty big departure from its American counterpart. That’s why I’ve always been interested in Python Patrol Airborne and Python Patrol Ripcord and am absolutely fascinated by the international Sky Patrol figures. There’s one other international figure that has strangely caught my attention over the years— the
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By KansasBrawler I’m already on record here with my love of the old Cobra Rocket Pack and my love of B.A.T.s. For a souvenir set this year, the GIJCC decided to mix my peanut butter and chocolate and create the B.A.T. Rocket Pack. The fact that this souvenir was still available after Joe Con was a bit part of what
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By KansasBrawler It’s time for another KansasBrawler confession. I like a lot of early Joe vehicles, but I’ve never really liked the vintage Polar Battle Bear. For some reason, that vehicle just never really spoke to me. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s probably because, growing up in a town in South Dakota that manufactures front
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By KansasBrawler When we were kids, Blaster was KansasBrother’s one Battle Force 2000 figure. From what he can remember, Blaster was a gift from one of the cousins who knew he liked Joes. I never really knew all that much about Blaster as a kid and I don’t think I ever knew his origin until I asked KansasBrother about Blaster
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