What a winter it’s been here at JAD HQ! With snow storms, ice storms, sleet, freezing rain, graupel (look it up) and many, many snow days for the kids, Mother Nature has served up a winter that takes me back to my youth. We’re no strangers to snow in these parts, but it seems as the decades have gone by,
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The first and my favorite of all the Joe team’s combat divers, Torpedo brings forth all sorts of great childhood memories. First and foremost, a kid just couldn’t help but get this figure into the water, whether sink, tub, or pool. Unfortunately the aquatic adventures eventually wreaked havoc on the toy, as screws ultimately rusted, and in the case of
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The new for 1983 Joes are one of the most cohesive looking assortments in all the Real American Hero year’s. With sleek sculpts, an overall drab color scheme, and a wonderfully diverse group of specialties, Hasbro cemented what the previous year established, at least in this kid’s mind. It was the year that hooked me and pulled my toy-collecting heart
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By Past Nastification When GI Joe relaunched as “A Real American Hero” in 1982 and into 1983, there seemed to be two cardinal artistic rules about good guys and bad guys within the toy structure: 1. Good guys didn’t hide their faces (except for Snake-Eyes, of course). Figures like Tripwire and Snow Job, with only exposed partial faces, were frustrating.
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The 80s team’s original “big man”, Gung Ho was in my universe a hard-nosed and super powerful brawler. I had him delivering two-handed punches that rivaled the power of Superman. In contrast to this superheroic strengthening were the size of the figure’s arms in relation to the comic and cartoon. By 1985, GH looked puny in the guns department. His
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If you need an early example of the specialization of the 80s Joes, Tripwire is a perfect subject. Like Breaker, he’s one of the few figures not to include a weapon. Although his mines count, I suppose. He’s the perfect support trooper to help get the Joes through Cobra-laid mine fields. I know The Enemy used to put down a
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Cobra’s only 1982 accessory was this monster, the legendary Missile Command Headquarters. Yep, no jeeps, jets or tanks for The Enemy’s inaugural year, just a cardboard playset. I don’t mean that as a knock, because I love this set, not despite but because of its construction. As a Star Wars kid, my cardboard-based imagination was already primed by the cantina,
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The Mobile Missile System is one of the most real-world of the early GI Joe battlefield weapons. Where the HAL and JUMP were fantastical pieces of future technology, the MMS more closely resembles any number of mobile systems in use during the latter 20th century. As a toy, the MMS is more playset than vehicle, and provides a smaller environment
Read moreHere it is, the first big vehicle of the Real American Hero era. It’s strange to think that this was the high price point item when the line would later produce truly gargantuan items like the Flagg, Terrordrome, Defiant and General. For the fledgling relaunch, the MOBAT was the big toy to have. It may not have the size or
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I hate to sound like a broken record, but here’s another all-time Classic GI Joe accessory/vehicle. Is it really a vehicle? I say yes, anything you strap to your person that allows you to fly about a la Buck Rogers or Commando Cody counts. Technically I guess you become the vehicle, but I’m not one for semantics. The JUMP was
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