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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This figure holds the honor of least handled of all my convention exclusives. Why? Because it came with a nice little warning note from the club explaining that the toy had to be created with a more brittle type of plastic in order to achieve a vac-metallized finish. The result was a beautifully rendered reproduction of one of the craziest
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By Past Nastification After reading reviews by Rob and by Forgotten Figures, I have given into the temptation to purchase some “factory custom” figures. I know there are backstories about Red Laser factory customs and Black Major factory customs, but I’m not sure what they are. Also, I don’t really care. I just want the toys. I do know, though,
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Cobra Commander bears little resemblance to the character’s appearance in the Retaliation film, aside from some similarity to the helmet design. But I’m not going to rag on it, because it’s a dang cool toy. Cobra Commander was the first Real American Hero figure of my youth, and he’s always had a special place within my memories of what made
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By Past Nastification You’re probably shaking your head right now, disgusted that I’m not calling this figure by its proper name, “Cobra Officer”. On paper, you’d be right. Technically, it is simply a Cobra Officer, released by the GI Joe Collectors Club in 2007 as one of the Night Stalkers in its “Tanks for the Memories” set. But this one,
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The Desert Assault Squad set was an interesting mix of known and new Cobra troopers. Along with Frankensteined figures, the pack also included two straight remolds of the 25th anniversary style CGs. I’ll admit that I initially found their placement in a desert theme to be out of character for the type, since these guys have not only functioned as
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As hit or miss as the comic packs were, I sure do miss them. Actually, I miss o-ring GI Joes at retail in general, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. I’m just glad I was able to catch a few of them on clearance back then. They are impressive looking when grouped. The Cobra Officer was one of my early
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By KansasBrawler Over the years, I’ve become increasingly of two minds about the figures in the Cobra Island sets. The Joes especially haven’t held up well over the years. I was very excited to get everyone in the set, but now, I’m hard-pressed to find one that I’ve kept on display since I moved and needed to downsize my display
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The Viper has a storied history of releases during the new sculpt era. One would think such an iconic Cobra trooper would have been a slam-dunk success, a license to print money where army builders were concerned. Not so, thanks to weird mold choices and color schemes. Blue gave way to greens, browns and greys, and the 1986 BAT legs
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The Steel Brigade made a surprise return to the Joe mythos at the tail end of the new sculpt era. It was a welcome sight for me, as I’ve always liked both the SB concept as well as the unique helmet design. Though the familiar design made an appearance (and was removable!) as part of 2004’s Anti-Venom squad, we got
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