Firefly (1998)

Repaints and variants. Who likes ’em? I do, most of the time. Well, I should explain a little. I generally like two kinds of repaints: weird, and arctic. I like weird repaints just because I’m fascinated by odd combinations of colors, especially when the toy stops trying for any sort of realism and just looks like, well, a toy. For Joes, the 90s mail-in versions of Interrogator and General Hawk come to mind when thinking in this vein. The ultimate action figure example of it is the 2000s Masters of the Universe Fruity Pebbles Skeletor, a figure that has yet to be rivaled in the arena of ridiculously nonsenical repaints.

Arctic variants also continue to be a passion of mine. I’ll even go out of my way into lines I don’t usually even collect in order to pick up a frigidly festooned figure or two. Mattel’s current Batman line is many times a sure bet for an arctic variant. Whenever the Caped Crusader gets a new series, I’m searching the pegs to see if there’s a Bat on skis, or just painted white and arctic blue. When the GI Joe line puts out a new arctic operative, I’m totally on board, but when a main character gets the winter treatment, it’s even more special.

Firefly was part of a three pack that featured arctic Cobras, only one of which was a Snow Serpent. I’ll admit that I thought the saboteur would probably be the last character I’d expect to see in this garb. He’s just a straight up repaint of the 1984 original, which isn’t a bad thing, but a change of torso mold to someone like Blizzard or Frostbite would have been nice to see. As it is, there’s a lot of nice little detail here, beyond the simple white. Straps and belts are picked out in lighter grey, and even the dials on his leg detonator are painted. He’s also equipped with his classic submachine and phone in black, a nice change of pace for the time. His backpack was molded in white, which I think really works well.

For some reason, I had childhood memories of watching the snow battle scenes of the 80s tele-movie World War III after I took the photos of the figure. It’s probably the backdrop reminding me of the sets that stood in for Alaska. Anyway, despite his somewhat monochromatic paint scheme, Firefly is quite the fun and festive winter-themed saboteur.

11 comments

  • There is an “arctic” Batman with the current line [ive seen it]

    I usually dont like variants of already established characters in different uniforms. The R.O.C toyline suffered badly from putting Duke in every type of uniform imaginable and giving older characters who should have been updated the short end of the stick.

    But sometimes a repaint like this one can give fans a chance to pick up a character they missed the first time. Thats why i’m such a supporter of Tiger force

  • The figure is actually from 1998 (sorry to be corrective).

    I would give this Firefly the white versions of his gun and phone from the Accessory Packs–they might just fit more with the backpack, in addition to the figure’s overall theme.

  • I remember that WW3 movie! Has it ever been released on DVD? I would like to see it again. The Ruskies had some cool arctic camo in it.

  • This guy left me cold.

    C’mon, that’s funny. This is one Firefly I didn’t want to hunt down at all in his ’84 repaint schemes. But now that I think about it, a full collection photo of every Firefly (’84) repaint would be neat to see; does it exist?

  • Hard to believe that such a popular and hard to find figure would prove so repetitive in terms of mold use, but there you go. I think the only later version I actively sought out was the comic pack one with the new head sculpt, and that’s mainly because the original’s eyes always seemed too droopy for me. It lacks character somehow.

  • So many of Firefly’s repaints are redundant (grey camo with blue, with red…), but here’s one that makes sense and is pretty handy. Also, it’s visually striking. I really like this figure. Most specimens I’ve seen, though, have funky lower arms (slight discolor, bubbling, etc). 1998 QC processes strike again.

  • He’s the ghost of Fireflies past…

  • WW3 movie. Did that have Carl Malden and Micheal Cain in it?

    For some reason, Flint, Firefly, Destro and Bazooka are the four most difficult figures to find on the secondary market down here. I can understand Flint, Destro and Bazooka as most people in my area watched the cartoon instead of the comics but i dont get Firefly’s popularity. He showed up ocasionally, put acid in a fighter jet and once dressed as a mummy so i dont understand why kids [now adults] thought he was so cool? Must have been his phone

  • love this repaint of Firefly. and the foresty 2000 version. we need a desert tan repaint of FF v1. he operates everywhere and anywhere so specific uniforms makes sense.

  • I really like this Firefly. One, it’s rather nostalgic since it’s now been 15 years since I found this guy at retail. But, second, it was cool at the time to get environmentally themed repaints of major characters. They were few and far between and we had no idea how many times this mold would be repainted in the next 6 years. But, the colors are a decent match for V1 Snow Serpents and were a good tie to all the Cobra arctic forces.

    Finally, the last time I had Joes out in the snow (been over 10 years for that, too) was with this figure:

    http://forgotten-figures-archive.blogspot.com/2012/07/1998-firefly.html

    Good memories….

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