Lt. Falcon (2008)

The 25th anniversary series ushered in a new era of GI Joe construction that gave rise to the current trend of insanely poseable and detailed figures. In looking back at when it began, there were a fair share of groaners along with the quality releases.

The comic pack Falcon is a stinkburger. Just look at him. Granted, he inherits a lot of his awfulness from the Duke mold on which he’s mostly based. But that’s not really an excuse. The figure does get a new head, lower legs, web gear, scarf and pack. The head and legs don’t do it any favors. I’m actually kind of amazed that the new body parts are equally as bad as the resued parts. Making an all-new bad figure is one thing, but to stitch both new and old horrors together is quite an achievement. The result is a seamless blend of plastic repulsion. The paint scheme and camo pattern are half-hearted. Ugh, this figure nearly eclipses the 2002 Baroness in sheer fugliness.

If there’s one bright spot to this figure, it’s the accessories. Specifically, the web gear and backpack. The 25th anniversary series’ incorporation of a kind of modular system of detail, in the form of removable harnesses, belts and the like,  has been my favorite improvement of the modern era. The designers seem to be able to create many more characters using just a few changes in accessories, along with swaps of basic body molds.

I would say save your bucks and hold off on picking up the comic pack, but it also contains a great new (and actually menacing) version of Cobra La’s Nemesis Enforcer. So buy the pack for the Enforcer, remove Falcon’s gear, and chuck the figure as far down into your spare parts bin as possible. If you’d just like to pick up a much better modern Falcon, and you don’t mind an odd color scheme, you’d be better off tracking down the Falcon included in the BigBadToyStore exclusive Marauders set.

12 comments

  • utter shit is the only way to describe this mess of a Falcon… all they got right was the backpack, none of the figure is salvagable

  • I don’t think the head sculpt is that bad, really. I’m planning to get an extra, with which I’ll remove the head, webgear, lower legs, and accessories, put them together with some repainted Tiger Force Flint lower arms, Viper upper arms, ROC Desert Rockslide Dusty torso and upper legs, and the Slaughter’s Marauders Falcon’s scarf, and voila! On second thought, I’ll give the shotgun to someone else and give this custom Falcon the Marauders one (which is a reuse of the Renegades Law’s). And I’ll probably find something to do with the head.

  • I’ll second Acer on the head: It’s the kind of stern, non-nonsense look I’d expect from the comic version of Lt. Falcon. His body might suck but the accessories more than make up for it. It took me some time to track down this two-pack, so finding it helped offset the figure’s consistently bad rep. Hasbro should repaint the Marauder Lt. Falcon in these colors and give him his proper gear to appease fans who still can’t forgive them for this guy.

  • Yeah. Euuugghk. The backpack with removable radio and knife was pretty sweet, though. Actually I really like the shotgun too, but I don’t think it originated with this figure.

    • It originally came with the Spy Troops Burnout. I think I’ll get an extra V1 Falcon shotgun and take the extra handle off–with the new custom I just listed a recipe for, I think he could hold it as it was meant to be (with some extra Croc Master hands).

  • The head’s more of a problem because of proportionality issues than actual sculpt. But this was a really bad miss on Hasbro’s part – the likes of which we don’t really see these days (assuming that Retaliation Wave 1 is written off due to it clearly being a rush job).

    But the comic pack is a reasonably worthy pickup, simply because you can slap that awesome backpack on the Marauders version and then have him go to town against that great Nemesis Enforcer.

  • I have both the original vintage Falcon, along with a sealed ’91 ,this 25th version and the Marauder Falcon. I think the Duke arms are what makes this version so bad.

  • Yes, the backpack is a decent upgrade but otherwise it’s v1 Falcon all the. way.

  • This figure could be better especially the face. But I like it. The knife and radio are great accessories. A good figure till a better one comes out.

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