When I covered the original Rom toy a couple years ago as part of my phoney-baloney April Fools Day posts, I never imagined there would be another action figure version of the cult comic star, much less one I could legitimately cover here. And yet here we are in 2017, with Hasbro attempting to mash its various properties into something
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By Past Nastification Green Lantern wasn’t a bad movie, or a good one, although my opinion of it went up after the unnecessarily destruction-rific Man of Steel and dreary Superman vs. Batman were released. If it were up to me, I’d recast Justin Timberlake in Ryan Reynolds’ role of Hal Jordan and just bring this continuity’s Green Lantern into the
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It’s not often that a turkey of an action figure, particularly one of the knock-off variety, transcends its own weirdness and circles back around to being cool. It’s also rare to find a knock-off figure that shows some kind of care (albeit offbeat and/or misguided) went into its production. Both are the case with the Power Commandos figures, which appeared
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“Hombre” Means Man! Such says the Montgomery Wards 1973 Christmas catalog. I suppose some folks had to have the word explained to them back in the day. Regardless, Hombre is a GI Joe knockoff in the vein of the Adventure Team, although he looks more akin to Mego’s Action Jackson in the face. He’s sporting some mighty fine sideburns. I
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Continuing our coverage of the recent release of an assortment of GI Joe themed minifigures based on a certain popular brick-based format, we’ve got a version of the team’s original MP and K-9 unit. Mutt and Junkyard have been favorites of mine since 1984, and it’s great to see them interpreted in this form, even if they’re not an official
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By Past Nastification 1:18 GI Joe has done a good job of representing the genus Canis starting with 1984’s Junkard. Timber, Order, Sandstorm, Lamont, New Sculpt Junkyard, Modern Era Timber, and ME Order followed. These molds were sometimes used to represent different or new animal characters. Sandstorm stood in for Timber once, Timber became one of Kwinn’s sled dogs, and
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It’s Jack Kirby’s 100th birthday, and I wouldn’t be a good geek if I didn’t pay tribute. Although the man didn’t contribute to the GI Joe brand, he did some work on Mattel’s Adventure Team-styled competitor Big Jim. While the Big Jim concept was interesting and the toys decent, things had to be shaken up a bit in light of
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By Past Nastification When it comes to naming, sometimes simplicity is best. And sometimes simple is too simple. Two teams in 1:18 scale have lazily laid claim to the group name “Bad Guys”. One of them is “The Bad Guys”; the other is simply “Bad Guys” without a “The”. The Bad Guys. Remco’s The Bad Guys are fully known
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By Past Nastification The A-Team was a logical choice for Galoob. The same kids who bought GI Joe toys and watched the GI Joe cartoon surely idolized NBC’s campy-but-virtuous soldiers of fortune. Galoob was obviously trying to shoehorn some A-Team toys into kid’s GI Joe adventures and grab a buck. Fair enough. The 1:18 scale line featured mediocre figures,
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Ideal’s Captain Action series of licensed super hero outfits would seem like a natural formula for success. Based on the razor and blades concept that made Barbie and GI Joe champions of the toy aisle, the Captain was a basic twelve inch doll who could be outfitted as any number of comic and/or TV heroes. The series didn’t last long,
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