Now, I know most people hated this line. I wasn’t too pleased with it when it was first introduced either, but it grew on me after a while. Granted, I didn’t start collecting them until they were being clearanced out, but before I was done, I did get quite a few of them. Whether or not you like their aesthetics is one thing, but its hard to deny that they are amazing toys. They’re beautifully made, have great articulation, and loads of accessories. To put it bluntly: They’re undeniably fun action figures.

I seriously think most of the hatred toward this line came from the fact that Hasbro was replacing the 3 3/4″ Joes with these. Sure, in hindsight we had nothing to worry about because the Joes we all know and love came back in a big way, plus that wacky “Direct To Consumer” line kept things going in a matter of speaking. But if it weren’t for all the anger and rage about our little Joes disappearing, I think Sigma Six might have been a bit better received.

But, enough about that…

I love Zartan. He’s always been one of my favorite Joe characters ever since he first appeared in the second mini-series, and coincidently he’s my favorite of all the Sigma Six figures. He retained a surprising amount of his original character design in the translation from RAH to S6 and in doing so, faired a lot better than some ofther characters.

Yeah, that sculpt is gorgeous. Sure’s he’s all angular and anime-ized, but there’s no denying that’s Zartan. The face is awesome, cleft jaw, hooked nose, and right down to the eye tattoos and his burgandy hood, which I always used to think was hair… huh, go figure. The armor is cool, although I wish they had toned down those huge wrist bracers a bit. Zartan’s shoulder armor is hinged and easily removable, his belt is also removable and he’s got two little elastic straps on his hip holding ammunition pouches. Zartan also has a number of sockets sculpted into him, which the Sigma Six figures used to clip on accessories and weapons and what-not. Zartan has these sockets on his bracers, his thighs and three on his back. A big part of the fun with these figures is mixing and matching weapons and accessories between the figures.

Articulation on these figures was the absolute shiz-nit. In a word… balljoints. Balljoints, balljoints, balljoints! Ok, his ankles are only hinged, but apart from that this figure is up for some serious action poses.

I really wish I stil had the packaging for this guy, or at least a shot of him in the packaging, because if you aren’t familiar with it, it was an amazing thing. Besides looking cool, the top and bottom halves of the package were plastic and could be fashioned into an equipment locker to hold the ridiculous amount of accessories he comes with. They also had a blinking LED, which invariably grabbed kids attentions as if to say, “Holy shit, Mom, there’s a bomb in there!” The other thing about these figures’ packaging was you had to shred it to pieces to get everything out. When you were finally done you were left with a huge mess of plastic and crap… and this…

Holy shit that’s a lot of stuff! Besides the aforementioned equipment locker, Zartan comes with a custom made double barrel rifle with two removable clips, a crossbow that would make Hordak jealous, a quiver with two crossbow bolts (one barbed and one explosive) and some kind of weird barbed grapple thingy… ah, I don’t know what the hell it is.

The rifle is really cool because it looks like something The Road Warrior would carry, as its all duck taped together, exactly like a rifle would be if it were fashioned by some evil bastard who lives in a swamp. Oh, and I wasn’t kidding about the crossbow either, I really think he stole this thing from Hordak.

The quiver is a really cool piece as it slips over Zartan’s shoulder with an elastic strap. Its nicely sculpted to look like he made it out of sticks and shit. The bolts slip into holes in the top of it and stay in place pretty well.

And that’s S6 Zartan in all his awesome glory. Its cool to look back on these figures without all the angst of thinking our 3 3/4″ Joes are gone for good. Besides, as it turned out, Sigma Six may have come along at just the right time to give the regular line of Joes a strategic hiatus. It gave Hasbro the chance to go back to the drawing board, because when the Joes did return to mainstream retail in their 3 3/4″ form they came back with the awesome 25th Anniversary line. Few people were probably sorry to see Sigma Six go, but I have to admit the line produced some really cool figures and an interesting little hiccup in the history of the GI Joe brand.

And rest assured, you haven’t seen the last of my Sigma Six figures… Mwahahahahaha!