Sideshow has turned up the heat on GI JOE lately. They currently have Cobra Commander and Baroness up for pre-order and they’ve already shown off Destro. The reveals were enough to get me into this line and I thought I’d herald the pending arrival of my new figures by grabbing the Crimson Guard that they still had available on their site. These guys were always my favorite of the various Cobra legions just because they looked so badass. There’s a lot to talk about here, so I’m going to look at the packaging and the basic figure today and tomorrow I’ll be back to cover his gear.

The packaging is… wow! Sideshow nailed the presentation here in every way possible. For starters, the deco is pure old school Real American Hero. The front has a great photo of the figure with the GI JOE logo and that great “Cobra Enemy” stamp that I always loved on the old packaging. The side panels show the figure with the classic vintage explosion backdrop and the back highlights the gear and features of the figure and even has a vintage style filecard. Awesome!

The box is held together with a magnetic flap and opens up to reveal two windowed trays and some copy in the middle about the Crimson Guard. The left tray has all his gear and the right has the figure itself against the explosion backdrop. Everything about this package represents quality and ingenuity and it really trumps the plain jane presentation that I’ve been getting from the more expensive Hot Toys figures lately. Anyway, enough about the packaging, let’s open this guy up and see what he’s all about. COBRA!!!

Out of the box Crimson Guard is one snazzy looking figure. Sideshow recreated the uniform in both cloth and pleather in all the right places. The tailoring is quite good and the tunic hits all the iconic points of the vintage uniform. You get the brass button down front panel, the gilded shoulder braid, epaulets, insignia medals on the left brest, and of course the giant silver Cobra emblem on the chest. He comes with high boots and a thigh holster rig for his sidearm. The Crimson Guard uniform probably wasn’t the easiest outfit to recreate, but I think Sideshow did a great job with it.

One really cool thing about the uniform is the way the front panel is held on by magnets over the zipper-front jacket. It was a really ingenious idea and it really comes in handy when you’re outfitting this guy, but we’ll get to that tomorrow.

The helmeted head looks pretty good as well. It’s hard plastic, but it does have a hollow feel that reminds me this isn’t a Hot Toys caliber figure, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. The color of the helmet matches the rest of the outfit perfectly. I really dig the shape of the mask and there’s a little bit of silver paint apps on the edges to simulate scraping of the metal. I’m still on the fence over whether or not the head is a little too big… maybe a smidge, but it still works for me.

The Crimson Guard uses Sideshow’s Prometheus 1.2 body. That means nothing to me, but he does feature 30 points of articulation and I am really happy with how poseable he is. I will concede the leg joints feel a tad funky and it’s hard to tell what’s going on with the knee joints underneath those trouser legs, but it’s not something that really intrudes on my enjoyment of the figure.

The figure comes with an array of extra hands, as is par for the course with most 1:6 scale figures. What I wasn’t expecting was extra feet. You get a second pair of “action feet” in case you want to tweak your poses even more.

I’m going to break there for today. Tomorrow we’ll load this guy up so he can go kill him some Joes!