I’m going to be digging into G.I. JOE Classified hot and heavy over the next few weeks as I try desparately to get caught up with the pile of figures that have been coming in. I’m glad I cut way back on Marvel Legends and have pretty much dipped out on Star Wars Black Series entirely, because keeping up with Classified has become quite an endeavor and I’m sure I couldn’t have done it if I was still collecting Hasbro’s other 6-inch lines. Today I literally just grabbed a random figure off the stack and it happens to be Low-Light, so let’s do it!

Low-Light had one of the most bad ass backstories of all the RAH JOEs: Getting lost as a child in North Dakota while hunting with his father and surviving on his own for weeks with just a .22 rifle and a flashlight. Dayuuuum! Low-Light is also distinguished as being one of my first Classified figure reviews where I did not own the vintage original when I was a kid. That figure was released in 1986 and by that time I had moved on from toys… at least until I started collecting Playmates Star Trek figures over five years later. Suffice it to say, I’m excited to get this guy open and check him out!

Once again, Classified draws heavy on the original RAH design for the character, and all I can say is, keep it up guys because that’s what I’m here for! Low-Light has a set of gray-blue fatigues with reinforced patches, zippers, pouches and sculpted detail pretty much everywhere. The boots and gloves changed from black on the original figure to blue here, and it looks fine. You get some snappy silver paint on the buttons and clasps, green on the pineapple grenades hanging on his left front, and red paint on the quilted recoil pad on his right shoulder. His right leg has a sheath rig for his knife while his left leg has a pouch for his wind meter. The tactical backpack pegs into his back and has a peg on the side to hold one of his guns. What a great looking update to the original figure!

The portrait features solid face sculpt with his familiar blonde hair and knitted cap and his red goggles, which can sit up on his forehead or be worn down over his eyes. Since I don’t have a huge attachment to the original figure, I’m perfectly fine with the likeness they gave him. Honestly, I don’t really even remember Low-Light appearing in a whole lot of episodes of the Sunbow cartoon, except for when Cobra kidnapped his sister in Glamour Girls.

The visor fits over the eyes really well, with the top rim lining up with the lower edge of the cap almost perfectly. The paint on my figure’s visor is a bit sloppy with the red spilling over onto the lower frame a bit. It’s unfortunate, but not overly noticeable unless I’m punching in close with the camera. It doesn’t feel like positioning the goggles up and down is stretching the strap out too much, but I’ll probably wind up keeping them down over the eyes most of the time.

As for accessories, the wind meter is a really nice touch. Sure, it’s just a plain black piece of plastic and it looks like a cell phone with a fan attached to the top, but I think it’s really cool that Hasbro included this little piece of gear and gave him a spot for him to store it.

The survival knife is a nice little accessory as well. The grip is painted to match Low-Light’s fatigues and the blade is silver. He can hold it very well in either hand.

His regular shooter is, eh… well one of these weirdo modern European looking sub machine guns. The original figure came with an Uzi and I would have much preferred that, but I guess this is fine. I’m not up on these modern designs, but it’s a nice sculpt featuring a well-defined rail on the top, a foregrip, and a detachable magazine. God, how I love that Hasbro has made detachable mags a normal thing for this line and the gun sculpts have been absolutely fantastic, even if I do prefer the more traditional designs.

And then there’s this beauty! You get a fully functional case for Low-Light’s sniper rifle. The sculpt on this is beautiful from the nylon straps to the seams to the zipper running along the edge where it opens. It has a carry handle and a peg to attach to his back. There’s also a socket on it so you can peg the backpack on top of it, but I think that looks kind of silly, so it’s an “either, or” situation for me.

Open the case and you have compartments inside to hold the sniper rifle, scope, suppressor, and bipod. This is so damn cool and so incredibly well done! It’s also exactly the sort of thing that I hoped we would see with the increase in scale. Everything fits into the case perfectly and can be attached to the rifle once Low-Light has scouted his perch.

The rifle itself is a pretty big departure from the simple one that came with the original figure. Like his other weapon, it’s a little too modern for me to decipher what it’s based on, but the sculpt is fantastic and it too has a detachable magazine.

It’s pretty damn cool to finally get a Classified release of a figure that I didn’t have as a kid, and I suspect that’s going to be happening more frequently as Hasbro digs deeper into the line and releases updates to those post 1985 figures. I’ve already seen a few coming down the pipe that are going to be new to me and that’s pretty exciting. Low-Light is a fantastic addition to my JOE forces, which were getting pretty outnumbered by Cobra up to this point, but in the coming weeks I think the two sides will soon be more evenly matched!