Classified has been dipping into Destro’s private army of Iron Grenadiers, and I started looking at these a few weeks back with the Iron Grenadier BATs. Well, now it’s time to check out the actual Iron Grenadier Troops! Last time I mentioned how this faction came out after I had already moved on from buying GI JOE figures as a kid, so I didn’t own any of the original RAH figures, but part of the fun of collecting Classified is getting to experience some of these characters and designs for the first time. Granted, as Classified strays into the 90’s, I’ll likely start to opt out more and more, but for now these fellas are right up my alley!
Hasbro has hit peak Classified packaging with these window box designs. You still get some character art on the side, but for the most part the box lets the figure do the talking. And with a line as fantastic as Classified, that really is the best way to go about it. I love the concept of the Iron Grenadiers, as it only makes sense that Destro would have his own private forces for when shit hits the fan or when it’s finally time to depose old Bumper Face, Cobra Commander. As a kid playing with my JOEs, I would often have Cobra Civil War break out between Serpentor backed by the Crimson Guard and Cobra Commander backed by the regular Blue Shirts and Vipers. I can only imagine the fun I could have had with a three-way Civil War, adding Destro into the mix. The poor JOEs probably would have stayed in the collector case.
Out of the package, the Iron Grenadier is looking all sorts of regal. Hasbro has been doing some wonderful extrapolations of RAH figures for this line, but this is one example where they just stole the ball and ran with it. I’m a big fan of elaborate military uniforms reminiscent of the 19th Century and this guy has got it going in spades. The black overcoat with red trimmed lapels and liner, along with the gold buttons looks, parting just below the belt to reveal his gray trousers, but continuing down below the knees at the back. The gold accents extend to the tiny skull belt buckle as well as the fixtures on his baldric that holsters one of his weapons across his back. A second holster provides access to his angled pistol at the small of his back and a sword hangs off his right hip in a black and gold scabbard. This uniform design is simply amazing and Hasbro did a wonderful job realizing it in this scale. Oh and I have to compliment the work they did on the collar and necktie peeking out from the top of the jacket. It looks great!
The head is completely covered giving him an intimidating anonymity. The combination of visor and snout over the nose and mouth gives me more than a hint of Star Wars Biker Scout helmet design. The deco for the face mask continues black, red, gold, and gray color scheme from the rest of the figure. The helmet is removable, although there isn’t much going on under it, and I dig the gold mohawk-like crest at the top.
As snazzy as he may look, a troop builder still needs to have a solid weapon layout and this guy comes fully loaded, even if it is all recycled gear. So much so, that he can’t really carry everything, unless he’s going into the fight with big guns akimbo. Normally, I really expect these figures to be able to carry their own gear, but here I think a bulky backpack with guns hanging off of it would have messed up the regal military vibe they were going for, so I guess I’m OK with it. So let’s start with what he can carry, starting with the sword. I loved this weapon on the Crimson Guard and I love seeing it again, albeit this time with a golden blade. It fits perfectly into the scabbard, which plugs into the socket on his right hip.
The holsters on his back carry the same weapon designs wielded by his boss and I think these are a great pairing to include with him. The large scoped laser pistol has a bit of gold plating on the top of the barrel and it’s just a really neat sci-fi inspired design with some excellent detail in the sculpt. This one is stored angled across the back. Meanwhile, he has the smaller pistol down on the back of his belt.
The two bigger weapons include the double-barreled AR design and the SIG 338-style light machine gun. Both of these have been around a bit, but I most recently remember them paired up with Night Force Shockwave. The AR still has the hinged foregrip, but here it’s cast in red plastic, as are the bipod and ammo box on the machine gun. Thematically the red on these weapons should work, but I think it looks kind of cheap.
All nitpicks aside, these guys turned out great. In a perfect world, I think Hasbro should bundle at least one new weapon or accessory with any non-exclusive figures, but I like that he got the Destro stuff and the rest of what he got is pretty good. I actually dig these fellas more than the IG BATs and that’s saying something because I liked them a lot. I’m really trying to curb my temptations to get more of these. I wound up with three, but I really feel like I should pick up a couple more at some point down the road.
As I continue to pack things away prior to my move early next year, access to my collection will be shrinking, thus limiting what I’ll be able to pull out for review here. I am trying to spotlight some things before they get packed away, but it won’t be possible to get everything. Classified, however, will be the last part of my collection that I box up, so you’ll likely see an increase in Classified reviews over the next couple of months. And hey, that ain’t a bad thing! And it’s likely that I’ll be missing a midweek review here and there as demands on my time increase. Anyway, the last batch of Classified that I got in was pretty Cobra focused, so let’s switch back to the good guys and take a look at Alpine today!
Once again, I find this current window box design to be peak Classified packaging. It’s pretty compact, looks great, and mostly lets the figure do the talking. I loved Alpine on the Sunbow cartoon and the original RAH figure was released at least a year before I started getting out of toys, so I couldn’t tell you why I never owned this figure as a kid. Honestly, I don’t remember ever even seeing him on the pegs, but chances are there was probably just that one figure competing with him that I wanted more. After all, 85-86 had some really heavy hitters contending for my allowance. But still, considering the living room sofa doubled as a mountain to stage many of my JOE battles, it’s bewildering to me that I never opted to get their Mountain Trooper.
Albert leans into the original figure design pretty strong. He’s got the green jacket with all sorts of reinforced patches. And instead of being all sculpted on the body like the original, we get the usual soft-vest with jacket sleeves sculpted on the arms and the illusion works fairly well here. I want to say the original figure had brown pants, whereas here we get gray. The boots are black with a green reinforced framework. The larger scale let Hasbro go all out with his gear, including a separate belt with two sculpted clusters of silver climbing hooks hanging off the sides. He’s got a chalk bag positioned in the back middle of the belt and there are various loops to attach gear to. We’ll come back to those in a bit. Finally, he has a coil of rope that rests on his shoulder and can be removed and fingerless black gloves.
Oh yeah, he’s also representing his home, Idaho with this cheesy, touristy T-shirt. It’s a wonderful little touch and I love it!
The head sculpt is OK. Again, since I didn’t own the RAH figure, I think I associate Alpine more with the cartoon than anything else so maybe that’s why this portrait isn’t a direct hit for me. It’s certainly not bad though. The ballcap is removable and the goggles can be worn up on his forehead or down over his eyes. It didn’t seem like they could comfortably fit over the cap though. The goggles have nice clear lenses and they look really good over the eyes.
Alpine’s climbing gear is mostly recreated from the RAH accessories, except you get two climbing axes instead of just one, while instead of two grappling hooks on one string you get a bigger, single hook. I’m pretty sure the climbing axes are new, or at least I haven’t seen them included with any of the figures I own. These are very nicely done with orange handles and silver painted blades. I especially love that they aren’t the same sculpt, as one has sculpted green tape near the handle. On the one hand, that’s an impressive little touch, on the other hand, it kind of makes up for the fact that they are the only new accessories included with him. Although I will toss it out there, that these look more like ice axes, but seeing as how I have lived in Florida for the last 30 years, I am in no way an expert on mountain climbing or ice, as we have none of those things here, so I may be far off base on that.
There are loops on the back of the belt that look like they are designed to hold the climbing axes, but they seem really awkward in those, so I opted to tuck them through the belts around his thighs. This method looks much more natural to me and makes Alpine a lot less likely to impale himself through the backs of his knees. That frees up any of the loops you want to hold the grappling hook, which is the same accessory that came with Arctic Storm Shadow.
His final piece of climbing gear is the rifle-style launch line, and this is the same one we saw included with the Alley Viper. I wasn’t a huge fan of this accessory with the Alley Viper, but it makes a lot more sense here. The grapple harpoon is painted orange to match the grips on the climbing axes, while the rifle is a nicely detailed sculpt and includes a scope. There’s also a loop on the gun and on the grapple to connect a piece of string, but it’s not included, so bring your own string. Now is as good a time as any to bring up the conspicuous absence of a backpack. The RAH figure came with one and it was integral to him carrying all his gear, but we don’t get one here and that seems like a really big oversight. Let’s move on to Alpine’s single weapon.
Like the grapple rifle, this assault rifle is also borrowed from the Alley Viper, which makes for a rather big departure from the submachine gun issued with the RAH figure. That weapon made more sense as it’s more compact and probably easier to handle when climbing. This one isn’t terribly large or unwieldly, but still maybe not ideal. On the other hand it’s one of my favorite weapon sculpts in the line. The detail is amazing, it’s got a drop out magazine and optics up on top. This one also has the magazine and stock painted green to give it a little character.
I like Alpine a lot, but I’m falling just short of loving him. The figure itself is fine, but I’m always a little disappointed when these guys can’t carry all their gear, and that goes double for a guy who should be able to pack all his gear while he’s climbing a mountain. The belt design doesn’t seem to really gel with the gear he has and the lack of a backpack to attach his grapple gun and rifle to is really unforgivable. I know I can’t be alone on that one, because it looks like a number of third-party talents have been 3D printing backpacks for this guy. Still, if this is what a disappointing Classified figure looks like, I’d say Hasbro is still doing pretty well. And it’s good to get Bazooka and Quick Kick reunited with their best bud.
New Classified figures arrived at my doorstep this weekend, and I’m pushing them to the head of the line. I feel terrible about this because so many of these figures have been waiting their turn for a long while. I’ve had a half-finished review of the Cobra STINGER brewing since last month, and the HasLab Dragonfly with its figures is sneering angrily at me from the other room. But, I have to go with what works and what I can budget into the time I have and so I’m rolling out Destro’s Battle Android Troopers!
I’ve mentioned a ton of times how happy I am to have Classified back in window boxes, especially since the character art on those closed boxes was so hit or miss. Plus I was always paranoid that I was tossing accessories with those tissue bags. Here you get to see the gorgeous figure and accessories before you even clip that tape. We’ve had four models of the Classified BATs so far with the regular and crimson flavors being my favorites and the Arctic BAT being a big disappointment, and forget about Python Patrol because I’m not going down that rabbit hole. So how are Destro’s personal BATs going to turn out? Let’s take a look!
Well, doesn’t this guy look gorgeous! From the neck down, the IG Bat is basically a repaint of the first model, taking the two best parts of the Arctic BAT while ignoring all the extra crap they added to him. The humanoid killing machine retains the black fatigues of the OG model, while changing the exposed arms to gold and peppering the rest of the deco with red and more gold. The result is so striking and fresh, that I had to do a close side-by-side comparison to confirm nothing had been changed in the sculpt. We finally get a proper clear chest cover, which is cool. The black ones grew on me quite a bit, but I do still like to see the circuitry displayed like on the original RAH models. The gun belt and holster are now red with a gold buckle and the backpack is recycled with a little red paint added to some of the hoses on the side. Finally, you get a nice crisp Iron Grenadiers patch printed on his left shoulder.
The head is borrowed from the Arctic BAT, which is one of the few things I liked about that figure and I’m happy to see it return. The gold and black deco looks great here, as does the shiny red cyclopean eye. You do get the option to go with a standard BAT head with the face plate painted red, and while it does look good, I’ll be sticking with the cyclops head. You also get an optional damaged chest plate, but I don’t think the damage shows up all that well with the clear plastic. I would much rather they had included a translucent red tinted cover as an option.
The other best thing about the Arctic BAT shows up here and that’s the chainsaw arm attachment. Naturally this piece gets the black and gold paint upgrade. And while the Arctic BAT was stingy and just came with the one weapon attachment, the IG BAT also comes with the full assortment from the original.
And that includes the flamethrower, claw, and drill-laser thing. As with the original, there’s room to store three of the four attachments on his backpack and I think the chainsaw looks fantastic hanging from the side. If you read my Arctic BAT review, you may remember that his chainsaw would not stay put when hung from the side of the pack, but this one does just fine.
And finally, you get the same pistol that came with the previous versions in a… you guessed it! Black and gold deco. It’s kind of funny that these guys even need a sidearm with all their weapon attachments, but I’m not going to turn my nose up at an extra gun.
By the time the Iron Grenadiers arrived on the scene in 1988, I was well out of buying toys and I wouldn’t be back into it for another 12 years. As a result, this is my first time owning any figures of Destro’s private faction and I’m glad to be experiencing it through Classified. Because I was disappointed with the Arctic BAT, I only preordered two of these guys, but I’m happy to say he turned out fantastic and I would love some more. Unfortunately, my life is all about packing things to move these days, so I may hold off on that urge for the time being. Plus, I’m really trying to get my army building compulsion under wraps. But that didn’t stop me from buying three of the Iron Grenadier soldiers, and I’ll be having a look at those here in the very near future!
Howdy, Toy Hounds, as you know it’s been a crazy couple of weeks in my neck of the woods. Hurricanes and a long work week have taken their toll and FFZ had to take a mini hiatus while I recouped. Today’s review was meant for last week, but it was unfinished, and rather than re-write it, I wrapped it up and kicked it out for today. I would imagine the blog’s downtime will affect my plans to get all the Halloween content out, but I’ll likely extend that stuff into November if I have to. I have another pretty full work week this week as well, so we’ll see how it goes.OK… on with the toys!
I had planned to get to the Classified Cobra STINGER this week, but work’s been crazy and we’ve got another hurricane bearing down on us, so I’m bumping it for when I have more time and am not so stressed. Instead, let’s turn our attention to the figure that a lot of Classified collectors have been waiting for… Retro Cobra Commander! Of course, we got a Classified Cobra Commander way back at the beginning and it was a solid figure that I still dig a lot. But since then Classified has steered into traditional designs a lot harder and just like the original Duke and Scarlett, he doesn’t quite fit anymore. Then we got a more traditional Cobra Commander, but you had to buy a $300 HISS Tank to get him, so that wasn’t cool. But even back then rumors were buzzing that we’d get The Commander in wider retail release, so I held off opening my HasLab one to wait and see. And here we are!
Just to try a little something different, I’m going with a comparison instead of my traditional in-package shot. On the left we have the HasLab figure and on the right the new Retro Carded release. There are key differences, albeit a lot of those are in the paint, and you got one extra accessory with the HasLab release in the form of a snake coiled around a globe. The card art on the HasLab version is more traditional and you get the separate compartment at the top for the accessories, whereas the new release has just one elongated bubble. I like the overall art and presentation of the HasLab version much more, which is convenient, because I doubt I’ll ever open that one. And based on what I’ve seen so far, I think I’m going to dig the new release a lot more than the HasLab figure. But, let’s not jump the gun!
The uniform is as classic as you can get. He’s got the all blue suit, including the tunic with the buttons running up the right side, wide lapels, and a light blue turtleneck shirt peeking out from behind. Those black diamonds in his collar were always so iconic to me, even if I had no idea why they were there. He’s got the proper insignia this time, as opposed to the Mickey Mouse one on the HasLab release. The upper belt is painted white, while the lower belt is black with a silver buckle. He has matte black gauntlets and boots, with painted stirrups running down around the boots. There’s a knife sheath strapped to his left leg and he’s got a backpack to hold his trademark hairdryer pistol. The paint here is really on point, especially the silver buckles and the red striping down the trousers.
The helmet is very nice, particularly the vac-metal face plate, which is something I would have expected to see in a HasLab release and not a regular retail figure. The helmet features the white mohawk stripe from the cartoon and the edges of the helmet are much better defined against the face plate than the HasLab version. I dig this a lot!
The Commander sports some excellent articulation, which is pretty much in line with the usual Classified system of jointing. You do get the butterfly crunches in the shoulders, which is great. There are also these strange swivels just above the ankles, which I don’t recall ever seeing on a Classified figure before. Usually the lower leg swivels would be at the tops of boots. But hey, I’m not going to complain about added points. As for hands, CC comes with a pair of fists, a pair of trigger finger hands, a right pointing hand, and a left wide grip hand, which is left over from the HasLab figure and designed to hold the globe that was omitted here.
The backpack holster does it’s job well. The sleeve is sculpted to hug the contours of the weapon and it stays put just fine. You get some silver paint hits to whatever those buttons are supposed to be and there’s a Cobra emblem on a black field inside the disk on the outside of the holster. This backpack actually has one additional paint hit that is missing from the HasLab release.
I couldn’t tell you why, but I absolutely love CC’s hairdryer gun. Next to the JOE laser rifle, it’s probably my favorite weapon in all of JOEdom. It’s just a neat sci-fi design with some excellent detail in the sculpt. the muzzle looks like it’s designed to spit out a vicious hot energy beam and I can just picture The Commander laughing maniacally as he torches invading JOEs entering his Command Center. I was pretty upset that we didn’t get one with the first Classified Commander, but now all is right with the world.
Of course, the dagger is removable from the sheath, and it’s a pretty cool little Fairbairn–Sykes style weapon. Alas, The Commander doesn’t come with a hand that’s very well suited to wielding it. The best bet is either of the gun-holding hands and it does work, but not quite ideal. It’s hard to imagine the Sunbow Commander going up against anyone in a knife fight, but I’d like to think of this Classified Commander as being just a tad more spicy and unpredictable.
I love that Hasbro is using this Retro Carded sub-line as a way to bring earlier Classified figures in line with the more traditional direction that the line has taken. As I mentioned earlier, I still like the first Classified Commander quite a bit, but there’s no doubt that this one will be The Commander that I display front and center in my collection. Hasbro did an excellent job hitting all of my favorite design beats, and I never would have thought we’d get a vac-metal face shield in a regular release. I know a lot of people out there are still hoping for a hooded version, and while I’d like to see that too, this helmet remains my favorite look for The Commander, so either way I’m covered!
While I still have lots of old favorites to cover, GI JOE Classified is starting to dip into characters that appeared in the toy shelves after I was done buying toys as a kid, and a long way from me buying them as an adult. Some of these I may skip if I have no interest in them, but there’s a bunch that I am picking up and it’s kind of exciting to be experiencing a figure of a JOE or Cobra that I have never owned before. And that brings me to Big Boa! Released in the original Real American Hero line in 1987, I was 15yo and my limited teenage money was going into SEGA Master System games instead of toys. But, I was still keeping an eye on some of the toy lines I collected, and Big Boa was one that I would have happily picked up if he had just come out a year or two earlier.
Reunited with the window boxes and it feels so good! This is possibly my favorite iteration of the Classified packaging right here. The window shows off the goods, you get some great character art on the front and side panel, and all is right with the world. Big Boa was billed as Cobra’s hard-ass Trainer, pushing the Cobra Troops to their limits and beyond. In that sense, I guess I saw him as the Cobra version of Sgt. Slaughter. The character emerged from a plan to bring Sylvester Stallone onto the JOE team, but as I understood it Sly chose another direction and went with Coleco for a line of Rambo figures. And the rest is history.
Trainer or no, Boa doesn’t conform to any kind of Cobra uniform protocol. He agreed to the blue trousers and combat boots, but that was it. He goes shirtless with a red, spiked chest harness, red belt, and red codpiece to protect his snakeling. The red and blue looks quite striking together and I dig all the silver paint hits to the spikes, belt fixtures, and rivets. Despite the minimal costuming, you still get some great flourishes in the sculpt, like the braided pattern on the belt, stitching on the harness, laces in the boots, and some padded panels on the sides of the boots. The detail in the musculature is also nicely done! He also has white tape wrapped around his standard set of hands splattered with blood! I would have liked to see a Cobra insignia snuck in there somewhere, but even so I think this is a great looking figure!
I believe the unmasked head is a first for the character, or at least I know the original RAH figure came wearing a permanent helmet. I dig what we got here, even if it does lean in to the caricature side of things. But hey, that plays to the idea that Boa’s taken quite a few shots to the head and maybe there’s been some reconstructive surgery in his past. He’s got ample jowls, a bulb of a nose, and a strong brow. His ears look a little banged up and he’s got some teeth knocked out of his grill, suggesting Cobra’s dental plan may not be the best. I think his sneer is probably meant to be a nod to Stallone, but I see more John Fiore in that likeness than anything else. Whatever the case, it’s a wonderful portrait.
The helmet is a full on second head, rather than an actual helmet, and it’s a pretty close update to the RAH figure’s. It’s an interesting design with a little Boba Fett (or is that Boa Fett?) and a little Mad Max. It’s mostly off white with a silver grill on the front, narrow red visor, and a red spiked strip running down the center of the head like a mohawk. Obviously it’s going to protect against some of those shots to the melon, but it looks unnecessarily high tech, what with the breathing hose coming out of the side. I’m not sure where the inspirations here came from, but it looks cool.
The articulation is everything I’ve come to love about this line, as Hasbro has really locked in on a great compromise between posability and sculpt. We’ve seen it all before, so I won’t run down every point here. Suffice it to say, you get a great range of motion in the double-hinged elbows and knees, the hips pull down a bit, there are swivels in both the thighs and boots. They did a decent job working the ab hinge into the muscle sculpt so it’s a bit less obvious. The hips on my figure are just a tad loose, but everything else feels great and he is super fun to play around with.
The vintage figure came with a punching bag, whereas Hasbro decided to toss the Classified figure a pair of 90lb weights and I think that was a good choice. I’ll probably pose him wielding these as weapons.
And finally, you get a pair of boxing glove hands, and finally we get to see some Cobra insignia! These gloved hands include bands for the wrists to complete the look. It’s going to be a tough choice to decide whether to display Boa with the Cobra-branded boxing gloves or the bloody taped up hands.
As I said earlier, it’s fun to experience some of these old characters for the first time in Classified. I don’t have any childhood attachment to Big Boa, but I think this figure is great and he’s certainly a fun and colorful addition to my Cobra forces. Maybe Hasbro could have tossed in a few more accessories, as he does feel a tad light compared to some other releases, but he’s certainly got the essentials. I was originally going to pass on the Mad Marauders version of Sgt Slaughter, but seeing as how he comes with boxing gloves, I may need to pick him up so these guys can go mano-a-mano in the ring.
It feels like new Classified figures are arriving every other week, burying my large backlog little by little. Indeed, I think I could devote this entire blog to this line and still not be caught up for a long while. But, these are nice problems to have, and it’s rare these days to get an action figure line producing this kind of quality and quantity on a regular basis. I pushed these two recent additions to the front of the line, Night-Creeper and Jinx, but not necessarily because I was super excited to get them, but more because I don’t think I ever owned either of the original figures, so I’m entering unexplored territory!
Classified is back to using the window boxes and they got something of a redesign. They are a lot less colorful than the older boxes, but I like them a lot. There’s a sense of classy uniformity here and I frankly, I think the best marketing this line can do is just show off how good the figures look. I’ve gone on record many times here with how I’m not a big fan of ninjas taking over my GI JOE vs Cobra narrative, but sprinkling them sparingly into the mix ain’t necessarily a bad thing. In this case, my only familiarity with Jinx has been from the original movie and I have very little familiarity with the Night-Creeper at all, so let’s start with him.
Night-Creeper was first released in the Real American Hero line in 1990 and I was well out of GI JOE by then. I was just starting college, what little disposable income I had was spent on video games, and it would be about a decade until I would start collecting toys as an adult. With that having been said, this guy looks like a pretty solid update to that original figure. The maroon, gray, and purple deco is certainly distinctive without being quite as outrageous as the feast of neon decos that was yet to come. The sculpt gets by with some rumples to the suit, prominent shoulder cuffs and a plate armor vest. Finally, there’s a belt worn by the figure that has sheathes for his twin hooked blades to live. The original outfit design is enhanced here by some segmented armor shin guards and tabi.
You get two heads to choose from. The first pays respects to the original figure, and I think this is an awesome update. The face is covered with a featureless mask and the eyes shielded by a silver visor. All that is wrapped up in a hood and topped off with a silver skull cap. The hood is attached to the head so it works well with the neck articulation.
The second head references the next version of Night-Creeper, which was put out about three years later. This one is a fully enclosed helmet and features what I think is a much stronger sci-fi vibe. There’s an interesting mix of organic curves with some harsh angles in the cheeks. The visor strip is painted in red, while the rest of the helmet and mask match the maroon and purple of the suit. I will likely stick with the first helmet for display, but this one is really creepy and I dig it a lot.
The backpack is designed to hold all the rest of his gear and it has its ups and downs. There are clips on the sides for his two swords. There are some sculpted crossbow bolts across the back along with one free slot to store a loose bolt, and there are two triangular tabs to secure his crossbow. In theory it’s great, but I find that the sword clips are the only thing that really work very well. The loose bolt will stay notched as long as you don’t put the crossbow over it, meanwhile, the tabs to hold the crossbow are warped and don’t align properly. As a result, the crossbow pops out very easily as does the bolt. This rig also makes the figure very back-heavy. Normally, I love when figures can carry all their stuff, but in this case, it’s kind of a disaster.
Night-Creeper comes with two sets of hands. The first pair are both gun-hands with trigger fingers, but these work fine as all-purpose accessory holding hands. The other set includes a right chopping hand and a left hand with a black shuriken sculpted into it. I’m a big fan of the sculpted shuriken, rather than trying to have to get him to hold a tiny loose one. A left chopping hand or fist would have been nice, but I’m still happy with the variety here.
The hooked knives are cast in all black and at least these secure quite well in the sheaths and work fine with the gun-hands. These knives also have rings in the pommels so you can attach a chain or a piece of string.
The swords are very cool updates to the ones included with the original figure, with each having a unique and wicked looking blades. One has a wavy kris-style blade in silver and the other has barbed hooks and is finished in a metallic green. Both weapons have black hilts with excellent sculpted detail.
And finally, Night-Creeper comes with his crossbow and a single loose bolt. I dig the crossbow a lot, even if it is rather bulky. It’s rifle configuration has a stock and a foregrip and it’s sculpted with reserve hours stored underneath. You can load the loose arrow into the weapon and it stays put there a lot better than it does in the backpack. A few design issues aside, Night-Creeper is a very cool looking figure with a great array of accessories. Let’s move on to Jinx!
As I mentioned at the beginning, my only exposure to Jinx was from the original animated movie. I may have still been picked up a few JOEs when Jinx’s figure released in 1987, but she wasn’t one of them. Couple that with my relative indifference toward mixing ninjas in my GI JOEs, and this Classified release wasn’t super high on my list, but in hand I’m pretty pleased with her. She comes in a sculpted red ninja suit with a black sash tied around her waist and a black dragon emblem printed over her left breast. The suit has some purple accents on the sides, her arms are exposed and there’s a tattoo printed down the length of her right arm. The costume is rounded out by black wrappings over her forearms, wrists and palms and red and black slippers. Jinx’s certainly isn’t one of the more elaborate body sculpts we’ve had in Classified, but it does a fine job paying respect to the source material. I think she strikes a nice balance between the RAH and Sunbow designs.
You get two heads to choose from: One masked and one unmasked. Both of these are excellent, but I think Hasbro did a particularly nice job on the unmasked face. It’s a very pretty sculpt with extremely clean printing for the lips and eyes and the hair looks great. There’s a removable choker neckless, and she has a black headband, which can be lowered to work as a blindfold, referencing her uncanny abilities at fighting blind as demonstrated in the film. The masked head doesn’t allow for as much flare in the sculpt, but you do still get to see her pretty eyes. It’s nice to have these options, but I’ll likely be displaying her unmasked most of the time.
Jinx comes with two sets of hands, which include an accessory holding pair and a pair of fists. I know asking for three pairs of hands in a regular Classified release may sound greedy, but the lack of chopping hands feels like a really big omission. Indeed, I would have rather had chopping hands than fists. I’ll also toss out here that I could have done without the arm tattoo. The Classified design team seems to have a real tattoo fetish. In a lot of cases I think it enhances the figure, but not here. It’s especially annoying since they probably redesigned her without the long sleeves just to tatt her up.
The original RAH figure came with two swords and a backpack to hold them, whereas this Classified version comes with one sword and a scabbard that pegs into her back. I’m fine with this, as I think the scabbard looks better than the backpack The sword is a simple sculpt with some detailed wrappings on the grip but nothing on the tsuba. Alas, the blade and tsuba are left bare gray plastic, and these would have looked much better painted silver.
Jinx also comes with a double-bladed pole weapon based on the one included with the RAH figure. The blades have ornate designs and are painted silver, while the pole is black and there’s some maroon paint on the sculpted wraps near each blade.
Even as a tepid I am on ninjas in my GI JOE, I like these figures quite a bit. Night-Creeper could have used some quality control on his backpack’s crossbow tabs, but overall, he’s a really cool figure that comes with a lot of neat stuff. My only real issue with Jinx is she seems light on accessories when compared with Night-Creeper, so that extra pair of chopping hands doesn’t seem like that big an ask. And these will probably do it for me and Classified ninjas for a while. I skipped Kamakura because I just had no interest in him, but I do still have a few Cobra ninjas in my collection to check out, but I’ll likely save those for if I ever get caught up.
A couple weeks back I checked out the Walmart Exclusive Night Force Night Pursuit Cycle, a repaint of the RAM Cycle, and Night Force Shockwave. I mentioned that I’m not really collecting the Night Force and Tiger Force variants, but in a moment of weakness I not only grabbed that one, but also preordered Target’s Tiger Force repaint of the Cobra Ferret ATV with Wreckage. I’m hoping that this will be a couple of isolated incidents, but only time will tell! In this case, I was mainly driven by the desire to give the JOEs their own ATV and to get a pretty cool homage to one of those Toys R Us Exclusive 5-packs from the early 00’s.
You get the same style box as we saw with the Cobra Ferret. It’s nearly fully enclosed, but does have a window to show off the figure, as well as the Tiger Force logo, and some fantastic renders of the toy in action. If you have the Cobra Ferret, you know exactly what to expect inside the box in terms of assembly requirements. It all goes together easy and the only thing to watch out for is lining those tread patterns up right. The extra parts and accessories come in tissue bags inside a cardboard footlocker, and it’s neat that we get to keep seeing these every now and then, despite the return to window boxes for the figures. Let’s start with Wreckage!
Dillon Moreno, aka. Wreckage is a demolitions and jungle warfare expert and was first introduced as part of a 2003 TRU Exclusive Tiger Force 5-pack. Back then he was a straight repaint of Firefly and here he looks to be a straight repaint of Classified’s Firefly 2.0. And holy shit is this guy cool looking! I’m not usually a big fan of the Tiger Force decos, but it sure looks awesome here, probably because the tiger stripes aren’t bright yellow and rather subdued. The fatigues are mostly black and the stripes are sort of a copper-brown. Like Firefly, this guy has a ton of gear strapped to him, including a chest harness, belt and two leg rigs, all of which are cast in a coppery-brown similar to the striping. The boots and gloves match the gear, and you get some orange paint applications for his turtleneck as well as some additional hits like the knife sheath on his right arm, pouches on his body rig, and explosive charges on his leg. His left shoulder has a crisp Tiger Force logo printed on it, and there’s some silver for the various zippers.
The head features a full mask with a cutout for the eyes. He’s got some dark shading around his peepers and some pretty creepy graphics to mimic a skull for the rest of his face. When I checked out Night Force Shockwave, I commented about how he looked like some kind of maniac, and that goes double for Wreckage here.
The VAMP/Night Pursuit Cycle helmet makes yet another appearance. It seems like Hasbro really wants to get their money’s worth out of it. Still, it fits in well with his set and the repaint looks cool. I love the sculpt, especially the mounted camera, and we get some nice touches of character here with the angry teeth art on the sides and the kill marks scored out above the visor.
The backpack is the same as Firefly 2.0’s and that includes the mines that peg into the sides and the detonator that plugs into the back. I thought I got short-changed the detonator, which is why it’s not pictured, but I did eventually find it in one of the bags. The backpack still has the tab on the bottom for Firefly’s RC car delivery system, but the car is not included here. I dig the design and sculpt of this backpack a lot, and it certainly makes sense to repurpose it here for Wreckage.
For weapons, you get a combat knife, an automatic pistol, and a sub-machine gun. The magazine can be removed from the SMG and there’s one suppressor to share between the SMG and pistol. There’s a peg on the backpack to stow the SMG, allowing Wreckage to carry all of his weapons and leave both hands free to drive the Tiger Paw… so let’s check out his ride!
As expected, the Tiger Paw is a straight re-deco of the Ferret with all the ostentatious flare of the Tiger Force design. The frame and seat are black, the back half of the body is yellow, gradually becomes orange in the middle, and ends up white at the front. There’s black tiger striping in the middle and a tiger face motif stenciled on the front. The wheels are now bright orange. Some of the lettering carries over, like the Caution on the exhaust pipes and Cobra is replaced with ATV on the wheels, and there’s a Tiger Force logo behind the seat.
The removable cannon has a red receiver and black barrel, the steering column and instrument panel are red with black handlebars, and the front turret is red. All of the red parts are brighter and flashier than what we saw on the Ferret. The side missiles appear to be identical to what we got with the Ferret and they’re still gummy and have a tendency to get knocked off. Still, all in all this is as great a toy as it was the first time. It’s fun to roll into battle and the independent suspension is impressive.
And Wreckage looks damn good driving it, especially with the helmet as it tends to match the ATV deco more than his fatigues does. Obviously there’s still room for two on the Tiger Paw, and conveniently I do own one other Tiger Force figure and that’s Recondo, so at least Wreckage won’t have to go on sorties alone.
If I had my choice, I would have preferred getting a more traditional military green recolor of the Ferret for the JOEs. I’m just not that big a fan of the Tiger Force decos and this ATV hasn’t changed my mind about it. I am, however, still glad I picked it up, particularly because Wreckage turned out so good. It’s awesome to get a Classified version of him and he brings back some nostalgic memories of hunting new GI JOE figures at Toys R Us every Friday after work. Who knows? Maybe if the Tiger Force RAM Cycle drops in price any more, I’ll pick that up to have a matched set.
I drew the line a little while ago and pledged that I wouldn’t be picking up any Night Force or Tiger Force stuff. Classified is extensive enough without buying a lot of repaints. Also, I’m generally not a fan of the Tiger Force deco, while the Night Force stuff is more appealing to me. Well, I kind of reneged on that pledge twice now, as I preordered both this Night Force set, and the Tiger Force version of the Ferret. Yup, my willpower ain’t that strong! This set includes a repaint of the RAM Cycle as well as a repaint of Jason Faria, aka. Shockwave with some mix and match accessories. It’s also a Walmart Exclusive, which I was able to get online, because that’s the only way I get any store exclusives these days.
The packaging is simple, yet impressive. The toys come in a big window box with everything laid out in the tray. The accessory count looks to be pretty high, and while I don’t recognize everything, I’m willing to bet that there is nothing in this box that isn’t recycled from a previous release. Everything is collector friendly, and this may be one of those sets that I choose to display in the box, rather than have two RAM Cycles on the shelf. But we’ll see. Let’s start with Shockwave, and I’ll spend more time with him than I will the bike, because he’s totally new to me.
Shockwave is one of a very small number of mainline release Classified figures that I skipped when he went up for preorder. I have nothing against the SWAT specialist, but the original Real American Hero figure was released in 1989 when I was long out of my kid phase of buying GI JOEs and about ten years away from entering my adult phase of buying GI JOEs. I also think the Classified figure was part of a rather large flurry of releases, and I wanted to make some responsible decisions and maybe pick him up later. That never happened, and so here we are. This version is a straight repaint of that first release with a lot of gray, black and some green in place of the blue. His cargo trousers are printed with digital urban camo and he has a rather robust tactical vest with a quilted chest, angled knife sheath, a brace of what I think are shotgun shells, and lots and lots of pouches. The regular release had two submachine gun holsters, whereas this one has a single holster on his right thigh for a pistol. He does, however, retain the second knife sheath on his lower left leg. The coloring is a lot more subdued here than the original blue, but I dig it. The only thing I’m not crazy about is how the vest prevents him from putting his arms down all the way. As a result he can look a little silly trying to adopt natural standing poses.
The head features the balaclava repainted to all black and the removable cap is redone in gray digital camo to match his trousers. I’m not a fan of the eye printing here, he looks like some kind of coked-out maniac and I think it’s more suited to a Cobra figure than a JOE.
You also get a recycled helmet, which I believe we last saw released with the VAMP. I didn’t have much use for this with Clutch, but I do really like it on Shocker when he’s on the Night Pursuit Cycle.
Shockwave borrows from some of Firefly 1.0’s kit, namely his backpack and drone. I don’t mind this too much, since I retired that figure after Firefly 2.0 came along. The backpack is a great sculpt, here cast in gray instead of black. There are all sorts of pouches holding sculpted tools, many of which are painted silver. The drone can nest on top of the backpack and inside the pack is a compartment that stores the drone’s remote control unit, which I thought was a really cool idea. The drone has some articulation in the legs, the VTOL fans are static, and there’s some red paint for his large camera eye. I think this is some worthwhile recycling, but there is a tab and a socket on the backpack, which doesn’t work with any of Shockwave’s gear, and that’s awkward. I may actually give those accessories to Shockwave, since Firefly 1.0 won’t be needing them at the bottom of that tote he lives in. Let’s move on to weapon role call!
For the cutlery, Shockwave comes with two knives, which fit in the previously mentioned sheaths. These have black handles and silver blades. The one that fits in his chest sheath is a fairly standard combat style knife while the boot knife has a gut-hook. Maybe, I don’t want to know why he carries that. The gut-hook knife is one of the few accessories here that came with the first release of Shockwave. These are fine, but the boot sheath doesn’t stay on his leg very well and slides down.
As for the smaller guns, Shockwave has an automatic pistol that he stows in the holster on his right leg and a submachine gun, which I believe is the same that came with regular Shockwave, who actually had a pair of these. Both weapons are cast in black plastic and have some excellent sculpted detail. The submachine gun has an extended magazine, which is not removable, however, the suppressor can be removed.
Next up on the pew-pew chain is the double barreled AR, which sounds batshit crazy, but I believe it’s based on an Israeli design. I love the detail in this sculpt and the green magazine is removable. There’s also a hinged foregrip, and it too is cast in green plastic. As someone who has to slum it with my boring old single-barrel AR, I’d love to give one of these a whirl just for the experience.
Onto the biggest gun, or at least the biggest that isn’t meant to mount on the cycle. This looks like the JOEs answer to the SIG 338 Light Machine Gun and it is a beautifully sculpted accessory. This rifle has a detachable box magazine, cast in green plastic and a grab bar on the top. The exposed rounds feeding from the mag into the receiver are individually painted in gold and banded with green. Hasbro really put together an interesting arsenal for this guy and I love it all. Unfortunately, he has nowhere to carry most of it, which is partly due to him recycling the old backpack. It’s a shame, because I really like my JOEs to be able to carry all their gear. OK, let’s move on to the Night Pursuit Cycle!
Wow! For what could have been a quick-and-dirty repaint, Hasbro poured some serious love into this new deco. The dark matte gray plastic replaces the green of the original, and there are lots of new tampos all over the place, including the Night Force logo, the eagle on the gas tank, and “Covert Special Task Force” printed on the chain gun’s casing. You get some tan paint added to the seat, handle bar wraps, and to the sculpted wrap on the exhaust pipes, which is pretty damn cool, because I don’t think I even noticed that detail on the original, where it was left black. Finally, there are some gorgeous copper highlights to the vents, shocks, and wheels, which may not be ideal for a stealthy night vehicle, but they look so nice, it’s easy for me to not nitpick the logic there. Of course, as with the first release, the chaingun can be removed from the housing and wielded by a figure, and there’s a drop down kickstand to stabilize the bike with the weapon sidecar detached.
I think Shockwave pairs really well with the bike, and with the helmet on, he looks totally bad-ass. The colors of his fatigues compliment the Night Pursuit Cycles deco very well. For me, nothing will ever replace how iconic the Classified RAM looks as an homage to the vintage toy, but I have to admit, that the deco here is quite striking and most certainly holds its own.
I’ll admit, I didn’t think I’d be nearly as excited with this set as I wound up being. Shockwave is a cool figure, even with his odd mix-and-match assortment of accessories. I also think that there’s enough changes here to make him work as a Night Force strike team army builder, if you already own the regular Shockwave. The helmet and fairly generic fatigues goes a long way to giving him that troop builder vibe. And because of that, I may still pick up the regular version. As for the bike, Hasbro went above and beyond kitting out the deco with new markings and making it feel like just another quick-and-easy cash grab on an existing mold. And while the nostalgia of the regular RAM Cycle will always win out for me, I could easily see collectors preferring this snazzy new bike. This set retailed for $55, which seems to be the going price for these smaller vehicle and figure combos, but at the time I’m writing this, the set is discounted to $42, and that seems like a real steal!
Some new Dreadnoks arrived last week, one of whom, Torch, completes the original trio of terror. I’ve already checked out Buzzer last year, but I never got around to Ripper, so I decided to pair them up for today’s review. It seems somehow appropriate since back in the 25th Anniversary Collection, Buzzer got his own release and Ripper and Torch were sold in a two-pack. I make it no secret that I absolutely loved the Dreadnoks in both the original Real American Hero line and the Sunbow cartoon. These guys were like throwing a bomb into the middle of the balance of power, and with how often Zartan and the Dreadnoks betrayed Cobra when I played with my JOEs, it’s a wonder why they kept hiring them. And their sudden reversal at the end of the second cartoon Mini-Series remains one of my all time favorite moments from that series.
One nice thing about waiting so long to get to Ripper is that it lets me to a side-by-side comparison of the package changes. Buzzer and Ripper were released in the plastic-free, fully enclosed box, but Torch sees the return of the window box. I’m glad I don’t collect these figures for boxed display because this sort of thing would drive me crazy. It also means that only Ripper and Torch get those nifty cardboard footlockers for their gear. Still, all in all I like the window boxes a lot better, as it gives you a great look at the figure and most of what he comes with. Let’s start with Ripper, since he’s been waiting around for a long time!
Infamous for extorting candy in nursery school, Ripper has been a bad seed his whole life and now he’s arrived to make life miserable for the JOEs. The Classified figure takes the original RAH design and runs with it. His camo tank top is no longer a half-shirt and now completely covers his abs. The blue jeans are a darker denim with some nice texturing, there’s a wide belt, a chain hooked onto two of the belt loops, black knee pads and high black boots. The gold bicep band on the original figure’s right arm is now fully fleshed out with a spike strip, there’s a sculpted wrist band on his left arm, and the holster that was sculpted onto the original figure’s right thigh is now a fully functional separate piece, held in place by friction. The sculpted grenade and knife on the RAH figure is replaced with a separate shoulder harness that’s worn by the figure. It’s got a pair of pineapple style grenades sculpted onto the right shoulder strap, while the left one has a functional sheath for his combat knife. And, of course, the shoulders are reinforced with spikes! Everything about Ripper screams that society failed him, and I love everything about this update, and we haven’t even gotten to the head sculpt yet.
Oh yeah! Ripper’s giant meat head, features a full beard, mutton chops, and I don’t even know how to describe that haircut, but I do know that the barber responsible hates the world. He’s got a mohawk that tufts in the front and runs down the back to form a mullet tail, while the sides are close shaven. And boy did Hasbro do a nice job texturing that buzz cut. He’s got one dogtag serving as a right earring and a necklace of more dogtags strung around his neck. I also failed to previously mention the beautiful tatts that he’s got printed on his right shoulder and left arm.
The glasses are removable, and these work a heck of a lot better than Buzzer’s did, which had problems staying put. I’m not going to say these will never fall off when posing or playing, but they do stay on much, much better. Take them off and you can see him popping a glass eye with a smiley face in his right socket, and that has got to be one of the greatest and most bizarre little touches I’ve ever seen on a mainstream, mass market action figure. And for you parents out there, you can have fun explaining to little Timmy what the tear drop tattoo under the left eye means! Ripper’s whole expression is fantastic, as he growls, showing his teeth. You even get scars bisecting both of his eyebrows. Top notch work!
Moving on to weapons, we’ll start small. The thigh holster houses a rather unique pistol that looks like some kind of Road Warrior custom job. There’s no visible magazine, so it may be very low capacity. It does have a serrated knife-style bayonet on it, and overall looks pretty cool.
The combat knife stowed in his shoulder sheath is a nice piece of work. It has a sawback blade with a clipped point and a knuckle guard on the hilt. A lot of these Classified knives are just tiny black pieces of plastic with no personality, so I really enjoy when the cutlery gets a little extra love thrown its way. I also dig how the left hand is perfectly sculpted to hold it, but will still work as a trigger-finger hand for the guns.
Next up is his rifle with the crazy curved metal splitter blade. I fell in love with this rifle design ever since I first saw it in the animated commercial for Marvel’s GI JOE #30. The initial main strategy of the Dreadnoks seemed to be that they just snuck into your base while you were sleeping and wrecked your equipment like a bunch of assholes. Anyway, this weapon is so damn badass, and Ripper was using it to stab the hell out of a VAMP in the commercial. There is some fantastic sculpted detail on this weapon, including a scope, top rail, suppressor, and it has a removable magazine. There’s also a peg on his back, so you can secure it through the trigger guard.
And that brings us to Ripper’s signature weapon, the giant power jaws. Patterned after the Jaws of Life that first responders use to rescue people, Ripper just uses it to wreck stuff. It looks like the unholy mating of a pincer claw and a leaf blower and I do love it. I’m kind of disappointed that we didn’t get a backpack and power cable to go with it, but in fairness it does seem to be redesigned to be self contained. Maybe it’s for the better because the power cable on my 25th Anni. Ripper was pretty frustrating and to be honest, I’d rather have the option to stow his rifle on his back when he’s using this thing. OK, let’s turn up the heat and move on to Torch!
The OG Dreadnok trio is rounded out by Torch, and there’s no way I can write a better introduction to him than what was printed on his original filecard. “Torch is an illiterate, unrepentant thug whose penchant for sudden and unexpected violence is matched only by the utter depth of his stupidity.” That’s just gold. As with his comrades, the Classified Torch sticks pretty close to the original RAH design, but maybe with fewer embellishments here. The leather jacket is cast in soft plastic and worn by the figure with the same three straps connecting it below his chest. There’s some bright and snappy silver paint applied to the buckles and zippers, as well as the chain loops at the shoulders, and studs on the back. I do kind of miss the graphic added to the jacket for the 25th Anniversary figure, I thought that was a nice bit of embellishment and added some character, but i guess the studs are nice too. The light blue jeans are textured and disappear into his high black boots, which have reinforced knees. He has twin holsters attached to his thighs and held on by friction, along with a spiked band on his left arm. His hands have sculpted gloves, with chains wrapped around the wrists. These are left gray plastic, and it’s a shame they couldn’t have been painted silver. The silver belt sculpted around his waist looks very nice, and I dig the flame tats on his forearms. He also has some cheeky flame patches on the back pockets of his jeans!
The head sculpt is solid, but I feel like it shows a little lower effort compared to Buzzer and Ripper, kind of like they started to run out of steam by the time they got to him. It definitely hits all the beats of the RAH original, with the mustache, side beard, and ball chin. He’s also got his trademark glasses and red headband. The glasses are are part of the sculpt this time, and I don’t have a problem with that considering the success rate on glasses so far was only 50-50. But, the overall quality of the sculpt here seems softer and less detailed. There are also uneven lines around the beard’s paint, which is disappointing. I do like the studded choker and the animal skull pendant is very cool, especially the way the neck cord looks like horns protruding from the top. This is not in any way a bad portrait, just a step down from the other really great ones.
The dual holsters hold a matched pair of automatic pistols. These are cast in grey plastic and nicely detailed. You also get holes in the barrels for blast effect parts, though none are included. Considering the original figure only came with his torch and backpack, it’s cool that he got a pair of pistols here.
Of course, Torch comes his signature weapon, which was an acetylene torch. The tanks are worn on his back and are given a bit more personality here, with the central tank painted in yellow and decked out with some graphics and the and “Nocks Rule” There’s a hose coming off the side of the backpack, which plugs into the torch itself. The torch can be attached to the bottom of the tanks for storage, with the hose awkwardly looping out to the side. But, you can remove the hose if it gets in the way.
The torch is cast in gray plastic and has two handles, with the trigger being in the front. There’s also a really bitchin demon skull on the front with the tip of the torch protruding from its jaws and flame shooting up from the eye sockets. As cool as the flaming eyes are, it’s a pity they aren’t removable for when the torch is not in use, because with them there it looks like it’s always on. You get three different flame effect pieces, the first of which is just a bit of flame puffing out the nozzle.
Now, I’m certainly no expert, but I think I know the difference between an acetylene torch and a flamethrower, but I’m not sure the world of GI JOE does, because this thing is clearly a flame thrower. I don’t know, it has three tanks on the back, which is one more than you need for an acetylene torch, so maybe it’s rigged as both? Sure, let’s go with that. Still, who’s going to quibble when the flame effects look this damn good!
Boy it feels great to have the original three Dreadnoks finally together in the Classified line! If we’re going by the figure itself, I think Ripper is my favorite of the three, with Buzzer second and Torch falling in a close third. On the other hand, if we’re going by specialty weapon, Torch takes the prize because he just looks so damn cool shooting out those flame effects. Either way, you can’t go wrong with this trinity of terror, and they look fantastic with Zartan and Zarana. Gnawgahyde and his menagerie also arrived, so I hope to be getting to him soon. Next on the top of my list will be Zanzabar!
I’ll confess, I feel so guilty pushing new Classified releases to the head of the review line when I have so many older figures to look at here. But then again the new Cobra Ferrets rolled in this past weekend and how could I not? This Combat ATV was first introduced to the Cobra arsenal back in 1985, and was just another prime example of how many cool toys this line had that were still small and affordable. And by affordable I mean that if I was really good and tagged along with my Dad when he went to Sears on Saturday morning to get a tool, I might have a chance of talking him into getting me a FANG, a SNAKE Armor, a FERRET. or some other small vehicle. These were also featured several times in the Sunbow cartoon, which just made them all the more desirable, probably because of hidden subliminal messages.
And behold, the new Classified Ferret. No longer a little impulse item, this new Cobra ATV is scaled for the 6-inch line, is big enough to carry a couple of riders, and is bristling with weaponry. This release was a Hasbro Pulse Exclusive and sold out fairly quickly, and there is a Target Exclusive JOE version on the way. You get a colorful box with some great artwork and shots of the toy. And unlike the original RAH version, this one comes with a dedicated driver, The Cobra Ferret Scout, visible through a window panel on the front of the box. Oh, and hello! It’s a lady! The Ferret requires a bit of assembly, and make sure you take note of the direction of those tire treads, because once you put them on, they’re a bitch to take off again. I bought two and learned my lesson putting together the the first. Let’s start with the figure!
The Ferret Scout is a repaint of the Cobra Valkyries that came in a two-pack not that long ago. The previously black and blue fatigues are now light grey and dark grey, with some black, blue and trim added. It’s a rather unique deco that is very pleasing to the eye and maybe leans into an urban camo vibe for me. The belt, bicep strap, and holster rig are all borrowed directly from the Valkyrie, but an ankle sheath has been added to the left leg. There’s also an additional vest piece that’s worn by the figure providing a little armor to the vital bits, and stamped with a red Cobra emblem on the front.
The head is also borrowed from one of the noggins that came with the Valks, but it now includes a riding helmet. This piece is cast in soft plastic and encompasses the entire head with an opening for the eyes. The design is awesome, with a snakehead motif forming the top of the visor, complete with snake fangs, and a pair of painted fangs over the mouth guard. It fits the figure very well and it’s nice to have the option to remove it, rather than have a sculpted helmet head.
As for weapons, the Ferret Scout gets by with two automatic pistols and a combat knife. The combat knife is small and cast all in black plastic. It’s nothing special, but a nice addition, since the Valks didn’t come with one. No doubt useful for taking care of any JOE that jumps onto the Ferret, by stabbing them in the neck with it. Yeah, I went dark with that one! The pistols are the same pair that came with the Valks, with one worn in a cross-draw holster on the left hip and the other on the right thigh rig. These are also cast all in black and have sockets in the barrels for blast effect parts, although none are included with this set.
I really love this figure, which should come as no surprise, as I was a big fan of the Valks. The recolor and rework done here makes her stand out on her own and I think the overall design works wonderfully for a dedicated Ferret driver that we never got in the original RAH series. A rifle and some blast effect parts would have been cool, but I can always dig into my copious box of Classified accessories if I need to kit them out a bit more. Now, let’s move onto the Ferret itself!
As we’ve seen time and again, the Classified version takes the original RAH design and updates it for scale and maybe just a little bit of realism. The coloring remains blue and black with red trim and all the design beats are still here, from the side mounted rockets to the pivoting front guns, and the large side-mounted cannon. This new version feels a more chonky and durable, as it no longer has an exposed engine compartment where you could see through to the other side. You do, however, get some exposed sections of the engine, which are painted over in silver. There’s a ton of tampo’d lettering on this thing, many of which are lifted directly from the original toy, like the X02 under the steering column or the Caution Exhaust on the rear pipes. Even the tires are branded!
The front of the vehicle has a non-working winch, protected by a cage, the steering wheel has a detailed instrument panel and can turn, but it is not connected to the front wheels. You do, however, get working independent suspension in each wheel, which is very cool. The side rockets, originally called COM-BAT laser-seeking rockets, have the same weird double sided design, which I never really understood, and this new version looks even more confusing. Either way, these simply peg into the launch carrier and I’d nitpick about not getting a launch effect piece, but when the rocket has two nosecone and no exhaust, where would you even plug it in? I will say that the rockets are kind of rubbery, which is a bit disappointing.
The side cannon pegs into a clip, which in turn clips onto the cage, allowing you to mount it on either side of the vehicle. It also allows it to be easily removed for a figure to fire it when it’s off the vehicle. The system of attachment allows it to raise and lower as well as pivot. I’m thankful that you can remove the cannon by the peg attachment, because constantly removing and attaching that clip will probably cause stress to the plastic, so I don’t want to do that. .
Despite coming with just the one driver, the Ferret was always designed to carry two figures, and this one is no different. The gun hands do a good job grabbing the handlebars. I did find the leg placement a little awkward, but you can definitely make it work, and there’s no trouble getting a second figure on the back.
Of course, I always had my Crimson Twins riding the Ferret together when I was a kid! The Ferret was released at about the same time as the Tomax and Xamot set and it was colored to match their outfits, so I always assumed it was intended as their unofficial vehicle. I’m pretty sure I got the twins and the Ferret pretty close to each other and it was theirs from that moment on.
The Ferret sold for $55, placing it right in line with the Trouble Bubble and Televiper bundle, a set that I have yet to review here and I really need to remedy that! I’ve seen some complaints over the price, but with a bundled figure, I don’t think it’s that bad, although I did limit myself to just two, whereas I really wanted to pick up three. I guess I do have a little bit of willpower left. Either way, the Ferret sold out pretty quickly, and it seems to be going for around $80 to $100 on the second hand market. I haven’t seen anything from Hasbro about planning a restock, but Hasbro really needs to get on that, because I’d now that I’ve played around with it, I’d probably pick up a third. As I mentioned earlier, the mold has been recycled into the Target Exclusive GI JOE Tiger Paw. I generally skip the Tiger Force stuff, but I did break down and preorder that one, so maybe I spoke too soon about that willpower. And yeah, that one seems to have sold out too.
FigureFan Zero 