Tag Archives: gi joe

Oct 26 2013

GI JOE: Major Bludd (Mercenary) by Sideshow Toys, Part 2

And I’m back to wrap up my look at Sideshow Toy’s amazing Major Bludd one-sixth scale figure. Yesterday we checked out the figure itself and today we’re going to take a look at some of his wonderful accessories. This guy comes with a lot of really cool stuff! To kick things off, you get a standard figure stand with a round disc base and the Cobra emblem.

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This is the exact same stand that came with the Crimson Guard and I really dig it. It looks nice and doesn’t take up a lot of space. A name plate would have been cool, but then again, I know who this guy is so it’s not really necessary. Sideshow is now selling new Cobra stands with a larger raised base that allows you to store accessories, which is a neat idea, but I prefer to stick with these.

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The backpack is a wonderfully detailed piece and as soon as I got it out of the tray I started trying to figure out how it attached. Was I missing straps? Did I have to take the armor off? What the hell, Sideshow? I tried to size it up next to the figure’s back when invisible forces suddenly grabbed it and the backpack attached itself. Magnets! Cool! It’s guided into place by four pegs and holds on securely. It has a realistic weathered finish and there are four clips on it to hold the extra rockets for his launcher.

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You get seven rockets in total and each one is a little celebration of destructive hardware. They are fully painted and the tiny fins are each hinged so that they can deploy. They are all interchangeable between the backpack slots and the launcher itself.

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The launcher is a two-handed dealer of death. There isn’t a lot of heft to it, but it looks great and you can load the remaining three rockets into the front slots. Bludd comes with a special hand for holding the primary grip with a finger that extends over the trigger and his artificial hand works well with the secondary grip. You can also switch it around if you want.

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Next up is the sub-machine gun. This beauty has a weathered green finish, a removable magazine, a secondary grip and a folding stock! The sculpted detail makes it a very convincing piece, even though I don’t recognize the design. You also get three additional magazines that fit into the pouches on Bludd’s left hip. Naturally, the exposed bullet in each magazine is painted. While Bludd can easily wield the sub-machine gun in his artificial hand, he also comes with a special left hand for gripping this weapon as well as his pistol.

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Yup, you get pistol too! When Bludd runs out of rockets and magazines, he ain’t done murdering you yet. Nope, he still has his trusty revolver at his right hip. This is a huge pistol with a silver finish. Yes, the cylinder can actually be flipped out, but it’s a really delicate action and the pin that secures it is prone to falling out. It can easily be put back together, so long as you don’t lose the pin. I’ll likely be keeping mine closed. The holster for the pistol actually comes separate in the tray and fits into the straps on his hip. I’m not sure why they didn’t just sew the holster right to the belt rig, as I think that would have looked a little better. Nonetheless, it works well enough and doesn’t come loose when you draw the pistol.

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What’s that? Bludd has used up all his rockets and bullets and he’s even thrown all his guns at you? Well, he still has his trusty boot knife to fall back on. This little hooked knife fits snugly into a little sheath sculpted into the side of his left boot. It’s amazing that Sideshow included this. It’s not a trademark item for Bludd and nobody would have missed it if it wasn’t in there. And yet, here it is.

Is there nothing I can say bad about this figure? Ok, one thing. There’s no real homage to the gun that came with the original vintage action figure. Major Bludd had a pretty distinctive weapon and I would have liked to see it in this package. Having it absent is like getting Cobra Commander without his familiar hair-dryer pistol or the Crimson Guard without his bayonetted assault rifle. It just seems like a curious omission and as such it is indeed the one gripe I can level against this release.

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With three of Sideshow’s Cobra figures on pre-order and only one in my collection prior to Bludd, I was still a little skittish about whether or not I wanted to dive into this pool. I’m already collecting enough so adding a new line always gives me pause. Major Bludd, however, certainly justifies the journey I’ve embarked on with these figures. He’s a fantastic effort on Sideshow’s part and clearly shows that they are continuing to push the envelope, improve, and at least try to approach Hot Toys in terms of quality and craftsmanship. On that point, it’s worth noting that the prices on these figures have shot up quite a bit. Crimson Guard was $140, Zartan was $160, and the new crop of figures are pushing $180. That’s only $10 less than my Hot Toys Thor or Black Widow at the time of release. It’s also worth noting that Sideshow has the limitation on this guy set to 1,000, which seems ridiculously low to me when Zartan was at 6,000. I’m still not sure if that’s the total number of figures produced or the limitation on the Exclusive. Nonetheless, if Baroness, Destro, and Cobra Commander turn out as good as this guy, I’m perfectly fine paying the price of admission.

Oct 25 2013

GI JOE: Major Bludd (Mercenary) by Sideshow Toys, Part 1

I’ve more or less been out of the GI JOE scene for a while now. I still pick up a Hasbro figure now and again, but that’s about it… until Sideshow started doing Cobra figures, and that opened up a whole can of snakes worms. It all started with pre-ordering Cobra Commander, then picking up a Crimson Guard to hold me over, then pre-ordering Baroness and Destro, and now adding Major Sebastian Bludd to my collection. I was originally going to go for Zartan first, but he’s still available at a lot of e-tailers and Bludd’s limitation seems to be a lot stricter. I didn’t want to risk missing out on him, so I used my “Emergency Toy Fund,” an extra $200 that I keep squirreled away in case something comes along that I hadn’t planned on. Clearly, this release was one of those occasions. Plus, I had some Reward Points itching to be spent. Today we’ll check out the packaging and the figure itself and I’ll swing back tomorrow to look at the accessories and the Exclusive goodies.

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The packaging is in the same retro Real American Hero style that we saw when I featured The Crimson Guard, and that’s a very good thing because I love the presentation here. Besides tugging at my nostalgia strings by mimicking art from the vintage figure cards, the overall wow factor of the box design is a lot better than what I got out of my last couple of Hot Toys figures. The artwork is great and you even get a vintage style file card on the back. You also get a tiny glimpse of two other figures in the line, including Zartan (who will be next for me!) and that terrible, terrible Snake Eyes figure. I seriously think they must have farmed that sweater-wearing mofo out to another company… there can be no other explanation.

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The front flap is secured with a magnet and opens up, and here’s where there’s a little step back from the Crimson Guard’s package. That figure had two opening flaps, one which held the tray with all the weapons and accessories and another with the figure. You don’t get that with Major Bludd. You don’t even get an instruction sheet or anything. You do however get some additional bitchin artwork in the interior tray. The trays contain two layers of goodies. The top has the figure along with his helmet, extra hands, and his exclusive extra head. The next tray has the figure stand and everything else. Let’s get him out of his plastic prison and check him out…

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I was expecting the Major to require some advanced assembly, but he actually comes with his armor and belt rigs on and ready to go. The most involved thing you need to do is hang his five dog tags around his neck. Holy crap… he comes with his dog tag trophies! Each one is on a little chain and has tiny printing on it and some of them are spattered with blood. That’s some dark shit, Sideshow, I love it! You can actually just put them right over his head, but it’s easier if you pop off his mellon and put them directly on the neck post.

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Bludd’s helmet includes some optional padded stickers for the inside to make it fit better, but I don’t think they’re necessary. It fits great, although it is prone to falling off when I’m posing him. It’s absolutely fine for display purposes, although I may just use a tiny spot of blue tack to hold it in place. So long as we’re talking about his head, let’s check out his noggins.

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The stock head is a thing of beauty, and by that I mean it’s hideous and grizzled and a great likeness for the character’s traditional portrait. It’s missing that bizarre spark of life that Hot Toys somehow imbues into their head sculpts, but then again, this figure isn’t patterned off a real person anyway. And the last thing I want to do is disparage the work they’ve done here because it really is a fine sculpt. The creases in his face betray his battle hardened experience and the sculpted mustache is pretty convincing. The buzz cut hair doesn’t quite match the realism of the face, but I doubt I’ll ever display him without his helmet on, so that’s not a big issue for me. It’s worth noting that while the eye patch is permanently affixed to the head, the strap is an actual string. It does have a habit of sliding down over his good eye if you touch it and it’s certainly something to be weary of when handling the figure.

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The Sideshow Exclusive head features the Major sans patch and in all his ocular deformed glory. It’s a nasty mess under there with realistic looking scarring that makes the whole part of his head look a little puckered. The paintwork also makes it look just a little bit juicy around the wound. Gross! but it gives him a chance to use his targeting device, which I’m guessing somehow restores his sight in the bad eye? The device just clips on to the rim of his helmet. It looks good, but truth be told, I will probably never display him with this head. It’s always nice to have options, but I prefer Bludd in all his iconic eye-patched glory.

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Bludd’s outfit is especially well done. He’s got brown fatigues and some sturdy looking chest armor that fits over his torso in several pieces. It’s a tad bulky and I was worried it would give him too much of a turtle look, but happily that’s not the case. There’s also enough room to tuck the dog tags under the chest armor if you prefer it that way. The armor has a nice gun metal grey finish that matches the Major’s artificial arm. The tarnished Cobra beltbuckle really ties the whole ensemble together. A very nice touch!

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“Oi, Major Bludd, you look ‘armless!” Yes, Bludd sports his trademark artificial arm, which is sculpted beautifully and colored to match the same finish as his armor. Sideshow took a bit of a liberty here by making the arm a bit slighter than I remember it on the vintage action figure. I happen to love it because it accentuates the fact that it’s an artificial arm and not just armor. The arm features the same shoulder and elbow articulation as Bludd’s real arm but has the added bonus of individually articulated fingers! Each finger features FOUR hinges and the thumb is ball jointed and has a single hinge. Holy shit that’s amazing!

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Besides the crazy articulation on Bludd’s right hand, the figure spots a great amount of poseability. I’m not familiar enough with the core body used here to catalog them all, but there aren’t a lot of poses that I can’t get the Major to do. His joints are easy to work with and unlike a lot of my Hot Toys figures, there the outfit doesn’t restrict his movement at all. If I had one gripe it would be that some of his joints feel a little too loose, but then seeing as how he’s going to spend most of his time on a figure stand, that’s not a big deal. I guess I’d rather have his joints a little loose than too tight and restricted to work with. The truth is, he’s a fun figure to play around with and I can do so without damaging him.

Alrighty, I’ve gone pretty long already, so I’m going to break here for the day. Tomorrow I’ll be back to look at all the wonderful toys that the Major has in his arsenal.

Aug 3 2013

GI JOE: Crimson Guard (Cobra Elite Trooper) by Sideshow Toys, Part 2

And I’m back to wrap up my look at Sideshow’s take on the Crimson Guard. Last time we looked at the amazing packaging and the figure. Today we’re going to start digging in on the extras.

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First off, you get a figure stand with the Cobra logo on the base and there are no big surprises here. It isn’t personalized to the Crimson Guard figure, so I’m guessing Sideshow is recycling this stand for other Cobra figures. The stand uses the standard wire crotch support that we’ve all seen before for figures in this scale. The prongs on this one are a little wide for my liking. It comes disassembled with the post under the base, and it was an absolute bitch to get the two pieces separated. I seriously thought I was going to break it in the process.

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Moving on to the guns, we’ll start small and work our way up. First off, you get an automatic pistol that fits very snugly into the holster on the figure’s left leg. The pistol features working action on the receiver and a removable clip with the exposed bullet painted so you can clearly see it ready to chamber when the clip is loaded and the receiver is open. I love that! The pistol is a bit light compared to some of my other sixth-scale firearms, but it’s executed incredibly well. But pistols will only get you so far when you have an entire force of meddling Joes coming at you, so you need something with a little more killing power. And for that, we look to the sub machine gun…

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Yes, the SMG. When the shit hits the fan and you need to spray and pray, no Crimson Guard would be complete without this trusty weapon. Once again, Sideshow did a really nice job with it. It has a folding stock and a shoulder strap with a working clip. There’s a detachable suppressor tube for the barrel and, of course, a removable magazine with a detailed and painted bullet at the top. You can even slide-adjust the scope on it! As much as I admire the work Sideshow put in on this piece, I’ll confess that I don’t think I’ll display it a lot. It’s one ugly piece of killing hardware and I tend to like my guns to have a little more traditional style to them. I seem to recall the Crimson Guard having a more traditional and iconic style of weapon…

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Aw, yeah… that’s better! The Siegie FAL rifle! This baby is close to what I remember my little Crimson Guard’s coming with so it’ll always be the iconic weapon of choice for these guys. The rifle includes a removable box magazine and a removable bayonet. The only problem with the bayonet is that it is delicate and once it’s attached it’s on there pretty good. I doubt I’ll ever risk removing it. Not that I’d want to. When you fire off that last round and the Joes are still coming at you it’s time to go hand-to-hand, and at that moment, your bayonet is your best friend.

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Of course, when you’ve got this many guns, you need to carry a lot of ammunition, so the Crimson Guard comes with his trusty and familiar backpack. I was really skeptical about how this thing was going to look. Not so much the backpack itself, but all the straps that hold it on. The original figures had the luxury of having backpacks that just pegged into the back. But in a more realistic sixth-scale figure, wouldn’t the straps wreck the look of the figure? Nope, because Sideshow made it so that the straps are almost all concealed. Remember that magnetic front flap on the uniform? Well, here’s where it really comes into play.

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You simply peel off the magnetic front flap. The straps pass through the epaulets in the shoulders and snap across his chest in two places. Then you just reattach the front flap and you’re good to go! I love the engineering of this.

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The backpack is sculpted in hard plastic with a Cobra emblem embossed on it. It opens up in the middle to reveal a whole supply of destructive goodies. You get two extra clips for the pistol, two extra clips for the SMG, and two grenades. Everything clips into a specific place.

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The final piece of gear is a magnetic grenade. It has a real magnet, so you can stick it on his waist for storage and easy access. When the shit hits the fan the Crimson Guard can just toss it at a VAMP or MOBOT and all his Joe troubles are history. It’s nothing special, but a cool little extra nonetheless.

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Virtually all my 1:6 scale figure experience has been with either Takara or Hot Toys so I had no idea what to expect from this guy. Needless to say I’m extremely pleased with how he turned out and I think he was well worth the $140. Sideshow really nailed the outfit, the poseability is a welcome treat when compared to some of the more restrictive Hot Toys figures and the array of weapons is superb. It’s good to know this guy will be guarding my shelf until Cobra Commander arrives at the end of this year.

Aug 2 2013

GI JOE: Crimson Guard (Cobra Elite Trooper) by Sideshow Toys, Part 1

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.

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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!

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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!!!

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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.

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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.

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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!

Mar 30 2013

Walmart is Trolling GI Joe Retaliation…

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Yeah they are! They set the pegs for the new Retaliation figures and then filled them with Rise of Cobra figures. I made sure to get the Iron Man 3 and Dark Knight Rises figures in the shot to prove this isn’t an old photo. These things should have been clearanced out a year ago, but they obviously held on to them for just this occasion. And they’re $10 each. 

Maybe it’s a little hostility over getting tricked into buying all that Retaliation product last year only to have the movie get pushed back. Maybe they just wanted to take the opportunity to chip away at that pallet of ROC figures they still have in the backroom. Or, yes, maybe they’re just trolling Joe fans with this shit. I’ll go with the last one. I think this is a big middle finger to Hasbro.

Jan 29 2013

GI Joe Sigma 6: Cobra HISS Tank by Hasbro

Many collectors would argue that Hasbro’s Sigma 6 figures are the red-headed stepchild of the GI Joe franchise. If that’s the case than the Sigma 6 2 ½” scale sub-line of vehicles and figures would be that red-headed stepchild’s red-headed stepchild. These things clogged the pegs and shelves of my local Target and Walmart, perplexing kids and collectors alike. What was the point? What was Hasbro going for here? If they wanted to do Sigma 6 with vehicles, why didn’t they just keep the line 3 ¾-scale? Was this Hasbro trying to have its cake and eat it too? Why am I asking so many questions? It’s because this line confounds and confuses me. It created some really cool vehicles (not to mention one truly amazing toy, the Dragonhawk, which I promise to feature someday), but its mix of cool vehicles and shitty little figures made it a difficult concept to get behind. Let’s get an idea of what this line was all about by looking at its treatment of one of GI Joe’s truly iconic vehicles: The Cobra HISS


I’ve got to say, I dig this packaging. It’s a mostly closed box with two windows on the front to show off the figures. This was a bold move, Hasbro, since the figures are easily the weakest part of these sets and you probably shouldn’t be displaying them with pride. On the other hand, at least the windows let potential buyers know what they were getting. I totally dig the illustrated metal frame deco that surrounds the box and the artwork on the front is excellent. This presentation is damned exciting! I remember when I first saw it on the shelf it made me want to buy the toy even though something inside my head was telling me to drop it and back away. The back panel has a great photo, showing you everything you get inside. Once again, Hasbro was really good about letting you know what you were getting yourself into.


That’s what I like to see! Bags of parts and a sticker sheet! Stuff to put together! I miss the days of having to assemble and sticker toys. It really added to the anticipation. Actually, the stickers here are a bit disappointing. Many of them have white outlines, which don’t look good on the toy so I left them off. At least the instrumentation and the hazards stripes look ok. But before we put together the HISS, let’s look at those figures.


Ok, you get Cobra Commander and a Cobra Trooper. Cobra Commander is a decent enough design and sculpt, but he represents a lot of what was wrong with these figures. Specifically, he’s perpetually standing there pointing and holding his bendy, warped scepter. He does have four points of articulation, which consist of swivels in his shoulders, his neck and his waist, but it’s all mostly useless. The Cobra Trooper fares a little better with the basic five points: Shoulders, hips and neck, but man his design and coloring is shit. Even with two Cobra emblems, he doesn’t look like a Cobra Trooper to me. Nope, he reminds me of some knock-off Hoth Trooper. Keep in mind, these are amongst the best figures this line had to offer, as many of them were even more pre-posed and static. I’m not going to blame the small scale. It was clearly a deliberate style choice on Hasbro’s part, because we’ve seen figures in this scale executed a lot better. Now where was that? Well, I’m sure it’ll come to me before the end.

Once assembled, this HISS should look familiar to most Joe collectors. It’s the same design as the one used for the Direct-To-Consumer HISS and that is not at all a bad thing because I really dig this design and all the features it has to offer. The overall configuration is the same as the original vintage HISS, but this model comes loaded for bear with dual missile launchers on either side of the cockpit and four missile launchers mounted up on the turret. Joes seeing this thing barreling toward them would surely have shit their pants. There are also two smaller swivel guns, one of which can be swapped out for a Cobra flag. The cockpit is designed to lower closer to the ground for easy boarding. The hull features some minimal panel lining and Cobra emblems, and the canopy has a cool painted frame, which is something I always thought the original HISS should have had. There’s no two ways about it, the profile for this vehicle is one hundred percent bad ass.

Just like the DTC HISS, the back compartment opens up on either side and there’s a hatch that drops down out of the back to unload troops. In fairness, with the turret in place there isn’t a lot of room back there for personnel. You can take the turret out to make room and that leaves a port for them to emerge and take pot shots at the Joes. This feature was one of my favorite things about the DTC HISS as it converts the fast attack tank into a vehicle that can charge across enemy lines, deliver the shock and awe of a missile barrage, safely insert a squad of Cobra Troops into a critical position, and all without sacrificing any of its original design. And honestly, if I were on Cobra’s payroll with Joes shooting at me, I’d much rather ride inside the thing then hang off the back.


The conversion gimmick involves taking off the top of the back compartment and unfolding it to turn it into an armed bunker. It’s not the most innovative gimmick around, but it does give you some play and display options. You can position the “bunker” into a straight wall fortification (my favorite) or you could angle it. The bunker can arm itself with two of the missile launchers as well as the smaller guns. The main turret of the HISS has fold down stabilizers to turn it into a missle battery emplacement. As much as it may seem like a tacked on extra, this bonus bunker mode actually makes sense to me. I can imagine HISS Tanks could be used to gain ground and then set up these fortifications to hold it while the remaining part of the HISS goes back to get outfitted again for another charge. All in all, it’s a pretty cool idea.


And yeah, about that other line of 2 ½” figures… Like all the vehicles in this line, the HISS’ scale meshes almost perfectly with Kenner’s old MASK line. This HISS blends especially well because of its converting ability. I really dig this cross-compatibility of these vehicles and it’s probably the core reason as to why I’m ultimately a fan of the line. Unfortunately, I can’t help but think of how much cooler it would have been to have had the Sigma 6 figures been in the same style as the MASK figures.

And that’s the Sigma 6 HISS. If you can accept the figures for being what they are, I call them lost opportunities, the vehicle itself is pretty damn cool. The design looks great and it’s a nice quality construction that can get banged around pretty good. If you give this thing a chance it’s definitely a well-designed toy, but then most of the other little Sigma 6 vehicles were too. I’ll eventually get around to looking at the rest of the line, but tomorrow we continue Toy Closet Finds week with another treasure from the abyss.

Nov 9 2012

GI JOE 30th Anniversary Collection: Sky Striker by Hasbro

So, remember that one item that I found at Marshall’s last Friday that was worth standing in line for? Yeah, this was it. I’ll have you all know that this purchase represents a personal defeat for me. I often run checks on my collecting habit versus my sanity just to make sure that I haven’t gone overboard. One of those checks is having the rationality to determine whether I have somewhere to go with a particular piece and I’m not turning into one of those hoarding freaks you see on TV. I have very specific boundaries set up over where my toys live and where the rest of my home begins and with the exception of a couple of items I have displayed in my library, those boundaries have held fast. The reason I never bought the Sky Striker when it was originally out on shelves was because I knew I had nowhere to go with it, and I suspected that once it was built, it wasn’t going to go back in the box for easy storage.

Nonetheless, when I saw it sitting there alone on the shelf at Marshalls on clearance, I couldn’t resist taking it home. That may seem odd, since I’m certainly not a very big GI JOE collector these days, and before today, I haven’t picked up any of the 30th Anniversary stuff, except for a lone Destro figure. I attribute my lapse of reason to the fact that when I was a kid, I fell in love with the Sky Striker from the old Sunbow cartoon and I absolutely adored the original toy. So, yeah, I guess I’m blaming nostalgia on this one. It’s hard to believe I don’t do that more often.

The Sky Striker comes in a sizeable box with some wonderful artwork and a little window cut out to show off the Ace figure. I love this kind of packaging over window boxes, mainly because it’s durable and so long as the toy inside doesn’t require a lot of assembly, you can use these boxes to store the toy when you aren’t displaying it.


Hmm… so much for not requiring a lot of assembly. As sizeable as the box is, it’s pretty easy to tell when holding it that it isn’t as big as the Sky Striker. Open it up and you can quickly see that the wings, rear fins, engines, and the entire cockpit and nose portion of the aircraft aren’t attached. That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing? Holy shit, that’s a lot of stickers! I love stickers. Part of me was content to leave this thing boxed until sometime in the future where I might be in a bigger place and have more room to display stuff. But how could I resist all those stickers? There are over 30 “No Step” stickers alone! Mmm… stickers. Either way, I haven’t even seen one of these babies since I last had my original some 20 years ago. I was super anxious to get it together and check it out. As suspected, this jet is not designed to come apart once it’s together, so sadly I’ll wind up trashing the box.

All slapped together, I spent the better part of my Sunday morning with a pot of coffee and stickers while FigureFeline made a nest out of the box. We were both in heaven! There are a bunch of optional swap-out stickers so if you want to buy more than one of these, you can customize them quite a bit, including different color striping and different art for the tail fins. Ok, that’s the last time I talk about stickers… promise!

So, how different is it from the vintage toy? The body is molded in grey plastic rather than white, which is a big plus in my book. Besides looking more realistic to me, I don’t have to worry about it yellowing. The rear fins are black, and the canopy is no longer tinted, but it does have a nice painted frame. The inside of the cockpit has been retooled to fit the newer size figures. The rear seat has been taken out completely, the cockpit is more detailed, and let’s face it, Short Round said it best, “Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones! No. More. Parachutes!” I can’t say I’d quarrel with any of these changes. They’re either improvements or understandable sacrifices.

The one change that I wish Hasbro had taken out remains true to the original toy. Yep, I’m talking about the fact that the wings are tied to the same mechanism as the landing gear. New Sky Striker has the same slider lever on top that converts the wings to the swept back position and also retracts the landing gear. It never really bugged me as a kid, but it kind of bugs me now.

Naturally, the Sky Striker comes with Ace and unfortunately I’m not real crazy about him. I appreciate the insane amount of work Hasbro put into the layers and complexities of his flight suit, but in the end he just looks like a kit-bashed mess to me. The flight helmet is particularly awful and I hate the yellow plastic they used for the visor. The 25th Anniversary Ace was no prize either, but I’ll likely wind up swapping him out into the pilot’s seat when I finally find some way to display this thing, just because that’s more akin to the Ace I knew and loved.

While the new Sky Striker has its share of tweaks and bobs, it is at heart still the same old toy and It’s remarkable how well it holds up today. This toy is an iconic thing of beauty and it looks quite majestic standing on the edge of my desk waiting to take off into battle. It really brings back the memories of my buddies and I flying our Sky Strikers around the backyard doing airstrikes on Cobra fools. Even at the original MSRP of around $35, I thought this thing was reasonably priced, but Marshall’s had it for ten bucks less so all the better. I’m sure as hell not sorry I bought it, even if it did take over an hour of reorganizing to make room for it on the shelf next to my BMF Falcon, AT-AT and Slave-1.

Jun 11 2012

GI JOE Retaliation: Cobra Trooper by Hasbro

As promised, its Monday and I’m back with another look at Hasbro’s tenuous and poorly timed launch of the Retaliation figures. I’m still not prepared to say whether or not you’ll be seeing any more of these figures featured here. Cobra Commander and this Trooper were the only two that jumped out at me, but if things don’t liven up around here in the toy aisles, I may be buying more of these out of sheer desparation. While Cobra Commander was a “must buy” for me, I just picked up Cobra Trooper so I’d have someone to stand beside him. I wasn’t completely sold on this guy when I saw him on the peg, so let’s see if he can win me over.

The packaging. Oh, god, the packaging. I ragged on it pretty good last time, so let’s just say it looks rushed and amateurish and leave it at that. The bubble shows off the figure very nicely and the insert has the figure’s name on it and shows a picture of the included parachute in action. Flip the card over and you’ve got a couple shots of the figure as well as three others in the line. There’s a pointless little blurb on the Cobtra Trooper and a couple points emphasizing that working parachute again. Let’s rip this guy open and see what we’ve got.
The obvious first impression is that this isn’t a traditional Cobra Trooper, but that’s fine, since this is a movie product. He comes sculpted with grey fatigues, a removable helmet, and removable webgear with a functional holster for his sidearm. The removable helmet is a very nice touch and it stays on surprisingly well. The removable webgear is now pretty standard fare for GI Joes, but in this case it allows you to swap it out and turn him into a paratrooper, which we’ll get to later. The sculpting on the webgear is exceptional. You can see all the texturing in the belts, the sculpted grenades, the clasps and pouches. Its very nice work.  The headsculpt consists of a mask and visor that looks a tad like paintball gear and covers every bit of the trooper’s face. I kind of like it. Its rather sinister.
Its on the coloring of the figure, where things break down for me a bit. The grey fatigues that comprise most of the figure’s body look great, but they really don’t feel like Cobra to me. The blue helmet and webgear help a bit, but I would have preferred blue fatigues, blue helmet, and black webgear. He has a nice Cobra emblem tampo on his helmet and his chest, but you can’t really see the one on his chest when he’s wearing the webgear. All of my issues with the coloring on the figure come from my personal conceptions on what a Cobra Trooper should look like. If I toss that aside, I think the colors on the figure work great for a military trooper.
The Cobra Troopers articulation is the same as what we saw with Cobra Commander. He has a ball jointed neck. His arms feature ball jointed shoulders, ball jointed elbows, and swivel wrists. His legs are ball jointed at the hips and hinged at the knees. Lastly, he can swivel just under his abdomin. Again, considering how upset collectors are over the cuts in articulation, this guy still has plenty of poseability. Sure, what’s missing sucks, but it is what it is.
You get some solid accessories with this figure. His weapons include a tiny little automatic pistol, which fits snugly into his holster. You also get a rather unusual looking assault rifle with some kind of canister coming off the stock. And then there’s the parachute. To work the parachute you swap out his webgear and clip the nylon cords onto the top straps of the webgear. It looks and works pretty great. I am particuarly impressed with the quality of the parachute. The material and cords are nice and heavy duty and the Cobra emblem printed on it is really cool. And yes, it works pretty well. I chucked him up into the air and it opened just fine.
Kudos, Hasbro. You were indeed able to win me over with this figure. I still would have preferred a more conventional Cobra paintjob, but what’s here works fine. Its a good design, a good sculpt, solid weapons, and the ability to convert him to a paratrooper is a really nice bonus. I’m not going to go army building this guy like I have in the past with the Vipers and the Crimson Guards, but I could see myself picking up one more just to display him as both regular trooper and paratrooper. He’s a solid figure and I’m really glad I picked him up.
Jun 6 2012

GI JOE Retaliation: Cobra Commander by Hasbro

So the movie’s been delayed until next year, what about the toys? Well chances are if you’ve been in an action figure aisle, you noticed that the first run of the Retaliation toys are out. Hasbro opted to sell through what was shipped, but seeing as the other option was a economically crippling recall that would even further piss off their retail partners, it was really the only thing they could do. Future waves of the toys will be held back for the movie release next year. I already went on record about how underwhelmed I am with this line, but when I went hunting for new Avengers figures this morning I found that the pegs are still crammed with the same three non-movie versions of Iron Man, Cap and Thor, so I opted to pick up the only two Retaliation figures that I had much interest in. Today we’ll take a look at Cobra Commander.

There’s the packaging and oh lord is it terrible. Sure its a standard and perfectly functional Hasbro card and bubble, which displays the figure pretty well. There’s an insert that personalizes the package with the figure’s name and a shot of the figure deploying his token stupidly oversized and gimmicky weapon. Take note, my Cobra Commander is blue, but there appears to be a running change with a black variant.
The cardback is an atrocity. It really looks like Hasbro had someone in their art department hammer this out while on lunch. The logo and shots of Roadblock and Snake Eyes are poorly formated and look like they were clipped out of a magazine, whereas the orange yellow deco of the card makes the figure blend in with the knock-off military figures on the pegs next to it. The back of the card has a throwaway blurb about the character, but no file card. It shows the figure in three different poses, holding each of his weapons and there are shots of three other figures in the assortment off to the side. What’s with the Japanese lettering on the back? I’ll let y’all ponder that while I open my figure and then burn the packaging and bury the ashes in the backyard.
Out of the package, Cobra Commander is one very, very cool looking figure. Obviously, it helps when the toy is based on a good looking movie design and that appears to be the case here. If you like your Cobra Commander as a take charge, in the thick of things, terrorist leader, this version should really appeal to you, because he’s outfitted for action, rather than sitting on the throne. The head sculpt is extremely detailed and a nice evolution of his chrome faceplate design of old with the faceplate centered in what is made to look like a Cobra’s jaws. There’s a tiny sculpted Cobra on the top of the helmet and he has sculpted Cobra emblems on his kneepads. The rest of the figure is a pretty simple but effective sculpt.
His belt and bandolier strap are removable, which is a good thing. I like having the option of him wearing it, but I think its a little too bulky to make him look like a dignified leader. If Cobra Commander goes into battle, I’m sure he’ll be flanked by troops to carry his shit, so he shouldn’t need this many pouches. On the downside, the nice gold braid that loops around his right arm is part of the gear belt, so if you take it off, the braid goes with it.
The coloring on the figure is ok. I would have preferred a paler shade of blue, but what’s here is still good and I like the way it contrasts with the slightly glossier black of the boots and gloves. The Cobra Emblem tampo on his chest looks great. I definitely would have preferred his helmet be blue like his uniform, but its still plenty cool as it is.
Articulation? For all the bitching I have to say, the articulation here is not at all bad. You get a ball jointed neck. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, and again at the elbows. The wrists do swivel. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and feature hinged knees. He can swivel at the waist. Yeah, the lack of double hinges in the knees, and any articulation in the ankles will upset a lot of people. On the flipside, I was actually surprised that the wrists had swivels. What’s here is lacking, but its definitely not the stone age level of poseability a lot of collectors feared.
As far as accessories go, Cobra Commander comes with a simple assault carbine and a pistol. The pistol fits into the aforementioned leg holster. Both are decent sculpts and cast in pale grey plastic.  Of course, you also get the usual throwaway oversized gimmick weapon. In this case its a Cobra staff that shoots a giant missile. As a weapon its ridiculous, but I’m sure a lot of collectors could find a way to work it into their displays as decor for the Cobra Temple, Cobra Throneroom, or Cobra Smoking Lounge.
Cobra Commander cost me just under $9 at Walmart. That’s about right for figures these days and while he doesn’t come with the plethora of accessories and articulation that Joe fans have been getting these past couple of years, he’s still an excellent figure. Apart from the packaging, nothing about this figure feels cheap or scaled back to me. Still, I wouldn’t take this as praise for the line as a whole. I looked at all the figures today and Cobra Commander was the only one I was tempted to pick up. Roadblock actually looks good, but I can’t get past that big gunpart molded right into his hand. I wasn’t even too keen on the Cobra Trooper, but I bought him anyway and we’ll check him out on Monday.
May 25 2012

GI JOE Retaliation Delayed…

Ok, so within about a month of its planned release, GI JOE: Retaliation has been inexplicably and bewilderingly pushed back to March of next year. Nine months delay for a movie that was supposed to be done and ready to go. The official reason: So it can be given the 3D treatment to improve overseas numbers. My initial two reactions? 1. Bullshit! 2. What about the toys?

Now, I don’t usually cover news here, but it seemed like I would be remiss if I didn’t weigh in on the whole GI JOE: Retaliation A-Bomb that Paramount and Hasbro dropped this week. Granted, you don’t see a lot of GI JOE figures covered on FigureFan these days, and that’s mostly because I’ve managed to convince myself that the 25th Anniversary figures are my definitive versions of these characters and while I concede that the figures (not necessarily the vehicles)coming out since has been in many ways superior, the designs just don’t do it for me. My days of buying 20 different versions of these characters are over. That having been said, I’ll pick up a figure or vehicle here and there if it strikes my fancy. I still need to pick up that blasted Sky Striker.

The way I see it, there’s three ways to attack this mess. One, how will it impact the movie. Two, how will it impact the toys. Three, how does it impact me. I’ll take the last one first.
It really doesn’t impact on me. I was planning on seeing the movie, and believe me when I say that’s high praise. I didn’t like the first one, and I don’t actually go to see movies unless I really want to see them extremely badly. I don’t enjoy the theater-going experience and for the price of a ticket and a coke, I can own the damn thing on Blu-Ray when its released. That having been said, I was going to see it, but I’m not heartbroken that I have to wait. I’d just as soon go see Avengers again. I have the same “Meh” reaction to the toys, which leads me back to Point Two…

I really wasn’t interested in the Retaliation toys. I will probably pick up a few Cobra figures, but that’s it. The designs of the figures don’t do a lot for me and I think the vehicles look terrible. Nonetheless, I still think that this decision to delay the movie will be disastrous for the toyline and pretty damaging to the toy brand as a whole. And let’s face it, GI JOE hasn’t been a particularly strong presence on the toyshelves in quite a while. The brand really needed this push to keep it alive so that retailers could recognize it as a viable, marketable toyline. We still don’t know what Hasbro will do vis-a-vis future waves, but the initial run of these toys are already in retailer stockrooms, and Hasbro is giving them the go ahead to break the street date.

This is a no-win situation for Hasbro. They’ve already seriously fucked over the retailers that bought these toys with the expectation of a multi-million dollar movie tie-in, which they see as advertising the brand. On those grounds alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some sort of opening for litigation here. If Hasbro holds back the rest of the toys for next year, they’re going to generate a lot of bad blood among their retail partners. Case in point: For a while now, Walmarts in my area stopped selling Joes altogether and only made an exception for the Rise of Cobra movie. If they made a similar exception for Retaliation only to have the movie delayed, its doubtful the retailer is ever going to have confidence in the line again.

As for the movie itself? Marketing budgets are figured carefully into the cost of movies and Paramount has already blown that budget on this one, not least of which a very pricey Super Bowl spot. All of that money is as good as flushed down the toilet. If Paramount is going to start the marketing juggernaut up again next year, its going to seriously cut into the film’s profits, but how can they not? And can that really expect to be reclaimed by making the movie 3D for foreign markets? Hey, these decisions were made by people who do this sort of shit for a living. I’m just a hack with a keyboard, so what do I know? But it all leads me back to my initial thought that the 3D excuse is bullshit.