Tag Archives: gi joe

Dec 25 2010

GI JOE Rise of Cobra: PITT Mobile Headquarters by Hasbro, Part 1

Merry Christmas, all. As a wee lad, Christmas morning was very much about playsets and the bigger toys that you couldn’t hope to talk your parents into getting you any other time of the year. These were the toys that were held over our heads like the Sword of Damacles, persuading us to not be quite so rotten in hopes that we might get them delivered to us by Santa on that special day. For me, Christmas morning was all about putting these things together with my Dad, getting them all stickered up and then introducing figures to them and having a blast playing with them amidst a landscape of crumpled paper and discarded practical gifts. Today I recreated that a bit by busting open the closest thing I could find to one of these old-style playsets… the GI JOE PITT from the Rise of Cobra toy line. In Part 1, we’ll look at the packaging, assembly and the vehicle mode and then in Part 2, we’ll open her up and see what’s inside. [Let me apologize in advance for the distracting backgrounds in the pictures, but this thing is just too damn big to shoot in my usual staging area. -FF]

The reason this sort of thing is such a nostalgia trip is because there aren’t a lot of playsets on the market these days. Why? It’s all about the way the retail landscape has changed. Gone are the days of a majority of people going to Toys R Us or KayBee for toys. Now, it’s the Walmarts and the Targets that sell the most, and therefore have a lot to say about what the big toy companies like Hasbro or Mattel make. Of course, where TRU might have six or eight aisles devoted to action figures, the Big Boxes have more like two or three, and when even the biggest lines like Star Wars or Transformers are limited to about eight or twelve feet, that retail space is at a premium and stores would rather fill that space with eight $25 boxed vehicles than one huge $100 playset. But enough with the economics…

Hasbro has been fiendishly clever these last couple years by slipping at least one big toy onto the shelves each year. These toys masquerade as vehicles, but are in reality playsets. The Millenium Falcon or the AT-AT were great examples, and so is the GI JOE PITT, a massive wheeled vehicle that folds out and transforms into a multi-level base of operations.


Yeah, that’s a big box, and no matter how much I loathed that Rise of Cobra movie, it’s hard not to get excited when holding this thing. The front has a great illustration of The PITT in action, while the back panel shows off photos of the toy itself loaded up with figures. There’s even a File Card printed on the side for the General Hawk figure that’s included in the box. Open it up and you can slide out the cardboard tray holding the toy and a bunch of baggies.


What’s inside pretty much takes up the whole interior of the box, as the bulk of the toy comes already assembled. Open up the toy and there’s more baggies inside. Then, muster your patience, because this thing requires a fair amount of assembly for the finer details and some of it can be a bumpy ride. This is also where you will first encounter this toy’s biggest failing: The plastic isn’t exactly durable. This is not the same plastic Hasbro uses for it’s smaller vehicles. I don’t know if they thinned it out to save money or to keep this thing from weighing a hundred pounds, probably both, but it is nowhere near as solid as the Millenium Falcon or the AT-AT Walker. Case in point: A few of the railings for the top deck had stress marks right out of the package. Luckily, most of the assembly is just plugging in the little stuff like the railings and the spotlights, but the fragility of the plastic made getting this thing together a bit more stressful than I would have liked. We’ll talk a lot more about The PITT’s durability in Part 2.


Do you like putting on stickers? I hope so, because there’s like seven sheets of them. I love putting on stickers, and even I couldn’t finish this beast in one sitting, and yet somehow a little patience and a lot of Rum and Eggnog got me through it. Ok, so not all of it. As much as I tried, I couldn’t get this thing one hundred percent before I had to just call it quits and start shooting the photos. But it’s mostly done. Besides, if you can tell me that you have a better way to spend Christmas morning then stickering a huge playset, I’ll curse you for being a filthy liar. The PITT also contains some cardboard parts, some of which require assembly, but we’ll get to those in Part 2, when we start looking at what’s under the hood.


Once you’re all done, you have yourself one massive military winnebego. If you remember the old Mobile Command Center, you’ll have some idea of what to expect here, as the concept is the same. Although, The PITT is an entirely new toy and far more complex than the MCC. While some parts of the playset are designed to mimic scenes in the movie, This Pitt is really not something that was in the movie, at least certainly not in its vehicle form. The top surface of the vehicle is loaded with pegs to stand figures and it has more than a few play features, including rotating spotlights, a double missile launcher, and a gunnery chair. Down in the front, there’s an opening cockpit where you can seat two figures to drive this behemoth. If you have it all locked together right, the PITT rolls along on its wheels really well and holds it’s vehicle form fairly well too, so long as you carry it carefully and support it on all sides. If you don’t, it’s likely to fall open, spill shit all over the place, and very probably break it. See that handle looking thingy on the top? That is NOT for carrying it, but rather for helping you to convert it to base mode. The only other issue here is the two removable side panels that don’t really lock in well at all due to a gimmick for the playset. But more on that in Part 2.


As you can see in the pictures, The PITT comes with a General Hawk figure. The figure looks great, but the quality is nowhere near in the same league as the regular carded figures. His arm articulation seems funky and his legs are all bendy and cheap plastic. His vest is removable, though, so you can always pilfer it for one of your other Joes.

I’ll give kudos to Hasbro for the design on this thing, as it’s definitely an improvement over the MCC’s vehicle mode, which basically looked like a giant box on wheels. Granted, The PITT is no less ridiculous in its size, and it looks more like a giant boat than a land vehicle, but at least it looks like a bit more thought went into its aesthetics than the MCC. I think my only complaint would be that it could use more armaments. It has the topside cannon and missile launcher and two rotating guns on the sides, but that’s it. In terms of relative size, just about any GI JOE vehicle is better armed than this monster.

Ok, I’m off to eat some Christmas ham now, and watch the Doctor Who Christmas special, but when I come back tomorrow, fully hung over and with a delightful case of gluttony-inspired indigestion, we’ll see how the rest of this playset plays out… see what I did there? Playset… Plays out? Ok, until then, have a Merry Christmas.

Dec 19 2010

GI JOE 25th Anniversary Comic Pack: Beachhead and Data Frame by Hasbro

Time to round out the Hasbro Comic Pack Weekend with a look at one more and this time it’s from GI JOE. Marshall’s is still flooded with these things. They’re all over the pegs and now they’re even further marked down to $5.00 a pop. You can’t beat that, folks! Even still, this Beachhead and Mainframe Data Frame comic pack is probably the last one I will pick up, as none of the others really interest me. Ninja’s? Pfft. Ninjas were the whole reason GI JOE started to go to shit in the 90s. Well, that and a half dozen other things that were so weird it made 80s GI JOE look like straight non-fiction by comparison. Anyway, this was a no-brainer pick up for me, as I didn’t have either of these figures in my 25th Anni. Collection, and to be honest, this may be the first time I ever owned a Mainframe Data Frame figure, period.

So before we get to the figures, let’s look at the funny book, which amazingly enough has our heroes getting attacked by… a flying roach. To make matters worse they look like a couple of terrified schoolgirls. Once again, this is not a classic Marvel reprint, but rather a brand new book by Larry Hama and this one was much better than the last one I looked at (Scrap-Iron and Wild Bill). Granted, not a lot happens. It’s got Beachhead and Data Frame crawling through the sewers under the Cobra base looking to hack their computer, while Baroness and Zaranna hang out on the surface and try to thwart them with Battle Andriod Troopers. I don’t have a lot to say about the Joe portions, but there is some really fun interplay between The Baroness and Zaranna and the art is pretty solid. By the way… Zaranna. Thanks, Hasbro, for prominantly featuring a character in the comic that we never got in the 25th Anni. Collection. Why don’t you just kick us in the balls while you’re at it. Anyway, it was overall an enjoyable little read.

I don’t recall ever seeing a single carded 25th Anni. Beachhead ouside those Hall of Heroes figures, so I didn’t have him in my collection. One thing I did not expect was his swappable head. You can have him completely maskless, or put his mask on him so that it’s covering his nose and mouth, which really makes no sense, since there’s no way he could do that with his balaclava, unless he pulled it down over his head through the eyeholes. I guess it’s just some other face covering, but it’s kind of weird because it makes him look like a Cobra agent. The rest of the figure is outstanding and just brimming with wonderful detail, including his beret under his shoulder strap.


Beachhead comes with some pretty outstanding gear. He’s got a sub machine gun that actually has a removable clip, which might be a first for me in the 3 3/4″ scale. You can pull the one out of the gun and replace it with the one he carries in his ammo satchel. He also comes with an automatic pistol, which isn’t pictured because I dropped it during the shoot and it disappeared into oblivion. It does fit into his sculpted holster, but not terribly well. I’ll probably dip into my box-o-loose-weapons and find him a better one. As if all that isn’t enough, he also comes with a personalized figure stand. Nice.

And then there’s Data Frame, who as I’ve been hinting at throughout is actually Mainframe with his copyright revoked. Like I said, I never owned his figure before, so this was a nice treat, as I recall him being pretty prominantly featured in the 80’s cartoon. Being a computer specialist, that probably meant that GI JOE was a little ahead of his time in that regard. I’m a bit surprised at the head sculpt on this guy as the character always struck me as a bit of a mild mannered technogeek guy, but the figure’s expression looks like he’s going to tear off someone’s head and spit down their neck. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU TOOK DOWN THE FIREWALL?????” Yeah. The helmet is sculpted onto the head, which surprised me, since most of the 25th Anni. Joes have removable helmets, but it’s no biggie. The rest of the figure is nicely detailed. I like the markings on his uniform and the sculpted holstered gun he has on his chest.


Data Frame comes with some pretty cool extras. In addition to his gun and personalized figure stand, he also comes with a portable computer system, which he can carry like a suitcase and comes complete with with fold out legs, a small black device… I have no idea what it is, and a pair of cardboard computer discs, which was a neat idea, but I still just threw them out with the packaging. He also has a dagger, which fits into the sheath on his leg.

Hasbro undoubtedly did a really nice job on this pack. It had an enjoyable comic, two figures I really needed in my collection, and a load of cool accessories and extras. Compared to what I got saddled with in the last JOE comic pack just so I could get Scrap-Iron (I’m looking at you, shitty blue Wild Bill!!!), this one was just a pleasant surprise all around and highly recommended. If you can pick it up at Marshall’s for just five bucks, well that’s just gravy.

Dec 16 2010

GI JOE 25th Anniversary Collection: Mercenary Wraith by Hasbro

Last time, I looked at Mindwipe, a Transformer that was really tough for me to bag at retail. This time, it’s the same story only in the GI JOE lineup. Back when I was hunting the 25th Anni. figures, I never once saw Wraith hanging on the pegs and I came pretty close a couple of times to paying a premium for him online just to get him into my collection. I never did pull the trigger and now, after a few years, I stumble upon a dozen of them on clearance at Marshall’s. Interestingly enough, in my mad excitement over finally finding him, I overlooked one important fact: He sucks. I’ll elaborate a little, but this is still going to be a quickie.

Here we have one of the only figures that can make the 25th Anni. vintage style cards look blah. The artwork is just bland and really not worthy of the packaging style let alone the original comic art for the character. Wraith seems like he should be a slam dunk. He’s a shifty mercenary wearing a high-tech cloaking suit. He’s just the kind of thing that would have been right at home in Metal Gear Solid. I was never a huge fan of him in the comics, but I always thought he would make excellent figure fodder. I still think I was right, but Hasbro just completely choked the chicken on this one.

Aesthetically, the sculpt isn’t bad. The armor is well executed, particularly the way the upper torso armor is layered as a separate piece over the black textured stomach. The helmet is cool enough and the face plate is hinged so that it can lift up to reveal… um, Tony Stark. Yeah. Aesthetics aside, though, this sculpt has all sorts of practical problems that interfere with the articulation, so let’s just talk about that now.

Wraith uses the same basic articulation as all the 25th Anni. Joe bodies, but Hasbro took every opportunity in the sculpt to muck it up. Perhaps the dumbest thing here are the angel hair wires that connect his arm guns to his biceps. If you want to move Wraith’s arms at all, you might as well just snip all of these off because they will not survive. You’ll also have to cut them if you want to remove the cumbersome arm weapons. The shoulder armor and the collar also do their part to inhibit Wraith’s articulation. At least from the waist down things are ok.

Wraith comes with a backpack, a ridiculous assault rifle that he can’t really hold unless you take off his arm guns, and even then he can’t hold it very well. I’ll give Hasbro a pass on the gun, since he didn’t really need to come with one at all, but it’s worth mentioning that it’s one of the worst guns I ever got with a modern Joe figure. Oh yeah, he also comes with a figure stand. This stand would be the only really valuable thing in the package, if only it didn’t have his name on it.

Unless you are absolutely in love with Wraith from his comic appearances, this figure should have been an easy pass. He’s awful in just about every way. I currently keep my Joes baggied and in storage totes, but I don’t think I’m going to even waist a baggie on this piece of crap. But hey, the odds were that at least one figure in the line would be crap, and honestly, I can’t think of any others that were even close to this disappointing.

Dec 7 2010

GI JOE 25th Anniversary Comic Pack: Scrap-Iron and Wild Bill by Hasbro

The last time I was in Marshall’s hunting Joes, I was able to pick up one of the GI JOE Comic Packs that still eluded me. They had quite a few I still want, but I’ll be back for those. I was originally planning on leaving this pack sealed as I have a few Joe comic packs hanging on my wall, but the horrible stubborness of the Marshall’s price tag made me change my mind. That’s ok, though, since I really did want to get at the figures… well, one of the figures. I already have the single carded Wild Bill from the 25A Collection, and while this one is certainly different, I was most excited to get me a new Scrap Iron for my collection.

Hasbro’s comic pack packaging is some of the best action figure packaging mankind has yet invented. Whether it be GI JOE, Star Wars, or Marvel, it’s just brilliant. The presentation is awesome, you get two figures, and you get a nice comic book reprint to read too. I rarely ever think twice about tearing open packages to get at my toys, but ripping these things open always gives me pause. It’s amazing that these are the same guys that took the comic book out of the Marvel Legends figures when they took it over from Toy Biz. Anyway, I would have thought that Scrap-Iron and Wild Bill were an unlikely of pairings, but there they are trying to kick the shit out of each other right on the front of the comic.

Let’s get Wild Bill out of the way first. You know what was always so cool about Wild Bill? He came with the Dragonfly chopper. Take away his ride, and he’s pretty, meh. Throw in the fact that I have no Dragonfly chopper to put him in, and he becomes even more pointless. I guess I could dig out my Spy Troops Desert Attack Chopper, but it’s just not the same. Besides, his holsters are so damn big, I doubt he could fit into a cockpit if I had one to put him in. Toss in the fact that this is just a repaint of the same figure I bought carded many years back and he really is totally superfluous. He better keep wearing that yellow vest and cowboy hat, because with that blue outfit, one of the Joes is bound to shoot him by mistake.

To make matters worse, the quality on this figure is not good. Besides the cheesy and uneven white paint used for his pistols and belt buckle, the hinges on his left knee are totally shot, making him difficult to stand up even on his figure stand, and the seams in his legs are pulling away. Maybe I just got a bad one. On the plus side, his colors do match the comic pretty well, if that’s your bag, and I love the fact that he comes with both a flight helmet and his Cavalry hat. He also came with a figure stand, which is definitely cool since I forgot Hasbro put them in these packs.

And then there’s Scrap-Iron. I can’t really explain the fondness I had for this figure as a kid. He must have had a really kick ass moment on the cartoon that I can’t remember now. Or, maybe it was because he came with a big missile launcher. Either way, I really loved my Scrap-Iron figure and whenever I played with my Joes he got invited to partake in all of Cobra’s reindeer games. This update is really spot-on and they didn’t wreck his colors for the comic book like they did with Wild Bill. The head sculpt is excellent, and he’s got all sorts of little scars painted on his face too. His vest is removable and he has clips on his leg to attach a dagger, although he didn’t come with one.

He did, however, come with an automatic pistol and his trademark armor-busting mobile missile launcher. [The strands of cat hair seen in the picture didn’t come with it, I had to add those. -FF] The launcher is pretty close to how I remember the original toy. It has a stand, a corded control box, and the two red missiles just lay inside the launcher. Scrap-Iron also comes with his own figure stand.

The included comic isn’t a classic reprint, but rather a new original book by Larry Hama. It’s kind of cool to see that Hasbro went through the trouble to create something new and original like this, but honestly, it’s not all that great. There’s no story, it’s just a drawn out set-piece action sequence with Scrap-Iron trying to take down a Dragonfly with Wild Bill and Airborne on board while Dial Tone, Scarlet and Snake Eyes duke it out with some HISS tanks. What it lacks in story, though it makes up for in style as all the story is told through radio communications, which is kind of cool. There’s also a couple of classic moments like Wild Bill blasting a missile off target with his six-shooters at nearly point blank range. So, yeah, the comic is always a nice bonus, but I didn’t get the same nostalgia and enjoyment I got out of reading the reprints from the Classic Comic Packs.

I always thought it was a dirty move for Hasbro to include Scrap-Iron with a shitty recolor of Wild Bill. But finding this pack on clearance, I was able to overcome my principles and finally add one of my favorite Cobras to my 25th Anniversary Collection. It was $6.99, which was definitely worth the price, even if Wild Bill gets tossed into a bottomless storage tote or becomes a plaything for FigureFeline. It’s the kind of deal that I remember back when Hasbro was putting out those Valor vs Venom 2-packs for around the same price. They weren’t the best figures, but how can you complain about getting two figures with accessories for seven bucks, eh?

Dec 5 2010

GI JOE Rise of Cobra: Nano-Viper, Night Adder and “Paris Pursuit” Baroness by Hasbro

I had a really long and hard week, so on Friday I treated myself with a trip to Marshall’s to pick through their Joe figures. I passed on a lot of the Rise of Cobra figures when they were going strong, but that was mostly because the pegs at Walmart were so choked with the first waves that I rarely ever saw the later releases. It doesn’t hurt either that Marshall’s is selling these for about $2-3 less than they were originally. It’s not quite the steal that there 25th Anniversary Joes are, but still good enough to get me to pick up more. I opted for three Cobra figures, so let’s check them out.

Standard Rise of Cobra packages. Shitty movie, great toy packages. I liked this look a lot. The character artwork wasn’t always the best, but the logo looked cool, and the bubbles showed off the figure and accessories well.

Let’s start with The Baroness. This Paris Pursuit version is good, but it doesn’t replace the first ROC version as my favorite. This one depicts her in her trenchcoat, which is sculpted into the figure above the belt, and sculpted with soft plastic from the belt down, bellowing outward. It looks very nice, but it also severely inhibits the articulation from the waist down and limits the figure’s poseability. You can easily modify the figure by cutting the back of the lower coat and making it removable. This makes the figure look like she’s just wearing a vest and frees up her legs for complete poseability, so you can have the best of both worlds. I liked the first Baroness’ head sculpt a little better too and the fact that you could peg her weapons onto her hips was awesome. So, all in all, this Baroness is very nice, but not a figure I absolutely needed to own.

 


The Baroness comes with a load of weapons. There’s the giant missile launcher, which is good for tossing in the garbage. And then there’s a cadre of small arms. Whatcha need all them guns for, Baroness? You only got the two arms! She also comes with a personalized figure stand.

Next up is the Nano-Viper. While I think the movie Vipers are pretty poor “updates” to the originals, taken on their own I don’t think they’re too bad. At first glance, I thought that this Nano Viper was just the regular Neo-Viper with his chest plate and helmet painted neon green and some added shoulder and shin armor, but there are a lot more subtle variations in the sculpt. The oddest thing about the Nano-Viper is the inclusion of the neon tentacles, which I believe is a recolored piece from one of the 25th Anniversary DVD packs. I have no idea what Hasbro was going for when they included this as an accessory. He comes all tangled in it on the card. It can actually peg into the figure stand too, but like I said, I just find it bewildering.

In addition to the tentacles, The Nano Viper comes with a dagger, a handgun that fits in his holster, an assault rifle, and a figure stand. Cool beans.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Night Adder. This a really cool figure and as a Cobra Security Officer, it actually fills a gap in the Cobra ranks that I don’t recall ever being released before. He’s a masked dude in a combat vest, who I can imagine patrols the Cobra compounds looking for Joes to feed to his dog. I can’t place the head on this guy, but I’m sure we’ve seen it before, since it obviously has two vestigial peg holes that were used to attach a visor. The vest is really well done, complete with ammo and pouches, but alas, nowhere to carry his combat knife or extra pistol.

Night Adder comes with a combat shotgun, a pistol, a combat knife, his watchdog on a leash, and a figure stand.

So, I’m glad to get a second crack at some of these figures. Sure, I loathed the movie right down to its celluloid core, but I’ll give credit to the figures. With the exception of those ridiculous impact armor figures, this line gave up some solid efforts. In fact, I think I’ll go back later in the week and pick up some more.

Nov 21 2010

GI JOE 25th Anniversary Collection: Sgt. Airborne and Croc Master by Hasbro

What do these two figures have in common? They were two of the last figures I needed from this collection and I found them both on clearance at Marshall’s last week. Seriously, if you haven’t been to your local Marshall’s lately, it’s been transformed (HA!) into a wonderland of clearanced GI Joe and Transformers toys from yesteryear. I could go on and on, but today we’re just here to talk about the two I picked up on this particular visit.

The recent Star Wars Vintage Collection is all well and good, but oh God, these 25th Anni. cardbacks are awesome. I love the artwork, I love the smaller bubbles, and even the back of the card is similar to the way things used to be, complete with vintage style filecards. I can’t tell you how close this line brought me to starting a second mint-on-card collection just to decorate my wall. I really had to utilize every fiber of my resistence to not do it. Anyway, I tore these bastards open as soon as I got home.

Sgt. Airborne is a really nice update from the vintage figure, although that’s based a lot on my fuzzy nostalgia because It’s been a really long time since I owned the vintage one. I do remember him being among my top tiers of Joes to draw from when I was playing with them, and he often took the back seat in my SkyStriker. I can’t say a lot about his character from the cartoon. All I really remember about him was he had some wacked out brother who got kidnapped by Cobra so they could turn his ESP into some kind of crazy super-weapon. Wow, do I need to watch some of those episodes again.

Airborne’s sculpt is a home run and he’s got plenty of added gear to enhance the figure even further. His vest is removable, as are his belt and leg straps, and his helmet. His backpack is also a separate piece and pegs into his back. I actually had to do some shaving on the peg to get it to fit in. His sculpted gear include a combat knife and a grenade on the vest and he’s got a working holster sculpted on his hip for his pistol. He comes with a personalized figure stand, an assault rifle with bayonet, and an automatic pistol.

And then there’s The Croc Master, also a brilliant figure. In his case, I never owned the vintage one and I only vaguely remember him from the comic. I don’t recall him ever being in the cartoon. Still, you need only look at his file card to see his impressive pedigree. As founder of Gator Guard Inc. he wanted to sell alligators to people for use as home security. Wait, what? Is he Croc Master or Gator Master? Either way, it’s obviously that kind of thinking that Cobra values. Interestingly enough, I already owned a variant of this sculpt as it was reused for the Viper that was packed in with the Mole Pod in the Rise of Cobra line.

The sculpt here is pretty nice. He’s got textured reptile skin making up his vest, boots and holster. The mask is cool and has a hose that comes out of the mouth and runs to an oxygen tank on his back. The holster holds his grey revolver and he also comes with a whip, because apparently he whips his gators? Or crocodiles? It’s all very confusing. He also comes with a personalized figure stand.

The croc figure is awesome. Instead of being just a hunk of plastic, he actually has a hinged jaw so you can have him clamp down on your Joes. The paint apps on him are also surprisingly well done and he’s got a spiked collar and leash, which can be removed. Hasbro easily could have half-assed this piece, but instead it got some pretty good loving.

Both Airborne and Croc Master have the same level of articulation. They have ball joints in the neck. The arms have ball jointed shoulders and elbows and swivel wrists. The legs feature ball jointed hips, double hinged knees and ball jointed ankles. There’s also the ubiquitous swivel and ab crunch in torsos.

These guys set me back a whopping $3.99 each, which was the price of all their single carded 25th Anni figures. It was all I could do to resist grabbing a shopping cart and filling it with figures. If you’re looking for

Nov 7 2010

GI JOE 25th Anniversary: Cobra Stinger with Driver by Hasbro

One of the great tragedies of my childhood was that I never owned the original Cobra Stinger. Yeah, so I guess my childhood was pretty good, but damn if I didn’t want the Stinger something fierce. At least a couple of my friends had them, so I got to play around with them from time to time. When Hasbro announced an updated version was coming out in the tail end of the 25th Anniversary series I was so excited. Then it was cancelled and reborn as a tough to get online exclusive. It was like the Toy God just wanted to taunt me and then punch me square in the balls. Needless to say, I was pretty amazed when I stumbled upon one at Ross nearly two years later. Collecting is funny that way.

The packaging is the same as the Arctic Hiss we looked at last time. Once again, the packaging looks great, but it’s pretty prone to damage. I’m thinking my Hiss and Stinger may have come out of the same case because the packages are both damaged in almost the same place. The cardboard insert is decked out with a cool animated desert motif to make for a nice diorama. The back panel shows photos of the vehicle and figure detailing the features. The bottom panel has filecards for both the vehicle and the figure.


As with the vintage version, this modern Cobra Stinger is a repaint/remold of the GI JOE Vamp. The most notable difference is the swivel gun has been replaced with a missile rack and there’s added armor plating around the cab. The doors swing up and all three pieces can be removed as they are just clipped onto the rollbars. The hood has been slightly resculpted. It no longer opens and instead of the shovel it now has a clip to hold an assault rifle. At the back of the vehicle, the gas cans on the Vamp have been replaced with a running board with pegs for two figures to ride on the back.

There aren’t really many paint apps to speak of, as everything is molded in black and grey. There’s just a couple of areas on the front painted silver.The Cobra emblems and the spider insignia are pre-applied stickers, but you get a nice sheet of stickers to apply yourself.

The missile rack turns 360 degrees and raises and lowers. The four missiles just peg into the rack. It will hold them in place, but it doesn’t take much to knock them askew or have them fall off altogether. As mentioned last time, the missiles and rack are the same setup that came with the Arctic HISS.

The Stinger Driver is almost a direct repack of the Stinger Driver that was released as part of the Cobra Legions 5-pack way back when. The most notable difference here is his mask is painted red instead of black and he has black webbing sculpted on his helmet. He also has a much bulkier set of webgear, complete with a pistol holster in the back. I found him to be very difficult to get seated in the vehicle unless I removed his webgear, but once I did that he fits in just fine. He comes with a figure stand, a dagger, a pistol and an assault rifle.

It’s always an amazing thing to pick up a toy that you wanted so bad as a kid, but for whatever reason never owned. It’s even better when you get it for such a steal. Granted, this isn’t the vintage one, but I’m content to own the 25th Anni. toys over the vintage stuff any day. In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t just fork over the cash for this thing when it first came out, but it worked out in the end. Cobra has had a lot of great vehicles over the years, but this one remains one of my favorites.

Nov 7 2010

GI JOE 25th Anniversary: Cobra Arctic Hiss with Driver by Hasbro

Remember the frustration around the last wave of the 25th Anniversary vehicles? First we got to salivate over the photos, then we got word that the wave was cancelled. Later, we were told that they would be sold through at some online retailers, only to find they were available in limited quantities and much higher price points. By the end, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who was selling them and for how much. All I know is that I was never able to get one at a decent price. It wouldn’t have been so bad if one of these vehicles wasn’t the highly desireable update of Cobra’s Stinger Jeep and a brand new Arctic variant of the Hiss Tank. I long ago made my peace with the fact that I probably would never be getting these. And then one day I’m picking through the dreck at Ross’ Toy Department and there they both are… and for about nine bucks each. Um, yeah. Today we’ll take a look at the Arctic Hiss.

The vehicle comes in a largely clear box, sort of like a fishtank package framed in cardboard. It’s the same general package that Hasbro was using for all their 25th Anni. vehicles in this assortment. The interior inserts have a cool animated style arctic motif creating a diorama environment. It’s very nice for showing off the toy, but as you can see from my package, it was pretty fragile. I’m not sure if this was from getting beaten up in retail limbo for the past two years, but thankfully the toy is still packaged well so as not to get easily damaged when the box is distressed. The back shows off photos of the toy and details its features, while the bottom panel has filecards for both the driver and the vehicle.


This arctic version is a repaint and slight remold of the 25th Anniversary Hiss Tank, which in turn was basically the same as the vintage Hiss Tank only with a remolded cockpit to make it roomier for the larger modern-style Joe figures. Apart from the obvious white deco, the other most noticeable difference is that the traditional dual cannon has been removed from the turret and replaced with a missile launcher. The missile rack and missiles are exactly the same parts used for the Cobra Stinger.

The other change is the added parts on the sides. There is a rectangular collar piece that is fitted to lay around the top of the vehicle. The collar has notches in it where you can hang the equipment rack and the bedroll. They can be removed or hung on either side. The bedroll is just a molded piece of plastic, but it still looks pretty nice when put in place.

One of the really cool things about the variant parts on this Hiss Tank is that all of them are compatible with the regular Hiss. You can swap out the missile rack and hang the equipment collar, offering a number of options for customizing.

There’s not much to say about the paint deco on this toy. It’s basically molded in black and white and it makes for a striking combination, but apart from that there aren’t any actual paint apps. There are Cobra emblem stickers already applied, as well as a HUD sticker on the windshield, plus you get a sheet of stickers to put on yourself. Hasbro even included a bunch of numbers so that you can customize the ID number of your particular Hiss.

The Arctic Hiss comes with a Hiss Driver figure, which is repaint of the 25th Anni. Snow Serpent with different legs below the knee and a repaint of the regular Hiss Driver’s head. It makes for a nice figure and the new paint job is very cool indeed. The tiny gold paint apps on the buckles of his webgear is particularly amazing for such a seemingly insignificant little detail. His uniform is white with black fur bracers on his arms and black webgear. He comes with a personalized figure stand, a pair of binoculars and an assault rifle.

I don’t tend to go all ga-ga over Arctic themed vehicles in the Joe line, mainly because I don’t tend to buy a lot of the Arctic themed figures to go with them. That having been said, I’m pretty happy with this purchase. But at $8.99 how could I not be? The figure alone was pretty much worth the price of admission. And while I wasn’t planning on picking up many of the Pursuit of Cobra carded figures, I think I’m going to have to break down and buy that Arctic Destro just for this Hiss.

I’ll be back soon with a look at the Cobra Stinger.

Sep 21 2010

GI JOE The Pursuit of Cobra: Doom Cycle with Storm Rider by Hasbro

Hasbro has of late been a little sporadic in showing their love for the Dreadnoks, and that’s a sad thing for someone who loves them as much as I do. Granted, most of my affection goes toward Ripper, Buzzer and Torch, but there have still been some cool additions to the gang since they first debuted. Now, it’s been a while since we’ve seen anything from them. They weren’t featured at all in the Rise of Cobra movie, nor did they get any of the “off-screen” figure treatment that also came out of the RoC line. It’s only fitting that they finally get a nod inThe Pursuit of Cobra. Bring on the Doom Cycle!

The Doom Cycle is one of the smaller, Alpha Class vehicles, but don’t let that deter you. The few PoC Alpha vehicles we’ve seen thus far have been so much better than the puny, simpistic, and overpriced ones offered in The Rise of Cobra line. You wouldn’t think that a motorcycle designed for a 3 3/4″ figure could be all that much to crow about, but Hasbro sure put some real love into this thing. As an Alpha Class, the toy comes in a simple window box that shows off the cycle and figure very well. The back shows photos of the toy and Shadow Rider’s filecard can be found on the bottom of the box. The insert can be removed and converted into a little backdrop diorama. These backdrops have been hit and miss with me, but I absolutely love the one that comes with this toy, as it’s basically a burning apocalyptic city-scape that I can imagine using for all sorts of things.



The Cycle itself is a three wheeled chopper, cast mostly in black and grey with a little red. The sculpted detail work on the engine is very nice and the gas tank has great custom artwork with the words “Doom Cycle” and a screaming skull. An additional paint app or piece of clear plastic for the headlamp would have been a good touch, though, as it is it’s just left grey. The Cycle rolls along really well on rubbery tires and it’s designed to work perfectly with the figure, so you don’t have to wrestle with him to stay on.


The hidden (ok, not so hidden) weapons on the Doom Cycle reminds me of one of the old MASK toys. Press the button near the back and you deploy a fan of blades. Press the button on the front button and two shotguns flip up by the handlebars and two skewer blades deploy by the front wheel. The great thing about these gimmicks is that they really don’t detract from the design of the toy itself. I’ll admit, the fan blades on the rear don’t strike me as all that useful, but you can’t go wrong with a pair of combat shotguns mounted on your handlebars or two giant blades protruding from the front of your bike.


And then you also get the new Dreadnok figure, Storm Rider. On paper, Storm Rider may sound somewhat generic. Yeah, he’s a biker dude in a leather jacket and blue jeans, but he’s executed really well. His jacket is personalized on the back with “Dreadnoks” and “Australia” and the sharp detail in the tiny badge on his pocket is very impressive. His arms have various finely illustrated tatts, including the Cobra emblems partially obscured by his rolled up sleeves. His right leg has a sculpted holster, which will hold the revolver that comes with him. His mask is black with what looks like two streams of bloody tears coming down and really reminds me of Raziel from the Soul Reaver games. Even if I wasn’t starved for a new Dreadnok figure, I’d still love this guy. And he suits the Doom Cycle perfectly.

Storm Rider’s black mask can be removed by popping his head off and on again. It looks good on him when he’s riding, but I like the figure just as much with it off. The face sculpt is good (is that a little James Marsters in there?), his shades are sculpted to his face, and he’s got a cool little gray mohawk sculpted onto his bleached white hair.


I do have a couple of nits to pick with this figure. First off, his hands seem to pop off pretty easy, and they’re small enough that you need to be careful about losing them, so if you get him, be careful! Second, his elbow hinges are painted black, which looks rather unsightly against the skintones of his arms. Lastly, my Storm Rider will not stand for love or money, and a figure stand was not included. I robbed the one in the pictures from one of my RoC figures. Hasbro seems to frequently change their minds a lot as to whether to give pack-in figures stands or not and it can get a bit aggrevating.

As most of the Dreadnok’s have signature weapons, Hasbro gave Storm Rider here some kind of spike shooter. It looks like an industrial power tool, like a nailgun of some kind and it has a hose attached to it. You can peg the weapon onto the Doom Cycle and there’s a place to plug in the hose too, but the hose just danlges when Shadow Rider is using it while off the bike.

Even with the few missteps, I absolutely love love both the Doom Cycle and Storm Rider. I’ve wanted a generic bike for my Dreadnoks for a while, and this one certainly fits the bill. If space weren’t such a concern for me, I’d have no problem picking up three more of these for Torch, Buzzer and Ripper. But first, I’d have to pick up Buzzer as he is still woefully absent from my Dreadnok gang. First the Ghost Hawk and now this. After the average-at-best Alpha Class toys from Rise of Cobra, it’s so nice to see some really decent stuff coming out in Pursuit of Cobra.


Aug 14 2010

GI JOE The Pursuit of Cobra: Ghost Hawk by Hasbro

The Rise of Cobra line was really starting to get long in the tooth, so its a good thing that the new Pursuit of Cobra toys are starting to hit the shelves. My last trip to Toys R Us didn’t net me any of the new carded figures, but the initial assortment of vehicles were out so I picked up the Ghost Hawk here. Obviously, the Ghost Hawk is supposed to be an update to the vintage Sky Hawk, which was re-released in the 25th Anniversary line under the new name, Ghost Hawk. When I saw the initial brief shots of this vehicle, I thought it was going to be a remold of that reissue, but as it turns out, this baby is a brand new toy, and one fantastic update to a classic design.

The Ghost Hawk is a one-man, short range verticle take off and landing attack craft. Just think of it as a tiny attack chopper without rotors and you get the idea. Its a pretty simple toy, but very well executed and it features a number of nice improvements over the old model.

The new Pursuit of Cobra packaging is fantastic. Its a pretty simple window box, showing off the toy and the figure, but I love the way Hasbro has themed each of the toys into a type of mission and then decorated the package with that theme. The Ghost Hawk is part of the Jungle Attack mission, which apparently entails hunting for the location of the Terrordrome base in the jungle. [No fair, Hasbro. Don’t drop the name unless you plan on releasing the playset!]. This year, Hasbro is taking a page from their defunct Indiana Jones line and having the toy box’s inserts convert into dioramas. I don’t have a lot of use for the gimmick, but its a nice idea. The Ghost Hawk comes mostly assembled, but with a whole mess of stickers that need applying. And some of those stickers are ridiculously tiny.

Once out of the package, the Ghost Hawk is ready for action. The toy features rotating engines, an opening cockpit and two detachable weapon pods on the undercarriage. One is a missile launcher, the other is a chain gun. The missile is ridiculously long, but if you’d rather have realism over play features, you can remove it and launcher could double as just an extra fuel pod or a bomb or something. There’s also two chin cannons under the cockpit that can swivel a bit from side to side. That’s about all the features this thing has. Like I said, its a simple toy, but the beauty is in the design.

The sculpting on the vehicle is extremely well done. There are lots of panel lines on the hull and every inch of the toy is brimming with details.The Pursuit of Cobra line definitely looks like its going for realism in the sculpts, even if they are based on fictional vehicle designs. The original Sky Hawk featured a completely open cockpit, and the reissue had clear plastic added, but this new model has an enclosed, armored cockpit with a small red tinted clear window. There’s also a sticker to go inside that shows a digital Heads Up Display on this screen. I also like the new streamlined stablizers in the back, as opposed to the big square ones on the old model as well as the modernized VTOL engines.

The Ghost Hawk’s pilot is called Tomahawk. He’s a pretty nice figure, especially for a pack-in, but I hate the name. Hasbro must really be taking a beating with the copyrights on their character names, because they’ve come up with some real stinkers lately. Tomahawk has a removable helmet and flight vest and he comes with a combat knife that can fit into the scabbard sculpted onto his leg. No gun or stand, though. Right away, he reminded me of 25th Anni. Mutt and after comparing the two I see its because they share the same bottom half. The only difference is Mutt’s holster has been resculpted into a scabbard for Tomahawk.

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m really happy with this vehicle. Its an Alpha Class toy, so it retails at around $16.99. I think its a much better value than the Alpha Class toys from Rise of Cobra, all of which I passed on. The Sky Hawk was always a favorite of mine, and this is an awesome redesign that brings a lot of realism and grit to the original concept without sacrificing anything that made it so cool to begin with.