1993 Keel Haul
If you own a V1 Keel Haul, I think it’s fair to say you might be lucky. You might have a lot of money now, or you might’ve lucked out and acquired one from Hasbro Direct in the 90‘s. If you were extremely lucky, you had rich parents who bought you the USS Flagg as a kid. But in the case you never acquired one in one of those scenarios, there’s this Battle Corps Keel Haul from ‘93, the one for us poor kids.
This figure is another one I had frequent access to as a kid. He was always there, always in the Joe tub, and yet I have hardly any memories of him. When I was young, the only figures I especially went for were robots and ninjas. Occasionally, a few other interesting looking soldiers would get thrown into the mix, but Keel Haul was far too mundane to really fall into that criteria. At most, I think I used him a few times as a drunk boat captain who was haplessly murdered by the Frag Viper and Vapor, but that’s about it.
It’s sort of odd, because Hasbro didn’t resurrect too many early 80‘s molds for single card releases at this point. We got things like the Steel Brigade and Ninja Viper as mail away items, or a few repaints from as far back as ‘88 with the Astro Viper, but nothing as old as an ‘85 mold.
Thankfully, there’s not a real loss of quality here. The figure’s colors are mainly blue, dark green and some brown. Not quite as nice as the original, but perfectly fine in its own right. I could imagine a lot of ways that a 90‘s repaint of this figure could’ve gone wrong, with unwanted fluorescent colors tainting the sculpt, but everything’s kept surprisingly reasonable looking here.
There’s a cool little variant of this figure regarding the logo on his back. Normally, the logo is large and takes up most of his back, but on certain figures it’s small and is placed just below his neck. I’ve acquired both figures by chance, but at the moment I forgot what I did with the tiny-logo variant (hence, no picture yet). According to Yo Joe the smaller logo is rarer, but I don’t know by how much. It’s a cool thing to look out for if you’re into variant collecting though.
The weapons he includes are okay overall. Cloudburt’s MP5SD is a nice gun, and I never mind it’s inclusion. The knife and Eco Warriors Flint’s gun are forgettable at best, though at the very least the knife seems like it’d be somewhat useful. It’s a very generic lot of parts, but he doesn’t lose much from the original, and isn’t a character in great need of an arsenal anyway.
Keel Hauls carded or loose, seem to go for around $10. Carded examples are quite common, but don’t go for much more than a loose figure. I really enjoy having Keel Haul in my GI Joe roster, but he’s not a character I have much investment in, so this figure is perfect for my needs. Someday when I’m really bored, and have a lot more money and space, I’ll bother getting the V1 and USS Flagg. Until then, this version fills the void nicely.
It was nice release for the time and very unexpected.
I think maybe Hasbro decided to release Battle Corps in distinct waves they had to fill in the blanks, so Keel Haul and Back Blast, plus the cancelled Eco Warriors Outback and Snowstorm added 4 figures to what otherwise might have been like 1992 assortment of 8 Joes and 4 cobras. But then to account for 6 Cobras…I dunno, CC had a retooled back from Battle Commanders, but the other 5 are new enough. Of course wave 4 of Battle corps was meant to be DEF series 2.
Wave 3 was leadership heavy for both sides, Keel Haul, Duke and General Flagg, CC and CG Cmdr for Cobra.
What use for an Admiral with so few navy personnel to command, though?
Solid figure. Mine found an immediate home on the Shark 9000 where he, Cutter, 1994 Dial Tone, 1994 Shipwreck and Ice Cream Soldier became the permanent crew.
Keel Haul v2 is such a “WTF” figure. It’s charming in a way, that the driver of the biggest vehicle in the history of the line, would get a random repaint near the end of the line, especially when most repaints of that time were at the latest an 1988 figure.