1985 Frostbite
Frostbite is a curious figure. As an arctic figure and a vehicle driver, he doesn’t seem to do much to draw any particular interest, but he’s got some elements I find valuable to point out. Or course, as a fan of polar climates I’m biassed, but I’ll admit to his boring parts too.
On the surface Frostbite’s not a particularly interesting figure. He’s a grinning guy who’s almost entirely white and is meant for sitting in the Snow Cat. However, I think that at least as a sculpt he might be more interesting than the single carded Snow Job and Iceberg who surround his release. There’s a lot of detailed centered around his torso with his pistol holster, fur collar and black undershirt. Little things like the shirt stand out a lot to me, and there’s a pretty comparable amount of paint on him to Snow Job, which is good for a vehicle driver.
But besides just liking to use him I don’t have much to say about him other than that. He’s a minor figure and mainly an accessory to his vehicle. The quality of him is good and what you’d expect from an ‘85 release. For me personally, he’s really just something I sought out early in my collection for being an arctic specialist.
It’s sort of interesting Hasbro thought he was an worthy character of bringing back twice. One of those times was just for a Tiger Force repaint, but the second time was as a single carded figure for Battle Corps. Those are figures I’ll save for another post, but his recurrence in ARAH is a curiosity I’ve yet to figure out.
When I decided to write about this figure, his one accessory was my main motivation. It’s an M16 with a night vision scope. I think a lot of collectors don’t recognize that optic immediately, but it’s a really cool and curious detail for the designers to equip him with. It adds some nice flair to Frostbite, partially implying he might get selected for night-ops a lot. I also find it a great weapon to distribute to other Joes like Night Force members and Lowlight, since the scope really lends itself to their specialties.
V1 Frostbite’s are about as cheap as a figure gets. Typically they run $5 to $8 complete, but if you look you can find them for less than that, commonly. Between his gun and his usefulness as custom fodder, I’ve found that he’s a figure that’s nice to pick up some extras of from time to time.
Had we gotten a 1995 series, Hasbro would’ve made a new Frostbite, new arms and head at least, with TARGAT’s waist and legs (a poor choice to me, too distinct and sci-fi). Joe Declassified had pics of his prototype, and he can be seen on artwork for the unmade Sea Wolf (WHALE repaint) and Battle Station (Tactical Battle Platform repaint).
What was Hasbro’s love of Frostbite? No idea. Maybe they liked the name better than Snow Job?
I prefer version 1. I even had an extra back in the day, thanks to the vehicle driver mail away.
Frostbite’s gun was my main attraction to him. Though, after getting it, I immediately went on a search for an ’83 Stalker to give it to. Took me months to find the Stalker in the summer of ’85 before my Grandmother found it in the back of a Kroger store that had a wall of Joes from some reason.
I recently discovered that I don’t have a Frostbite any more. In fact, he’s the only pre-87 figure I don’t have. Need to fix that here, one day.
Frostbite is a really solid figure, his hands really stand out to me, as they’re sculpted like actual military cold weather gloves, with the index finger being separate from the rest, for firing purposes.