1985 Lady Jaye

Until 1988, the GI Joe line had a requisite female figure every year. While all of them are popular, sometimes even fan-favorite characters, I really only like two of them myself, with one being the Baroness and the other Lady Jaye. So for the Joes, Lady Jaye is my favorite female figure, and probably character on top of that.

Going with my foggy and odd memories of GI Joe as a kid, Lady Jaye was present thanks to the then recent ‘97 release. Usually, female figures were relegated to being some variety of spy or martyr girlfriend, so Chun-Li and Scarlet usually died promptly during play. Lady Jaye was different though, partly because she looked like someone that could be in the military more so than a cosplayer. Her camera accessory was also an important part that often saved her life, as Lady Jaye was usually photographing things from the sidelines, and was much more competent at this than the other two I mentioned.

I’m a little less keen on her media character, incidentally. She was was usually a pretty cool character in both Sunbow and the comics, but the couple angle with Flint is irksome to me. Of course, as a kid I usually would make female figures someone’s gal pal, though I guess Lady Jaye was the exception to this since she was too competent on her own to be someone’s girlfriend. Plus I didn’t like Eco Warriors Flint or Battle Corps Flint back then.

Lady Jaye’s sculpt is incredibly solid. A major flaw with the early female figures, is that most of them are horribly ugly. Lady Jaye is sharply sculpted with features that are distinctly feminine yet don’t do anything so overt as to make that overbearing, besides maybe her cleavage-bearing jump suit. Her head is nicely scaled, and the glued-on hat looks like something she’s actually wearing, likely a benefit of it being a separate piece. She really doesn’t have too much going on, but that’s a strong part of the appeal here, like with many of the 1985 sculpts, which were detailed but not over-designed.

Lady Jaye’s accessories are absolutely classic. Included is a spear-launcher, a camera, and a green backpack. The spear-launcher is a little on the wacky end, but it looks good and is as passable as a military weapon as SEALs who fight with harpoon guns. The camera really steals the show though. As an accessory, there’s not much to say about it besides that it has a strap and looks recognizably like a camera, but the later fact is what makes it so appealing. Figures that came with little parts like this were not just unique, but grew the value of a collection overall, as even if you don’t like Lady Jaye, the camera could go on to have a life with someone else (too bad it wasn’t in any accessory packs). Her backpack deserves some comment too, it’s a nice and sharp sculpt that has a very reasonable size to it. By ‘85, backpacks were starting to get big like with Flint and Dusty, but this one fits well with Lady Jaye’s smaller size and doesn’t make the figure too top-heavy.

Lady Jaye’s go for pretty consistent pricing, with mint complete examples routinely hitting between $19 and $23. Like with everything, they used to be a lot cheaper, but these days I don’t think that’s too much to pay for a prominent character. It’s also worth mentioning that there really isn’t a better repaint of Lady Jaye either: the ‘97 one is second best, and doesn’t have paint nearly as sharp as this one. The other color variants, like the ’03 convention figure, the ’06 comic-pack repaint and the Funkool variations all look worse and cost more. So in that way, V1 Lady Jaye is a near-perfect figure that never had a better repaint, I think that makes her a must-have.

1985 Lady Jaye Links:

Forgotten Figures

Attica Gazette

3D Joes

Half The Battle