Funskool T.A.R.G.A.T.
So as I mentioned before I’m a big fan of the T.A.R.G.A.T. (or as I refer to him henceforth as the TARGAT). He features fun elements from the Alley Viper (flip down visor), he’s basically an astronaut, who’s also kinda like a jet-pack paratrooper kinda thing. Stretch your imagination a bit and you have a fun Cobra/Iron Grenadier that appears out of thin air and begins attacking, and unlike the Annihilator he doesn’t look terrible. Another thing to like about the TARGAT, is that he has a few cool repaints to collect, such as this Funskool figure.
I’m not sure to say that the Funskool TARGAT’s aged like wine, but one figure it has inevitably shown it’s appeal over is the Star Brigade TARGAT, whose color scheme it’s based on. Of course, the reason for this is because the Hasbro figure suffers from GPS, meaning that sooner or later the figure will fully turn to dust, whereas the Funskool figure replaces most of the gold with a copper-colored soft plastic. At a certain point, you’ll be hard pressed to find a V2 TARGAT with intact knee-pins, so a similar alternative is very much a welcomed thing.
I miss the depth of that gold color a little bit, though in many ways the Funskool version is absolutely better than the Star Brigade release. All of the orange details were replaced with yellow ones in most of the same spots. though you lose the painted details on his biceps. Although the head’s left purple, his purple paint applications have been replaced by more of a German Grey color, which looks pretty nice for the added variety, though the purple was quite good originally. He’s also kept the black on his grenades and gold on his visor, with the later color gaining the added benefit of some extra contrast, given that now the visor isn’t painted the same color as the entire figure. For the most part, everything’s pretty similar between the two figures, but different enough to make owning them both pretty fun. Except for the Hasbro one crumbling, that’s not any fun.
It used to entertain me to assign asinine roles to every repaint or variant that came into my possession. For the TARGAT, the original ‘89 release was the basic trooper, with the ‘93 version becoming the officers. The Funskool version became something that was ambiguously a unique character and another generic, and was the TARGAT flight instructor. He’s a senior operator among the Iron Grenadiers and an expert at using the complicated TARGAT flight gear, so he’s responsible for teaching the rest of them tactics and how to use this crap. I like this idea still and mostly associate the figure with that role, but it’s also somewhat frustrating to pigeonhole a figure I have into such a relatively niche role. With that in mind, I sometimes hesitate at creating new repaint characters, at the cost of being more hedonistic with owning recolors that serve no real purpose.
A major flaw of both this figure and the original Star Brigade release is the inclusion of generic 90‘s gear. I think the TARGAT works pretty well with ordinary guns, but the backpack was cool and a defining part of the figure. Included here is a Rock Viper PSG1, the Annihilator’s SMG, the V1 Iron Grenadier’s pistol and a missile-launcher (HEAT Viper, M. Bison, Night Creeper Leader and later Metal Head’s), plus missiles and a stand in eye-searing pink. There’s a lot of variants on the coloring of these, with the colors ranging from red to orange and some looking a little more florescent pink than others, though bright pink seems to be the most common color. I think PINK is probably the worst color you put Joe guns into, but as a novelty it makes him odd at the very least. Plus now you have some guns that might look nice with other pink-clad figures like Banzai- haven’t you always wanted that?
Fortunately this is still one of the more common and less popular Funskool releases, and with a little bit of patience you can get a Funskool TARGAT for around $15. If you’re a Star Brigade fan, he’s a nice alternative to Hasbro’s release, since you can still safely pose him and have a little bit of fun as opposed to sealing him in an acrylic case and waiting for gravity to finish him off. Though, it’s also reasonable to find this figure and the one it’s based on to be horribly garish, but I collect TARGATs so I’m forced to ignore such a notion.
Nice write up. I really like this version of TARGAT and I think he is better than the Hasbro v2. Since I’ve only got 1, I use him as a field commander.
I really do love the deep copper coloring of the body. It’s such a different look for any figures as it was almost never used as a base hue.
Back in the early ’00’s, I suspect that most people bought the Street Hawk figure to get the mold in black instead of buying the standard one. But, dealers stocked him like he’s an army builder, leading to ample stock today.
I’ve got a couple of the Russian versions where the t-hook broke inside the package. One of these days, I’ll get some new t-hooks and then fix them. These guys being cheap is about the only good thing in the Funskool realm these days. I probably should grab a couple more before they disappear forever.
I love the pic with the Dominator–dynamic action and excellent lighting. I was a fan of the 1989, and he’s from my favorite year, complete with an excellent accessory set, so he’ll always be my favorite. But as for the later ones…despite his fragility, I prefer the 1993 to this one, because my Funskool version has sloppy paint. He does match up well with the 1994 Techno-Viper, though–they both have that rare copper color.