1987 Psyche Out

1987 Psyche-Out

As I looked through prospective candidates for this blog post, I came up with nothing I really felt like writing about. Really, I have several Cobras that I fancy for a rant right now, but I wrote about the Crimson Guard Immortal last week, and if I do Cobras back to back, I’ll run out of ones to write about too quickly. It would’ve been a good reason to skip posting at all, but as I skimmed through my photos looking for some Joe I have at least two pictures of to write about, I realized Psyche-Out fit the bill.

“But in that second picture, he’s just in the corner! Shouldn’t I find some other use for Psyche-Out and post about him then?” I thought to myself, but that’s the thing: I’ve owned this figure for closer to a decade now, and I’ve only thought to use him twice. I never hated Psyche-Out, not enough to verbally declare it anyways, but the figure is just downright boring. More so the character, but the toy doesn’t do much to really make his specialty seem more compelling.

For a while, I thought that maybe the colors were something I found off putting about Psyche-Out. I wound up getting the Night Force version a few years after this one, but that still didn’t help me want to use him any. Opposite to that thought, I think the colors are one of Psyche-Out’s strong points. Sure, his shirt is a pretty bright shade of green, but at least it looks nice, and it contrasts nicely with his dark grey pants and red highlights. Some of his colors match up pretty well with ‘86 Roadblock, and Cross-Country, and the bright green’s not to far off from Sci-Fi. So contrary to the assumption that the colors are bad, he actually pairs up pretty well with a few contemporaries.

Still, as an action figure his specialties are just too boring for me. Yeah, psychological warfare is real, and often involves some sinister stuff (Some of which we experience in our everyday lives!) but what does he do that’s actually fun? From the comics, all I remember was his appearance in Sierra Gordo, where he stood there with an M-16, a role where he would’ve been interchangeable with anyone else.

His accessories go along with his weirdness. You get a pistol, two clip-on dishes for his wrist, a backpack, and a handheld… uh… Radio… Paranoia… Inducer, thingy. I guess he points his radar dishes at Cobras and makes them worry if they turned the stove off before going to battle or something. The whole set-up is okay, but with all of his gear on he looks incredibly dorky; it reminds me of the things people used to make with those old AOL disks you used to get in the mail every other day. His pistol is nice, nothing special, but an option in my armory of GI Joe sidearms. Looking at it, I get the sneaking feeling that it’s based on a real pistol, but knowing how odd some of these Joe guns are, it’s probably something so obscure I’d never be able to identify it. Speaking of that pistol, I didn’t comment on his sculpt: on his chest, there’s an empty pistol holster, which I thought was a nice little reference to the part he comes with.

You can get a mint complete Psyche Out for $12 pretty often, which isn’t much considering the fact that all of his dish-equipment is made of two pieces that can come off, in addition to his head antenna. So all in all, he has nine parts that could rather easily get lost. In that way, I could see him being a much more expensive figure, but that would be if he really served any purpose. In many ways, he’s really the Joe equivalent of Raptor: A well executed figure somewhat wasted by a boring and outlandish idea.

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2003 Crimson Guard Immortal

2003 Crimson Guard Immortal

If you just went by names and themes that seem popular with collectors, it’s hard to imagine that the 2003 CAT II and it’s driver, the Crimson Guard Immortal, have spent most of their lives languishing as undesired clearance items. Personally I chalk that up to poor execution, but I don’t really have too much of a personal investment in this Crimson Guard Immortal either, and he’s without a doubt, more popular than the vehicle he came with.

A big deal in the 2000‘s was that Funskool had many of the popular vintage molds that fans wanted Hasbro to make new figures from. So about a dozen and a half of these molds were recalled by Hasbro and put to use for a handful of repaints before disappearing forever. Ultimately, I think it’s better to have a few more new toys to collect than a few more thousand Funskool figures that are off somewhere where I’ll never see them. Of course, the big disappointment was that Hasbro (and the Club) didn’t really do anything with these molds, and only used them for a short window at that.

The Crimson Guard Immortal is an interesting character. By his file card, he seems almost just like a new version of the standard Crimson Guard as opposed to a new rank in Cobra, but I suppose there’s a little fun in being able to interpret him as either one (‘91 catalog just refers to him as “Crimson Guard”, so he’s really a V2). Another interesting thing I never noticed, is that he’s apparently always been a vehicle driver with the original being “Licensed to operate: All Cobra land and air vehicles, including Hammerhead and Hurricane.”. The Spy Troops release modifies this text to “Licensed to operate: All COBRA land and air vehicles, including Cobra Cat-2”. Reducing a CGI to being a generic vehicle driver doesn’t really strike a chord with me, but at least there’s precedent for it!

This figure goes the route of the Python Guard, with the crimson he’s named for represented by a few details rather than his main color. So this Crimson Guard Immortal is mostly a dark gray with some red on his mask. I think it’s a little weird that a Crimson Guard Immortal who drives a big red Crimson Attack Tank is for some reason mostly grey, especially when black with a little more red would’ve been a nice reference to the original CAT’s colors, but it looks nice enough, so whatever. The tone of the grey coupled with his red mask makes me think of Interrogator, but I’m not sure I’d have them be related in any way (in my own fiction, of course).

This figure comes with no accessories, which makes him seem a little more bland than he already is. Of course, the original Crimson Guard Immortal’s accessories aren’t a set I find essential to the figure, despite that he has a leg peg that’s specifically designed for those parts. The wacky guns-akimbo set up was barely okay for Rock&Roll V2, but doesn’t really seem so natural for a lawyer/tank driver.

So the steadiest price I can currently discern for the 2003 Crimson Guard Immortal is around $40. This figure used to never go for half of that, but the Coof-Collectors pushed prices up above where they currently are, so $40 seems fair now. Personally, I’d much rather stock up on two or three of the ‘91 CGI, or frankly any other version of the Crimson Guard than this one. This figure isn’t bad, but he also is rather lacking in any substance to make him worth that much. Another thing, you might notice he’s made from the cursed 2000‘s plastic that spontaneously yellows for no reason, so keep that in mind too.

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2005 Major Barrage

2005 Major Barrage

The “New Sculpt” era of Joes is not remembered by a whole lot of people. I attribute that mostly to botched marketing, which also led to them not really reaching kids all that much. It’s sad that I preface most posts on these figures like this, but the 2000‘s were a lamentable time, especially for GI Joe. Now for a shock statement: Major Barrage is the best sculpt from this era, and if 1/18 scale Joe ever comes back, they should be based on this figure’s design.

As you may or may not know, Major Barrage is not constructed like a normal figure from the time. While most New Sculpt figures roughly copy the design of the post-‘85 ARAH figures, Major Barrage experiments with construction changes more similar to the 25th Anniversary figures that would debut two years later. Notably, he has a ball-jointed head that connects at the top of the neck rather than inside the torso, swivel wrists, and his elbow-joints are on swivel-disks, the same as the 25th figures.

The thing about this is that he really hits the best of both worlds with this design, being a small figure that’s fun (and easy) to play with, while also featuring some modernizations that make him a little more pleasing aesthetically. 25th (“Modern Era”) figures looked nice once they hit their stride around Rise of Cobra, but always suffered from being gangly and fiddly, not really fun to play with. Likewise, the New Sculpt figures were more play friendly thanks to them just parroting ARAH construction, but they also adapted that construction is often weird ways. Once the 1/12 fad flies over, I hope Joe goes to being something like this, maybe just with the waist-joint used on the Marauder’s Gun Runners figures.

So the figure is really nice and well made in my opinion, easily the best from his era, but Major Barrage himself doesn’t really click with me that much. Overall, his character design is really, really boring, just being some ratty lookin’ dude in camo pants and a tanktop. He has the same energy as some low-tier vehicle driver like Wild-Card, only with the added blandness of being a tough guy nerd’s self-insert character (for clarity, I don’t know that he is, but he looks like one). He has a file card that describes how how he’s the baddest dude since Big Brawler, but honestly, I can’t really care about his character just for the fact that GI Joe hasn’t had a good piece of media since Double Trouble in 1991.

For accessories you get a vest and two, pump-action shotguns. Yeah that’s right, Major Barrage is so badass he rocks two PUMP-ACTION shotguns akimbo, doing some John Woo movie stuff! I guess this dude’s so cool he racks the slide with his teeth. A shotgun could make sense if he’s in a vehicle, since he’s supposed to be an Artillery Commander. Jokes aside, the figure makes good use of the shotguns thanks to his swivel-wrists. I just find guns akimbo to be very dated and corny now, but we like corn here, so that’s alright.

Major Barrage doesn’t show up for auction so much, but BiN’s on eBay have sold between $20 for a complete figure and $30 for a carded figure. Likely, he probably just goes for that much since the figure isn’t the easiest to find anymore, and because the DTC packaging looks pretty good for carded collectors. I don’t think this figure should cost that much, but it’s worth noting that he is probably the best figure from his era, so maybe it’s not too crazy.

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1987 Cobra Maggot

1987 Cobra Maggot

gi joe cobra maggot arah 1987 hasbro worms vintage v1

Although it gets somewhat away from any sort of real-world vehicle, a popular gimmick of the late 80‘s was vehicles that split into smaller items and battle stations. Within the sci-fantasy world of GI Joe, it works incredibly well and made for some classic vehicles, which includes the Mean Dog, the BUGG and the Maggot, among others. All of those toys represent vehicles that could never really exist, but are still very good just for the high amounts of play value they provide to a collection.

I really like artillery items. To me, these have been my favorite GI Joe vehicles since I was a kid, as it acts as a simple objective for either side to be fighting around. I don’t know if this was inspired by video games I used to play, or if I just have a better memory of a few game stages that lined up well with my imaginations, but either way, a vehicle like the Maggot was really all I would need for a play session. Of course I didn’t own a Maggot until I was 16, but that doesn’t matter.

gi joe cobra maggot arah 1987 hasbro worms vintage v1

The Maggot splits into three smaller items, which grants you an immobile turret, a front-cab, and a command station. Without the turret, the other two components don’t do a whole lot in a action-oriented sense, but it still provides some fun opportunities. Flipping out the legs and setting up the turret is fun, but the main point is that it reveals the computer station underneath. This is a well detailed and fun little compartment to stick a figure, and it adds a lot of play value to the Maggot as a whole.

With the turret on it’s own, one issue that arises it that it no longer has the ability to aim left or right. For that reason, I much prefer the look and function of the Maggot with all of it’s components together rather than them being separated. While I’m focused on the turret/main gun, something I find frustrating is that mine no longer holds up very well. The gun barrel is given tension by a clip in it’s socket, that I assume has warped just enough over time to no longer hold the gun up on it’s own. Frustrating, but it’s 36 years old, so what can you say.

The front cab is fun too. The idea of it just rolling off on it’s own seems a little funny to me, but I guess it could be used just for towing extra turrets, so one cab could move two guns from location to location. This part of the vehicle has two guns, and the removable engine cover (Under the cover, you can also see the main gun’s loading system, which is neat.). I wish the driver could be hidden a little better inside the vehicle, but it’s alright as is.

I think a strong appeal of the Maggot is the way it looks kind of similar to a WWII German self-propelled gun. The shape of the turret especially reminds me of parts of the Hummel and a little of the Nashorn, mainly for the open-topped design they went with. It does a lot to make the vehicle seem more realistic and grounded, which I think strengthens it’s appeal as something that’s both fun and reasonable looking (rather than something like the Mamba, which is fun, but definitely not reasonable looking).

You can get a complete Maggot for around $30 on a good day, and prices right now aren’t much worse than what I remember from over a decade ago. There’s a radar dish that goes on the front cab’s rear gun, which is usually missing, though it’s not something that seems to carry a ton of value either. There’s enough demand for it that reproductions exist, which of course is another option if you feel like going that route. Regardless, the Maggot is a fun toy that doesn’t cost a lot of money, which probably means it’s still underappreciated.

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2002 Alley Viper (Version 5)

2002 Alley Viper (Version 5)

At one point in time, this Alley Viper was one of my absolute favorite Cobras. If I ever had to trim my collection down to a hand full of figures (never gonna happen), this would be a Cobra I’d never want to get rid of. And then they fell victim to the yellowing so many 2000‘s Joes have become prone to, effectively robbing me of one of my favorite figures. To this day, I’ve still not really figured out what to do with them.

I wasn’t collecting in 2002, so I don’t have any thoughts or memories about this figure in regards to when he was released. I got mine sometime around ‘11 if I recall; I was stuck at home and was playing around with a hookey survey site to earn more toy money. They gave you more money in the form of Amazon gift cards, which wasn’t bad since a lot of 2000‘s items like this still saturated Amazon back then, often for reasonable prices. My circumstances were odd, and it was a really bad time, so now I find myself very sentimental to these as one of the few things I got genuinely excited for from back then.

The colors are really fantastic on this release. For some, they definitely might be too bland, but for me, this was a nice scheme that combines a shade of blue (not Cobra blue, but it still works) with urban camouflage. The camo is created from grey and white marbled plastic with the black spots painted on, so it’s not only complex, but also slightly unique from figure to figure. At a time, I really couldn’t stand the fluorescent colors of the ‘93 Alley Viper, so having a version of the sculpt rendered in nice, muted colors was all I really wanted. The grey matched up decently with the Cobra Night Watch troopers too, so that was something.

Now however, all of those grays and whites have turned unfortunate shades of yellow. I do nothing with these figures now as I’ve been unable to decide whether I should repaint them to match their original look, or just live with them as they are until they crumble. Having figures I do not use seems like a real waste, but painting them would make them feel like customs. Interestingly, the red repaint of this guy shows no signs of discoloring, which makes that one not only a better alternative, but also sheds some light on how inconsistently these figures are degrading.

Also, I suppose it’s worth noting that this figure features all of the mold changes made from the ‘97 release. So now he features the obnoxious neck-tab for making him a fake swivel-neck. Likewise, the legs were swapped out for V1 Duke’s, since the original sculpt was lost. There’s about a decade between when Duke’s legs were sculpted and when the upper body of this Alley Viper was sculpted, so to say they don’t quite match up might be an understatement. I don’t think it looks bad though, as Duke’s skinnier legs don’t throw off the proportions too badly.

Besides the mask, the only original Alley Viper V2 accessory to show back up with this guy is his shield. On one hand, that’s all he really needs, but the Tomax/Xamot gun really doesn’t work here at all. The Big Bear backpack looks pretty decent, it’s generic compared to the classic Alley Viper backpack, but it’s still a decent piece of gear that does it’s job. There’s also a little figure stand in there too, which never hurts.

Seemingly regardless of the yellowing, this Alley Viper will still fetch a solid $10 to $15 when otherwise mint and complete. Gotta admit, the yellowing really kills this figure for me, and I find paying that much for a grungy, niche repaint a little perplexing. I guess some people just don’t really care so much about discoloration any more, which is reasonable, given that it’s almost inevitable for figures like this one.

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1993 Outback (Version 4)

1993 Outback

V1 Outback is one of my favorite GI Joe figures. He looks cool, he has great accessories, a great character, and in general, fits the part of the kind of moive-like action hero who can sometimes fight big battles all on his own, if your imagination works that way. All of that together makes for a character we should see more often than we do, but his fourth (kinda third) toy from Battle Corps left a lot to be desired.

So originally Outback V3 would’ve been apart of the Eco Warriors, but that sub line was canceled similar to DEF, and it’s releases were moved over to the Battle Corps lineup of ‘93. The colors on this release are extremely bright, which is fairly similar to the tones you typically saw from Eco Warriors. The figure was then promptly repainted into some new colors more similar to the Battle Corps toys, and that’s where you wind up with version 4.

This Outback has a curious look to him, to say the least. For some reason he’s wearing a hardhat now, which makes him look more like a random lumberjack or construction worker. His shirt and pants are also much more on the plain end, and he doesn’t seem to be wearing anything that would protect him from the dangerous chemicals the Eco Warriors would typically encounter. To make him even better, he’s primarily green and khaki, with bright blue and orange details all over, in addition to some little bits of gold and black. I really can’t think of a figure that had more random colors than this one.

Gotta be honest, I find almost nothing redeeming or fun about this figure. A lot of the ‘93 redesigns were on the controversial end, like with Dr. Mindbender or Law, but those toys at least have some interesting visual elements going on with them. This Outback however, just looks really boring. The design is bland and doesn’t really seem to serve a clear purpose. Even the infamous Fishn’ Trip Bazooka from that year looks a lot more appealing than this figure does. In decent colors this mold might be salvageable, but there’s not much potential that was wasted here.

For accessories you get a tree of bright red parts, featuring Hit&Run’s carbine, Big Ben’s LMG, Ambush’s EM2 rifle, two missiles and a figure stand (as well as a blue missile launcher). It’s weird how almost every other Joe included some kind of knife or machete, but the survivalist just comes with random guns. At the very least, they are good guns, so if you’re another individual who’s developed a fondness for bright parts, you could probably find some uses for them. They don’t really make this Outback a good toy though.

Almost every Battle Corps Outback you will find is MOSC. Carded, he’s worth about $14, and loose he’s worth about $9. It’s really funny how heavily certain ‘93 and ‘94 Joes were hoarded by speculators who expected to get rich off of these; the fact that almost every example of this Outback that you find is carded makes me wonder how many kids ever even played with this guy.

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2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

Filler week! I have some good memories of Valor vs. Venom, but not so many that it’s really worth talking about the VvV Viper sculpt again after I already wrote about the red one, and this guy’s pack-mate, the Tele-Viper (Python Patrol) on another occasion. Yet, here I am, because I ran out of time this week, and I have a couple of old photos of this guy anyways.

I completely ignored GI Joe in 2004. Spy Troops garnered my interest for a bit thanks to it’s fun designs and cool gimmicks, but this was lost with Valor vs. Venom. I had a lot of toys I wanted that year, between getting every last Gundam product I could find at retail and trying to save some out from Transformers Energon, GI Joe didn’t have much of a chance, especially for toys I considered a somewhat pitiful showing. The Valor vs. Venom story line of DNA altered Cobras, plus many of the goofy characters like Coil Crusher and Venomous Maximus, drove me away primarily, but the drab and often boring Joes did nothing to help.

Years later though, I was thirsty for anything GI Joe I could get, and most of the ‘03 through ‘06 figures started to look more appealing, especially once people started dumping off their collections for change. Many of the aforementioned elements of VvV still didn’t appeal to me, but browsing YoJoe! for some hours revealed a number of toys I felt would be more at home in my collection. It also helped that the then current 25th Anniversary Viper was a pretty lackluster figure, so this older sculpt gained a stronger appeal for having normal wrists, and the ability to sit properly.

This Viper is a fun toy, and a good representation of the sculpt. For a guy wearing a helmet, his head is a little small, but the proportions are much more solid overall than what you typically see on releases from this era. He can’t get super-authentic tacti-cool real-military poses, but the feel of the figure is pretty similar to a classic o-ring from ARAH. Right now, I’d love it if they could just go back to selling figures like this at retail, as while GI Joe has put out some great collectibles since ‘08 or so, the New-Sculpt construction was the last time GI Joe was a good toy.

Like many New-Sculpt figures, this guy seems to suffer badly from the cracking-chest phenomena. All of mine have a small crack at the neck now, which I know is common to figures from this era. So far though, a lot of my Comic-Pack guys are still perfectly fine, and many of my other new-sculpts are fine too, so if I had to guess I’d say these are a little worse than average. Between figures commonly yellowing and the neck-cracks showing up, it’s really not fun to collect these any more, which is sad.

For accessories, you get possibly the three most generic parts that were in-use between 2003 to ‘06, that being an AK-47 (with bayonet), a G36 rifle, and a knife. What’s funny about these parts is that they were used so much, I can barely guess which figure first included them, but honestly, with so many uses, they were probably never intended as someone’s special gun to begin with. Why does a Viper include two rifles? An SMG or an explosive-launcher of some type would have been nicer than two guns that fill the same role.

No one does auctions anymore, so finding a few of these guys at a price they’re worth isn’t too easy. Still, even the dealers that only list BiN’s rarely bother asking for more than $8 for one of these guys. You’ll find them in lots and with the Python Tele-Viper often enough for around $20, too. There’s a lot I miss about figures like this one, but sadly it’s really not something worth paying that much money for. Mainly, that’s because there’s a good chance this figure will continue to age poorly and degrade, which they’ve proven to be doing at a much faster rate than the 80‘s figures that are twice their age.

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1986 Beach Head

1986 Beachhead

Masked commandos always make for some of the coolest characters. Of course, I’ve seen some people that very much think otherwise, but there’s no doubt that the cool look plays a role in Beachhead’s popularity. And Firefly’s. And Shockwave’s too. Before I knew too much about the character, I was mainly attracted to him just for the fact that he’s a reasonable looking commando with a balaclava.

Beachhead has a really fine sculpt and design. He’s detailed, his gear has an interesting look, and he even has extra clips on his chest that match his SMG. The only real wart is his head: it’s massive, which is unfortunately consistent with most of the ‘86 line. The massive noggins from that year stick out so much to me that I do suspect it was intentional, but I wonder what the thinking was. I feel like these sculpts tend to age more poorly than other vintage sculpts, just because the proportions are so odd by comparison.

He’s got some nice colors and paint work on him too. This dark cyan tone wasn’t seen so much in the vintage line, which does make Beachhead stand out a lot. There’s a nice little patch tampographed onto his left-shoulder, some gray paint for his clips, even a little splash of red for the beret (?) sculpted onto his shoulder. I never really knew what the red thing on his shoulder is, but I kind of think it’s a hat. Oddly, it’s not present on his card-art, so I guess it was a late addition to the design.

V1 Beachhead also has another problem I really hate: his crotch. This figure has one of the thinnest, daintiest waist pieces in the entire line, and you will find plenty of broken ones because of that. This is the main reason that I default to the Funskool figure anytime I need a Beachhead for something, as the softer plastic is much more resistant to breakage. Although the 2000‘s brought plenty of Beachhead repaints, it’s a shame we didn’t get this sculpt in comic colors or something close to the olive used on the 25th figure, as personally I still want a normal looking Beachhead that doesn’t scare me as much as the V1 figure.

The included accessories for Beachhead are his SMG in dark-gray plastic, a backpack in black, and a flexible black satchel. If he had just been another guy with a gun and a backpack like Leatherneck, it’d have been a bit boring, but the little ammo-pouch does a lot to make Beachhead seem like he comes with more. His SMG is a classic part, it’s a Demro XF-7 Wasp. He looks great holding it and it’s really easy for virtually any figure to use it, too. It is a very odd choice of weapon for a Joe, as the Wasp wasn’t ever adopted by any military or law-enforcement, but it looks really cool, and that’s probably why the designers chose it too.

I’d say a mint, complete Beachhead is worth about $25, but sometime $35, especially for one with the filecard. He’s a popular figure that’s prone to damage in a few ways, so often times you’ll see examples sell for way more than that, but he’s not really worth more then $35 at any point. With that said, finding a mint Beachhead really is more of a pain in the ass than it usually is for a common figure; you can scroll through a bunch of listings and find most will have some kind of egregious flaw. I think he’s worth it, but if you don’t care too much, the Funskool and Night-Force versions make good replacements.

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1989 Tiger Sting

1989 Tiger Sting

GI Joe Tiger Force Tiger Sting Duke Flint VAMP 1989 Python Patrol Hasbro

Tiger Force vehicles! The Tiger Force vehicle colors are cool and iconic, I love them. I think at one point this used to be a cool alternative opinion that made you different from the crowd, but now everyone loves everything that’s been lathered in bright colors and reminds them of the good times prior to the turn of the century… Which means I can’t be cool just for liking toy jeeps and aircraft in tiger colors anymore.

The Tiger Sting is a repaint of the VAMP Mark II, just in the colorful Tiger Force team colors. I find it interesting that it’s a repaint of the VAMP and not the Cobra Stinger, seeing as how Tiger Force and Python Patrol did a lot of faction swapping; the “Sting” in the name would also make more sense as a Stinger repaint. Maybe there was a miscommunication at the factory? Either way, it’s the requisite repaint of what is probably GI Joe’s most iconic and popular vehicle, so it does the job regardless of what the thinking was behind it.

Speaking of the parts it uses, the domestic release on the Tiger Sting uses a mixture of ‘82 VAMP and VAMP Mark II parts, namely, it uses the upper hull of the original VAMP that doesn’t feature a lot of sculpted details. Later in the UK and a few other European countries, it was released using the upper hull of the VAMP Mark II, with the little shovel and tarp on the hood. I assume the smooth body was used to help the tiger-face decals adhere, so the different parts might negatively impact that.

For me this one’s another childhood item that came from my brother’s collection, not something that I ever picked out for myself. Part of the reason I think GI Joe vehicles really went down in quality towards the end of the line, comes from the fact that most of the vehicles I liked as a kid were repaints of older 80‘s items like the Tiger Sting. The childhood armory featured mostly vehicles released between ‘90 and ‘94. For the most part, my focus was put on the Tiger Sting, the Lynx and the Sky Sharc, whereas I don’t remember ever having much fascination with the Badger, just as one example. A lot of the older vehicles seemed more compact and easy to play with, compared to monstrosities like the Attack Cruiser.

I don’t find the Tiger Force vehicle colors to be all that unrealistic, at least not by GI Joe’s standards of fluorescent grenades, android soldiers and whatever the HISS Driver is supposed to be. During the Korean War, there was a kinda famous M46 Patton painted up with a big goofy tiger face in the front, and at least half of the tank was bright yellow. I remember seeing the thing a long time ago, but now I can’t find anything decent documenting it, at least at a glance. Realism aside, I like the colors because they look nice. The Tiger Force color-scheme is distinct and stands out immediately. With the Tiger Sting here, I really love the way that it’s colors contrast so much against green tones you see around your yard or parks in the Summer, it’s really nice in photos.

Complete Tiger Stings can run around $80, but any small defect can bring that price down to around $50 to $40. Finding one with all of the missiles, the steering wheel, gas cans and no damage to the doors can be some work. I take the liberty of assuming they didn’t make as many of these as they did VAMPs and VAMP Mark II’s, so that probably also affects the pricing. Personally, I think this one’s worth the premium, as it does feel like one of the only Tiger Force vehicles you really need.

GI Joe Tiger Force Tiger Sting Duke Flint VAMP 1989 Python Patrol HasbroGI Joe Tiger Force Tiger Sting Duke Flint VAMP 1989 Python Patrol HasbroGI Joe Tiger Force Tiger Sting Duke Flint VAMP 1989 Python Patrol HasbroGI Joe Tiger Force Tiger Sting Duke Flint VAMP 1989 Python Patrol Hasbro

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1997 Destro

1997 Destro

At one point in life, I had two Destro toys I found superior to most others: ‘92 Destro and ‘97 Destro. With these, I didn’t feel like I needed any other o-ring Destros, until I changed my mind and decided ‘83 was the best. For the most part, I still like the ‘83 figure more, but the V3 sculpt has it’s charms, and the ‘97 repaint is a great representation of it.

I often forget that this figure is the retail-release version of the infamous Pimp Daddy Destro. It’s funny really, that that figure gets so much press, either just for it’s sheer absurdity or for the fact that it’s rare, while this one remains an obscurity like virtually every other repaint from the ‘97 – ‘98 line. That’s a gimmicky part of collecting I’ve never seen the appeal of, but then again, I’m glad that not everyone likes everything as much as I do, or GI Joes would be more expensive than they already are.

Destro V3, which this figure is a repaint of, features a very bulky sculpt. At a glance it looks quite a lot like Destro’s original design, but it’s fairly different in a few ways. He’s picked up some shoulder-pads, some bulky shin-guards, some leggings more reminiscent of the Iron Grenadiers figure. Still, most of the important details like his little medallion remain the same (well, it’s a different necklace now, but it’s there), which is interesting given that not so many ARAH redesigns kept much from figure to figure.

I quit liking ‘92 Destro quite as much once I realized how poorly his proportions match up with anything. His tiny head in particular tends to bother me, though the massive muscle-guy-90‘s shoulders limit him a bit too. At one point this bothered me an awful lot, but I realize that most of these issues just seem more apparent because of the transition in sculpting styles. Next to ‘84 Cobra Commander, he looks silly and rather out of place; next to ‘94 Major Bludd, he looks pretty decent. It’s a very exaggerated looking figure, but he has a home among his contemporaries.

Of course, this post is about the ‘97 repaint. He came in the “Cobra Command Team” set with Baroness and a blue battle-armor Cobra Commander. As the story goes, originally him and Cobra Commander were going to be the V1 molds, but like with so many others from this point, the molds were gone. From what I can see of the prototype, the V1 Destro repaint they were planning was a lot more boring than this one, so I guess I’m glad it never happened in that way.

This is a nice set of colors for Destro and the V3 mold with it’s added details does really well with it. The heavy use of burgundy with black, red and silver for details is eye-catching, and also a fairly inventive new color-scheme that manages to look appropriate for the character while also seeming totally new. For an added bonus, they chromed his head, which I think makes him look a lot more interesting overall than if it were just silver paint.

Like ‘92 Destro, he comes with a big, bulky pistol, a disk-launcher (with three disks) and a stand. Some of those disk-launchers are black, some are pink. As a kid I really liked his pistol, just for the way it looked. As far as looks go, it is fairly decent, but it’s hard to ignore how badly scaled it is when considering the fact that it’s a handgun. Of course, I can’t place what kind of gun it is exactly, and while I think it’s probably an original design, some of those 90‘s Joe guns were based on some very obscure firearms, so maybe it’s better than I think. The disk launcher is alright for a missile launcher, it’s fairly fun since it’s a stationary item. Oddly there’s no spring in this one, I think that’s universal on this release, but I’ve never been sure since no one says much about it.

Most of the ‘97 Destro’s I see loose are missing the launcher, which I’d guess is because most of the adults that bought these probably tossed that aside while contemplating the real and present danger of the Y2K bug. Without it, you can get a nice example for around $7, which is nice. Carded Cobra Command Team sets seem like they’re coming down in price, so with a little waiting you might get one of those for around $35.

gi joe 1997 pimp daddy destro viper tru toys r us
gi joe 1997 pimp daddy destro viper tru toys r us

1997 Destro Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

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