GI Joe in 2018: A Look Back at the Best Content

Posted on December 31, 2018 by mwnekoman

The GI Joe brand may not be in the best of places with no retail releases in years and virtually no media support (besides some poopy comics), but the GI Joe fandom is keeping the brand fun, interesting and alive despite that. This week I’m featuring some content from around the community that I thought was really interesting from the past year.

As always, Forgotten Figure’s had Rarities month and displayed some very interesting items. I took a lot of interest in the Calcium Sandoz figures from Funskool, particularly the Hydro Viper which I had never seen prior to this.

Rarities – Funskool Calcium Sandoz Figures

The Canadian Consumer Distributing exclusive Cobra Combat Tank was another rather interesting piece highlighted. These early Joe exclusives really interest me, especially for how different much of the early line’s minimalist aesthetics were.

Rarities – Canadian Consumer Distributing Cobra Combat Tank

The Dragon Fortress had a great post highlighting every Cobra from 1991. Individually, a lot of these figures come across as hidden gems, but all together you start to get a picture of how good a year 1991 was.

1991: The Year Cobra Broke (a Tribute) – Cobra Convergence 3

Attica Gazette did a fantastic post demonstrating how he gets ideas for composing his photos. I personally feel like my own diorama compositions could use some work, so I found this post really helpful.

Diorama Trials & Tribulations

He also did a fun group event with Forgotten Figures and the Dragon Fortress showing off Tiger Force Tripwire. It was really neat seeing the three unique perspectives on the figure, so don’t forget to check out Forgotten Figure’s post here and Dragon Fortress’s post here as well.

Tiger Force Tripwire

Cobra Island’s been doing some great work reviewing and profiling almost all of the new factory customs as they get produced. I found this index pretty helpful, also be sure to check out his two most recent spotlight’s of the Snow Serpent Night Viper and Night Viper OG ReDeux.

Black Major Toys, Red Lasers Army & Letal Customs Review Gallery Index

There’s been some really fantastic dioramas posted as well, especially at ARAH Gallery. Here are a few of my favorites:

Lastly, you might be wondering what the most popular post here on the Viper Pit was for all of the past year. I was wondering that too, and not to much of my own surprise, it was my post on the TBM custom Python Troopers. Factory Customs are pretty much the only thing keeping GI Joe collecting alive these days, and that’s definitely where the interest is on my blog.

Black Major Custom Python Troopers

Gi Joe action figures Cobra vintage V1 Python Patrol

That’s all for now folks, see you next year here on the Viper Pit.

2004 TRU Night Force Tunnel Rat

Posted on December 10, 2018 by mwnekoman

2004 TRU Night Force Tunnel Rat

I’ve never been a fan of the 2004 Night Force set. It’s really not bad in retrospect, but the figures are a poor match for the superior vintage Night Force colors. The 2003 Python Patrol set was a far better update to the vintage Python colors compared to this, but there are a few interesting figures in this set. Today I’ll have a look at Tunnel Rat, who I feel is neither the best or worst figure included.

This set passed me by at retail without my knowledge (or caring), and when I got into collecting older item’s a few years later, this set was still at the bottom of my priorities. In fact, I’ve only acquired two thirds of the set to date, mainly through lots and the like. My disinterest in the figures spurns from a simple reason: they’re bland. The colors and details are pretty good across the set, but at a glance all I see is black.

Such is the case with Tunnel Rat. The vintage Night Force Tunnel Rat had a strong palette of colors without being boring to look at. The 2004 figure on the other hand, has an excessively dark color scheme. There’s a lot of colors and details in this deco, and really it’s a well decorated figure. It’s just that the colors are so dark you can hardly appreciate that, which is a massive shame.

Speaking of details, one thing that drives me nuts about 2000‘s Joes moreso than pinheads, terrible parts and poor mold choices is the usage of the full GI Joe logo. For some reason this became of visual trope of figures from this era, and Tunnel Rat features it on his leg like all the other figures in the set. It’s especially jarring on this figure where dark, realistic colors are part of the appeal, and then you just have a massive toy brand logo running down his leg. I really hate that.

For accessories, he included Red Star’s AK47, and V1 Firefly’s backpack and walkie-talkie. It’s a pretty weird situation when a figure comes with good parts, but still doesn’t really have a good loadout. I pretty much always enjoy getting a spare Firefly walkie, but the backpack without his tool tray is pretty off-putting. All in all, these parts are good things to have in a parts bin, but for Tunnel Rat, they don’t suit the character.

So, overall this Tunnel Rat is an okay figure. There’s a few worse versions of Tunnel Rat, such as the Sonic Fighters repaint, but that doesn’t make this figure’s problems any better. Nowadays completionists will pay a lot for the sparse appearance of this figure “complete”, but as the parts are totally generic, I don’t recommend bothering with them. Partsless, you can get this guy for about $6 or $7, and depending upon how you view the colors, that isn’t a terrible price. Most of these 2000‘s TRU exclusives have become a lot harder find and a lot more expensive, but the Night Force set hasn’t appreciated in value quite as much.

Tunnel Rat gi joe Short Fuze Downtown 1989 2004 2003 Toys R Us Night Force Hasbro ARAH

2004 TRU Night Force Tunnel Rat Links:

1993 Alley Viper

Posted on December 3, 2018 by mwnekoman

1993 Alley Viper

Before the superb Black Major custom Alley Vipers and the plethora of well colored Alley Viper repaints in the 2000‘s, you had one alternative for an Alley Viper who wasn’t orange. That alternative, was the Battle Corps Alley Viper.

Compared to other Battle Corps reimaginings, this Alley Viper has gone through a few spats of collector popularity. It seems strange since you’d imagine the neon yellow would be a buzzkill for most normie collectors, but with the original Alley Viper donning orange and baby blue, it does make sense. In particular, I remember when collectors were going mad to get every figure updated in the modern/25th anniversary style, a lot of folks actually wanted this design over the 1989 version.

And for a figure that does lazily reuse the lower half of the V1 Alley Viper, it’s a pretty solid redesign. Personally I tend to prefer the 2000‘s repaints not only for their colors, but also for the swap to V1 Duke legs, as I feel that balances their proportions a little more and makes the sculpt more unique, but there’s nothing wrong with the legs used here. A lot of the V1 Alley Viper’s design and gear are retained on this version, such as how they both feature a knife and grenade on their vests. In some ways it makes the two figures almost cohesive, which could lend itself to using them as a single unit (especially the V1 and the 1994 repaint of this figure.)

When I was a kid I had access to this figure, the 1994 repaint and the V1 version. Of them, the ‘94 repaint was my favorite, with this guy in a close second. I reasoned that the armored look made him a strong adversary of the Ninja Force. So typically the shield and face mask were for countering ninjas.

One of the popular features of this sculpt is the shield and face mask. The face mask has a feline, beast like aesthetic which is very cool. Personally I prefer the look of the V1 mask, but this one has a lot more personality. Meanwhile his shield is a large Cobra symbol, which depending upon how you look at it is either very cool or somewhat overbearing. The original shield was far more practical and interesting looking to me, but in truth I’ve always had a hard time getting that figure to hold it well. Meanwhile the V2 Alley Viper here has a shield that just clips on his wrist, and as a toy this just functions better.

Other than the mask and shield, he included V1 Dial-Tone’s SMG, a modified version of the V1 Alley Viper’s gun and backpack, and a yellow missile launcher. This is a pretty good assortment of parts, and best yet they’re all in black. For some reason though, they changed the foregrip on the Alley Viper gun to be a solid block that the figure can’t hold. Why? Sure, most of the time I want to pose the figure with his shield and can’t use the grip anyway, but it just doesn’t serve any purpose to change it. For that, I tend to prefer posing him with the Dial-Tone SMG.

Complete V2 Alley Vipers run around $20 now. Carded ones show up more than you might expect and actually run about the same price, which I suppose we can thank vintage scalpers for. I like this figure a lot, but for that much money there’s better and way cheaper alternatives, where this figure strikes me as having more of a novelty appeal.