TBM Steel Brigade (1992 Mail Away Remake)

Posted on February 26, 2019 by mwnekoman

TBM Steel Brigade (1992 Mail Away Remake)

As a kid, mail away toys were a constant item of my desires as they were for my brother as well. Unfortunately, I had the kind of no-fun parents who thought that any toy you paid postage for was a scam. So when I started collecting as an adult, you can imagine my embitterment upon discovering the aftermarket prices on V2 Steel Brigades… Little to say, this Black Major Reproduction became an immediate item of my interest.

So around late 2017, The Black Major produced a run of custom Steel Brigades in assorted color varieties. Of them, he made a reproduction run of V1 and V2 Steel Brigades, with some obvious and tasteful differences so that anyone can tell them apart form one of Hasbro’s. The V2 Steel Brigade remake was of great interest to me, even though I’m not the type to shy away from paying for a decent collectible.

The thing is, the 1992 Steel Brigade is a figure that simply out prices what it’s current value should be today. You see them plenty in comparison to other rarities, but that doesn’t stop these from fetching anywhere from $300 to $500. That’s simply too much for a domestic release. But, the colors are interesting and it does well to compliment my 90‘s collection, which is why this custom serves my needs perfectly.

The figure is quite similar to the Hasbro version with a few obvious differences. First, all of the colors are much brighter. This may be off putting to some, but I think they match very well with some of the other brightly colored items from Battle Corps and such. Second, the arm patch is now silver instead of white. Third, the belt is now solid gold, and does not have the black details of the Hasbro version.

The Black Major Steel Brigades were overall some pretty good figures quality wise, but the run had one general problem in the way that they had a lot of difficulty holding their guns. Their grips were too tight while their guns had handles too thick: certainly a recipe for broken thumbs on such otherwise fantastic figures. I’ve circumvented this by trimming a portion of the handles down on the M16’s for some of mine as you can see below.

The black major factory custom 1992 Steel Brigade gi joe hasbro mail away exclusive

This figure does a great thing in providing me all I need from the V2 Steel Brigade. It’s a niche and odd repaint, but I like it and it nicely compliments my 90‘s collection. This design is by no means worth the $300+ that a Hasbro figure can commend, but a similar looking remake for $15 to $20 is perfect.

TBM Steel Brigade and Steel Brigade V2 Links:

Forgotten Figures

Cobra Island

Yo Joe

2002 Dusty

Posted on February 18, 2019 by mwnekoman

2002 Dusty

I’ve gotten into a problem lately where sometimes, I just want a new GI Joe. And I go to eBay to find some oddity to settle my desire. Sometimes I’ll find a cool figure I’ve continually overlooked for no good reason, and other times I find weird figures no one talks about that even I forgot existed. The later is the case with 2002 Dusty.

So this Dusty is the driver for the Night Rhino, and he’s made using parts from 1986 Dialtone and 1991 Dusty, primarily in grey. For a vehicle driver, the figure looks a little unique and the parts combo isn’t very bad. Of course, I really don’t have anything that helps me identify him as Dusty. As well, the figure is just… extraordinarily bland. He doesn’t even look like a real character, I think he passes better as some kind of troop builder.

To describe him in a single word, he’s banal. While the recipe is unique to my knowledge, Dial Tone and ’91 Dusty repaints were abound through the early 2000‘s. As well, the figure is almost entirely monochrome. There’s no color, no pigment whatsoever present here besides a single US flag on his arm. To the figure’s credit, this look does appear fairly realistic, and if that’s your shtick this could be a cool candidate for army building as mentioned before. But that’s a pretty niche appeal.

A lot of this figure’s deco and overall quality strikes me as egregious. First, his head can’t move at all, worse than a lot of the 1997 releases with the tabs on their necks. Second, the details on his face are… soft. His eyes look too large and the black paint masks aren’t very good. I also just can’t dig the paint-wipes/black wash on this figure, but that falls more into a general complaint of this time period, which he also happens to be affected by. Lastly, he has gloves that are painted flesh-tone. Such an irritating move, but made even worse when this is one of the few paint apps present in the figure’s deco.

His filecard is a hodgepodge of the 1985 and ‘91 cards, but there’s a few weird additions here I felt like commenting on. First, his name has been changed to Jeffery Paquette. Who on earth is Jeffery Paquette? If I had to hazard a guess it’s probably some Steel Brigade Collector’s Club goon who helped with the file card, or some similar amount of Hasbro deep-state Illuminati BS that they were so prone to back then. Whoever he is, I’d also like to inquire about this line from his motto “If the enemy thinks they can hide in the desert, are they wrong!”. Doesn’t that last bit sound awkward? Not “Boy are they wrong!” or something? It just sounds really weird and random for a new line of text. This isn’t recycled from any other filecard I know of… Why was it added?

I ragged on him a lot, but really this figure isn’t that bad. He’s almost comically generic, and has quality issues for sure, but he was a vehicle pack-in from a time after the eighties, so what can I say. You could virtually use him as any sort of generic GI Joe trooper, and the albeit bland colors work in most settings. As a figure that often is worth less than $5, maybe you’ll find a use for him if you come across him while searching to make a hedonic GI Joe purchase.

2002 Dusty Links:

Yo Joe

Python Patrol Night Viper (Black Major Customs)

Posted on February 11, 2019 by mwnekoman

Python Patrol Night Viper

The 1989 Night Viper is a fantastic figure, probably one of the best in all of ARAH. Last year The Black Major got around to doing several runs out of the mold with the Alley Viper customs as well, so today I’ll have a look at the Python Patrol take on the mold.

Featuring the Night Viper in the Python Patrol seems oddly natural despite them both coming out in the same year. Almost like a what-if scenario that a second year of Python Patrol toys came out in 1990 and they featured some of the ‘89 Cobras in that subset. For that reason, this seems like a natural and very reasonable repaint.

Across the board, the quality of the Night Viper customs is quite good. They’re easily able to hold their guns, and the joints on mine have all been nice and tight. The paint masks are also very crisp and good looking.

The palette here seems largely based on the one used for Python Copperhead and the Python Troopers. Given, there’s a large focus here on the green and yellow pattern with a handful of details in black and red, in contrast to the others I mentioned featuring more black. I think this was a wise choice, as these are the most eye-catching colors of the sub-group, and they look good here.

Seemingly however, it’s incredibly hard for the factory custom producers to perfectly match the colors of the vintage Python Patrol, and that’s evident on this Night Viper. The yellow is fairly close, but the green is too bright. It’s the opposite of the TBM Python Troopers who had a near perfect green and a yellow that was too dull. With the way these figures are produced, I imagine it’s quite difficult getting exact color matches on so many colors, so this is understandable.

Python Patrol Night Viper Black Major Customs TBM bootleg gi joe Alley Viper ARAH vintage o-ring

For accessories, you get the standard Night Viper backpack and gun in black, while the visor and scope have been changed to a bright red. A gray gun might’ve been nicer, but overall I like the colors here a good bit. I think the black parts prevent the neons on the figure from looking overbearing, while the visor and scope break up the green and black around the head well.

Price wise, these run about the same $15 to $25 most customs go for. For that same price, there’s hordes of other custom Night Vipers to be had, so it’s really all just about how much appeal you find in the colors of any one example. I think the Python Patrol colors on this one were ambitious, and more visually interesting than some of the other variations out there. But others will be off-put by the lack of compatibility with the vintage Pythons, so it really all comes down to preference.

Python Patrol Night Viper Links:

Cobra Island

Diorama by Dreadnok Dread

1997 Stalker (Stars and Stripes Forever)

Posted on February 4, 2019 by mwnekoman

1997 Stalker

I’ve talked about a few of the Stars and Stripes Forever figures on this blog, but in favor of highlighting some of the more skipped over figures such as Short-Fuze, I’ve neglected looking at possibly the most popular figure from the set: Stalker.

1997 Stalker provides a lot that you could like him for. I really wanted a V1 Stalker when I first started collecting vintage figures, but as prices kept him out of my reach, I settled for an alternative. As one of the only full repaints of the original mold, I zeroed in on this release, which I found soon invalidated my need for any more Stalker figures.

Of the original 13 Joes, Stalker’s camo pattern made him one of the more distinct looking figures. One of the biggest charms of this figure however, is that his camouflage is essentially superior. The sharpness and detail of the lines is really something to behold, and there aren’t that many other figures in the entire line that feature camouflage of this quality.

Besides that, as I mentioned before this figure is the sole repaint of V1 Stalker. Your only other domestic alternatives are the horrendous Comic Pack Stalkers that have different legs and under-scaled heads. So this one represents the better tooling, in arguably the best colors.

For parts he includes the classic M-32 Pulverizer, and a Grunt backpack matched to his colors. I’ve always meant to hunt down that backpack as when I bought mine, it was missing that part and at the time I didn’t know he came with any parts that V1 Stalker didn’t. It’s pretty unusual for Hasbro to include an era appropriate backpack like that and not something like a random oversized pack from ‘86 or some such.

A complete 1997 Stalker should probably cost you around $10 to $15 for an auction, but these have become much more of a seldom find. Dealers appear to be getting around $25 for them on average, which seems like a bit much, but this has historically been the most desired figure from the Stars and Stripes set, so it makes some sense. It’s a figure worth looking out for, and if you feel like it, probably even worth that premium too.