December | 2019 | The Viper Pit

2011 Unreleased Rescue Mech

GI Joe has a pretty lengthy history with giant robots. Usually, it’s never been popular and doesn’t end well, but the sci-fi theme has been there since Marvel #3 (Before the Snake Armor!). We saw robots in Star Brigade right when GI Joe got canceled, again in Valor vs Venom, and then they made a large mech for the 2.5-inch Sigma Six line. That mold was then retooled for a line of robots from the 2010 Pursuit of Cobra line, which ended with them getting canceled.

gi joe pursuit of cobrs 2010 2011 cancelled unreleased alpine mech rescue mech

I like GI Joe having mech on the side, and personally I consider myself a fan of the design used for both the Sigma 6 and POC robots. However, in the case of the POC mech, the toys were particularly flawed, especially the Cobra Deviant. The main reason? It’s a giant robot with almost no decent weapons. It turned the toy into an instant dud that was clearanced just months after release, and unfortunately it looked as though they would have repeated that mistake with this release.

Of course, there was more wrong with the POC GI Joe mechs than just the Deviant’s lack of weapons. GI Joe was in the midst of a death spiral after the retail failure of the Rise of Cobra toys, so a pair of oddball GI Joe mechs that didn’t terribly resonate with the collectors at the time didn’t have good chances of succeeding at retail.

The Rescue Mech would’ve been almost entirely a repaint of the Cobra Deviant. It would have featured one arm attachment that was new, though just from pictures I’m not sure how it’s gimmick would’ve worked. The lack of new tooling would’ve rendered this release and it’s wave-mate Cobra mech very stale as the third and fourth takes on the mold after the Sigma 6 Iron Hammer.

Speaking of stale, the very concept of this toy is almost perplexing and redundant. An arctic rescue mech? Who were they going to sell this to? Sci-fi fans who are afraid of guns? To me, it seems very childish and random, especially given the more serious tone of the POC line. The only thing I can really assume is that it was a poor attempt to make the toy seem more unique among it’s three other recent color variations. The result is a nonsensical concept that serves little purpose.

As an added bonus, it’s known that the arctic Alpine figure that would’ve come with this toy couldn’t sit in the cockpit without taking the figure’s jacket off. That’s partly a problem with the Modern Era construction, but it’s ridiculous for a vehicle to include a driver who’s virtually incompatible with it.

It’s almost shocking how much the fate of the 2010 POC mechs resembles the 1994 Power Armor line. Both came in window boxes, with repaint drivers, and at a separate price-point to the rest of the vehicles. Then, both lines would have had two more toys come out the following year, but were then canceled instead.

If Hasbro ever resurrected this mold or brought back GI Joe robots of at least this quality, I’d probably buy them. If you wanted to make some repaints of this mold, there’s still a lot that could’ve been done with it. The Club could’ve easily made a Star Brigade Armor-Bot homage from it, or someone could’ve just put it in some standard Cobra colors and that would’ve been a lot more interesting. But instead, we only saw this mold rendered in ways that were bland or obtuse after the Steel Marauder, which is sad.

1990 Night Creeper

Ninjas were a big theme for GI Joe from the late eighties going into the nineties, with the height of this topic likely manifesting in the Ninja Force. But, before those figures there were numerous quality ninja figures before them. Besides Storm Shadow, I’d likely consider my favorite ninja the V1 Night Creeper, for both sentimental and some objective reasons.

I sort of have a weird history with the Night Creeper. As a kid, it was a figure my brother had, so I effectively had him by extension. Except, I really have no memories of him at all. I want to think his o-ring snapped pretty early on, so that could be why. Regardless, it was an interesting experience finding his parts years later and putting him back together. The colors are so disparate between the upper a lower half of the figure, I didn’t think they went together. Though, once I did piece him together and discovered how he was supposed to look, it set a real impression on me through my early collecting years.

The original Night Creeper has a pretty interesting design, that in my opinion makes him Cobra’s best generic ninja. The drapey headdress combined with a visor is distinct and has a very assassin-like appearance. It doesn’t make him look as cliche as Storm Shadow, or as chintzy as later ninjas from the Ninja Force. The chest armor and visor in conjunction with his other features leaves him looking pretty identifiable as a ninja, but it also gives him the look of a modern assassin. Overall I’d have to say it’s a nice in-between of the styles you’d see on the typical, terrorist Cobra and the more martial-arts focused side of the line.

There’s a lot of color and paint applications on the Night Creeper too. While some might be adverse to ninjas in magenta, there’s a nicely diverse palette here with light and dark grey, magenta, purple, and a lot of black and silver for details. In particular I think the camouflage pants have an interesting, urban look to them. At the very least he looks a little more stealthy than an Alley Viper!

For parts, you get a large crossbow, two different swords and a backpack from 1989 Snake Eyes that can hold one of them. I’m pretty fond of the crossbow, it makes sense as a stealth weapon. The extra bolts make it look more intimidating than a weapon like Scarlet’s too, which is a plus. The swords are alright and are fairly distinct, but they are what they are and don’t leave much of an impression on me. Lastly, the backpack looks pretty good and suits the figure, however, I find the storable sword gimmick to be frustrating. The tabs that hold the sword break too easily and make me afraid to use it. The end result means I usually ditch the swords for this figure altogether, and only use the backpack and crossbow.

These guys used to go for dirt even when they had a few parts and decent paint, so I managed to amass a decent squad of them between the late 2000‘s and early 2010‘s. There was a bigger collector interest in the white 1998 repaint and the 2004 Urban Division figure, which were both high-quality representations of the mold, but personally I found the original colors more interesting for less money, so it was hard to argue with that.

A complete Night Creeper is consistently worth about $10, give or take a dollar. It’s a common figure a lot of people have, so they don’t go for a whole lot. Despite that, it’s a really cool figure and a great army builder, so it’s nice to see there’s still fun figures like this to collect 29 years after their release. Heck, after writing this I’m tempted to grab a few more.