2019 TBM Cobra Ghost Mortal (1985 Snake Eyes V2)

Posted on January 20, 2020 by mwnekoman

2019 TBM Cobra Ghost Mortal (1985 Snake Eyes V2)

Earlier in 2019, The Black Major produced a brief run of Snake Eyes figures based on the V2 Snake Eyes mold. The figures had an eclectic mix of color schemes and were interesting, to say the very least. Every now and then, TBM strays from the standard army-builders and instead produces figures that are more novel in style, such as these. The result is a figure that feels as fresh as a brand-new Joe release could be, but the downside is the tooling gets repetitive sooner.

Until I acquired these figures, I’d never owned the V2 Snake Eyes mold. It was never repainted after the 1985 release (Judging by the canned ‘97 boxsets, the mold was lost early on.), and the vintage figure just outpriced my interest in the character. So getting these was very interesting, as for me they were completely new molds. Besides this Mortal, TBM used the mold for some very high-quality color schemes including a standard silver and red Mortal, Python Patrol, Slaughter’s Marauders and more. Given the quality of these repaints and this mold’s lack of exposure, I’d say they’re some of his most interesting work to date.

With that said, I’m not a huge fan of this mold. It’s surprising given the quality of 1985 sculpts, but the mold just lacks the same amount of details other figures had. Likely, this is because the mold is meant to be represented in black, but even the proportions feel off to me. His legs are kind of skinny, the head looks weird, doesn’t have much going on in a lot of spaces… Overall, I’d say it wasn’t the best sculpt from 1985.

The build quality of this run feels pretty solid. Normally, I’m quite easygoing when it comes to these things, but compared to the typical problems you find in factory customs, I’d say the V2 Snake Eyes repaints have relatively few. Mine all had good paint, joints, and no casting abnormalities or anything of the like. Additionally, they can hold their parts well and don’t have gripping issues like the Steel Brigades from a few years back.

As for this Cobra Ghost Mortal color scheme, it’s a pretty nifty repaint. By using the 1985 Snake Eyes mold, it gives me a unique design to represent this character which I like a lot. The original Snake Eyes V1 mold is surprisingly well suited for generic repaints, but I don’t associate the visor look with SE much either, so I like having a different sculpt to represent the Cobra Mortal apart from say, the Invasor. As this is the Ghost Mortal, it swaps the standard red details for extra silver on the visor and sigil, which doesn’t contrast as well, but still looks pretty nice.

The parts really interest me on these figures. It’s funny too, since normally with a 90‘s figure, you’d complain about guns and parts in bright neon colors, but with this guy, it actually enhances his value. This Cobra Mortal included the original sword, backpack, uzi and wolf all in translucent green. It’s crazy, but recolored parts like this feel new and interesting. Standard black parts would have been okay, but in bright colors like these, you can find new uses for the parts with other figures. Clear green is a tough one, but the bright red parts from another Snake Eyes repaint quickly found their way into the hands of Battle Corps Major Bludd.

This mortal seems a little harder to find than the other ‘85 Snake Eyes customs, but overall these figures are still pretty easy to get. Most variations are still available for their original prices, though for how long that lasts, who knows. In general, there’s still more thirst for classic army-builder sculpts than unique ones, and that seems to be reflected in how the factory customs are valued.

snake eyes tbm the black major bootleg custom 1985 arah V2 Hasbro GI Joe

2019 TBM Cobra Ghost Mortal (1985 Snake Eyes V2) Links:

Joe A Day

Surveillance Port

TBM Snake Eyes Recap post at Surveillance Port

Forgotten Figures – Purple Haze Cobra Invasor

Forgotten Figures – Slaughter’s Marauder’s Snake Eyes

Attica Gazette – Red and Silver Mortal

1988 Hardball

Posted on January 13, 2020 by mwnekoman

1988 Hardball

All of the GI Joe figures I experienced as a kid that were prior to 1993 were from my brother’s collection. The majority of his collecting started in 1989, but there was a sparse handful of figures he had that were older than that: shelfwarmers. Among them, one was Crystal Ball; another was Hardball.

Hardball’s a bit of a weird figure, in that it’s hard to say if I like him or not, or if I ever did. I tend to really hate sports and sports-themed stuff, so for that reason I find him corny and annoying. Putting that aside, the figure is well done in a few regards, enough so that I’ve been able to overlook the baseball motif.

Hardball has a decent sculpt and a great amount of colors. The figure’s legs look good and offer some custom potential if you just wanted to swap them onto a different figure. Personally, I’ve always been a bit annoyed by how small his head looks compared to many of his contemporaries, but the sculpt is still nice on it. The painted details and amount of colors they used on the figure starts to become somewhat impressive though. There’s about eight or so colors on the figure counting the unpainted plastic colors, which is about in line with a lot of the figures from 1985, like Buzzer and Alpine. Compare Hardball to figures from around the same time like Muskrat or Budo and you’ll start to see how detailed he is.

For parts, you get a two-piece grenade launcher and a backpack full of grenades. This grenade launcher feels a tad too big, but I’ve gotta be honest and admit it’s always been one of my favorite parts of the figure. As a kid, I thought the rotating drum was a really cool gimmick, and the weapon looks really powerful even if you don’t know what it is. The backpack has a lot of nice details going on too, and it’s bagginess reminds of the ones you saw a lot earlier in the line.

All things considered, Hardball’s not a figure without his redeeming elements. He’s got fun parts, a pretty good sculpt and a good amount of paint to show it off. The downside is that he’s not a very memorable character, and still just looks like a random baseball player wondering around. I never think to use him and usually forget about him, until I see him in a photo or in a list of figures from ‘88.

Hardball is not an expensive figure, and even the current GI Joe market has failed to make him valuable. Sometimes a mint, complete figure with filecard will run $12 if it’s photographed clearly, since the torso is prone to yellowing and the GI Joe tampograph wears off easy too. Keep looking though, and you can commonly find a mint figure for around $5.

Gi joe vehicle RPV Hardball Backblast ARAH vintage action figure Hasbro

1988 Hardball Links:

1983 Gung Ho

Posted on January 6, 2020 by mwnekoman

1983 Gung Ho

Gung Ho is a popular GI Joe character, but oddly for me I have no real attachment to Gung Ho. 1983 was full of cool designs I like a lot, like Snow Job, Doc, Destro, Major Bludd: there’s barely a figure from the year I’m ambivalent to besides Gung Ho. So while I’ve got some classic figures on the mind, I might as well hash out a post about my feelings on the figure.

Gung Ho is somewhere between being iconic and boring. On one hand, the figure is distinct with fun colors and a look that’s fairly unique among early 80‘s figures (this was before 1988 when every forgettable Joe ran around in a vest with no shirt on). On the other hand, being a shirtless marine is about the extent of his character, and I can’t say I find him all that fun to use. By comparison, Leatherneck is far more standard, which seems less interesting, yet I still find that figure more fun to have around than Gung Ho.

Despite my somewhat ill-defined disinterest in him, he’s certainly not a bad figure. The light-blue and green camo colors look eye-catching and distinct. The large marine corps logo tattooed on his chest is possibly the most memorable and well done detail on the figure. It’s hard to compose a group of figures where Gung Ho doesn’t stand out, which speaks volume to his charm.

V1 Gung Ho has some interesting repaints, though domestically we never got more than the brown one in 1997 with the Slugger. In the Action Force line, he got a repaint as the fairly famous Gaucho, and Funskool also used his tooling for their own release of him and a Complan Commando figure. Most of these figures come in colors I find far more interesting than V1 Gung Ho’s, but sadly they’re of value and rarity that’s unattainable for most.

His accessories are nice. He comes with a hand-held grenade launcher, and a unique backpack that’s one of the first in the line to be so bulky. It stands out and has a great shape to it, a shame to not be included with more figures. Personally I think this pack would’ve been nice to see in black with some Cobras, but such was never the case. The grenade launcher has a functioning sling you can use, and a good size grip that isn’t too scary to stick in his hand.

It feels like mint, complete Gung Ho’s tend to run around $15 to $18, but the challenge is in finding ones that are both mint and complete. Gung Ho is very prone to discoloration and it’s more often that his original grenade launcher is swapped for the white one from an Accessory Pack. If you aren’t too picky about these things you can get one a lot cheaper, but it can require some patience.

gi joe gung ho hasbro arah vintage action figure version 1

1983 Gung Ho Links:

Yo Joe

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

1983 Cobra Officer

Posted on January 1, 2020 by mwnekoman

1983 Cobra Officer

I’ve been in a bit of a lull lately with not much GI Joe stuff to talk about. The Cobra Officer isn’t a figure I can find a lot of original things to say about, and I’m far from being the only person who likes the figure a lot. Regardless, I’ve wanted to profile him on my blog for some time, and talking about a classic seems like a good way to refresh myself as we head into 2020.

I don’t really have the sentimental attachment to the Cobra Officer that I do for the Cobra Trooper. Largely, this is because I just didn’t remember him apart from the standard Troopers in Sunbow, which as a kid was my only source for connecting with the GI Joe lore. The only thing I can say is that I did handle this mold first before I ever obtained the Cobra Trooper, by way of the Python Trooper I had as a kid.

Perhaps that childhood exposure to the mold does affect my opinion on it now. The truth is, I’m more fond of the Officer’s sculpt over the Trooper’s, however, that’s only in a few ways. The added details on areas like the helmet and webgear seem more appealing to me than the Trooper’s relatively simple sculpt. Noticeably, the Officer is much less bulky than the Trooper, which I tend to think looks a little more natural.

An odd thing I hate about the Cobra Officer compared to the Trooper, however, is the figure’s grip. For some reason he has one of the most ridiculously tight grips in the entire line that I know of. For an early sculpt, it seems as though it wouldn’t be that strange, but even the Cobra Trooper and Cobra Commander can hold their weapons better than the Officer here can. It doesn’t ruin the figure, but it’s always been something that bothers me.

For parts, you get just one: the classic AK-47. It’s one of the world’s most common and iconic firearms, so it’s appropriate to be included with one of GI Joe’s most notorious enemies. I agree with the sentiment I’ve seen from others that it would’ve made more sense for the Troopers to have the AK and the Officer to have the Dragunov, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is one of my favorite accessories in the entire line. Even after The Black Major started casting these by the dozens in different colors, I still never get tired of getting this part.

Cobra Officers are not rare, but expensive and prices seem to vary more than with other figures; usually even a rough figure will go above $20. Largely, this is because of the fragile silver paint used on their Cobra sigil. However, even once this paint has completely worn away, these can still go for a premium. Used to, you could by the worn ones and replace this paint application with a decent sticker if you felt so inclined, but today even this is not very practical. I really enjoy my Cobra Officer and can’t imagine my collection without one, but the prices for them sting.