1991 Attack Cruiser

Posted on June 30, 2020 by mwnekoman

1991 Attack Cruiser

I’ve had this rant I’ve been wanting to get off my chest for awhile now, but never seem to find the time to lay out. Although 90‘s GI Joe figures tended to be a lot of fun, I really can’t say that vehicles held up so well as the line went on, especially those from 1991 and ‘92. As just one example of a terrible 90‘s vehicle, I have to say I think the Attack Cruiser is the worst vehicle from the entire line.

It’s actually kind of weird too, as popular opinion tends to push that late 80‘s vehicles like the POGO and Buzz Boar are some of the worst that the line had to offer, but I feel like opinions such as this are focusing more on the premise of those toys and not the execution. They’re silly, but aesthetically they look pretty good and are fairly fun to play with. Several vehicles from ‘91 and ‘92 aren’t like this however. Examples like the Ice Sabre, Barracuda, and this toy present simple concepts, but fail on execution.

This toy has numerous problems, but for a start, it’s most critical flaw is in the drone it launches. It’s a cheap and flimsy piece of plastic, which seems to break almost as soon as you use it. It’s made from a super thin piece of plastic like you might see on disposable packaging, which is noticeably worse than the already bland drone pictured on the back of the box. Already, it’s really baffling for them to cheap out on such a core component of the vehicle, as launching the drone is it’s main gimmick. It’s like no effort went into this area of the vehicle at all.

The vehicle is basically barren for other play features. It holds a three-man crew and has some rotating turrets; a pair of mines too, but that’s it. There’s no seat-belts like you saw on certain vehicles from around that time, or any canopies, removable hatches, ect. There’s just nothing going on with it, which relative to it’s size makes it feel very phoned in.

It has a bizarre asymmetrical design that looks horribly ugly and thrown together. I’ve tried photographing this thing from different angles before, and there’s just no one direction the Attack Cruiser looks good to be seen from. It looks almost like two separate smaller vehicles that were sandwiched together for some reason, and I really can’t figure out what they were going for with this. There’s no real-life vehicle I know of that looks like this, and there’s no other way to describe it to me besides… Extremely ugly.

The colors aren’t the worst, but the neon green certainly puts a damper on it’s overall look. It’s mostly black and I’ll say it’s a decent color choice, though I still feel like the black looks cheap. Probably worse than the green is the goofy paper decals that go on it. A lot of 90‘s vehicles feature decals like this, and they’re a sad downgrade from the familiar 80‘s decals. They’re really delicate and fall off much easier than the vinyl ones, which is a shame on the nicer vehicles, though on the Attack Cruiser, they’re really just a hallmark of the lower quality presented here.

In the end of the day, all of this leaves you with a vehicle that refuses to be fun and doesn’t even succeed at it’s single niche purpose. It’s ugly, fragile and obtuse, which really leaves the Attack Cruiser with almost no room for redemption. At least with the RAT, the idea was alright and it didn’t look too terrible; meanwhile the Attack Cruiser has almost nothing it does right. To me, it feels like an example of where they did start to take short-cuts in the line’s waning years, as there’s not a single vehicle from 80‘s that strikes me as being this bad.

Attack Cruiser’s aren’t hard to get ahold of, even complete and in good shape. This is a vehicle no one will fight you over and can be had for around $15. To be honest though, it’s a waste of money. Opinions will vary on what constitutes the worst GI Joe vehicle ever made, and a lot of that will depend on what you expect from a vehicle. In this Joe fan’s opinion though, I really can’t think of a vehicle I dislike more than the Attack Cruiser.

Attack cruiser gi joe arah vintage hasbro 90's cobra a real american hero 1991

1991 Attack Cruiser Links:

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Toys from the Past

2010 TBM Black Cobra Trooper

Posted on June 16, 2020 by mwnekoman

2010 TBM Black Cobra Trooper

It seemed like not so long ago that a bunch of mysterious, bootleg Cobra Troopers popped up on eBay and no one really knew what they were or what they’d be like. While the “factory custom” scene has changed a little in the years since then, it’s interesting to take a look back at some of the very first figures. This black Cobra Trooper was the first one I acquired.

When these figures surfaced, I was dead-broke, so I couldn’t get too much of what was available. Because of that, I singled out figures I thought might be more well suited for use in small numbers apart from bigger squads. Given that this guy is mostly just a single black color, I thought he could make decent for a sniper. I believe I stole the idea of using an all-black Cobra as a sniper from the Sideshow Cobra Sniper that came out a little before that, which struck me as an interesting concept.

At the time, for a bootleg that nobody knew much about, the quality of this release was quite impressive. A series of similar Trooper bootlegs had come out roughly a year prior, which were much flimsier by comparison. Since then, I think the subsequent Black Major releases have made this figure seem less nice. It has a few interesting quirks not seen on later releases, namely the backpack hole. On the original run of TBM Troopers, all of the figures had smaller screw-holes/backpack holes. This was done deliberately to further distinguish these figures from their vintage counterparts, but it also means they can’t use a backpack.

For the most part, the figure is solid black with some light gray painted details and a silver Cobra sigil. It’s a simple look that fulfills it’s role in my collection nicely, and also looks good with basically any other early Cobra. The paint is sharp and clean, although interestingly there’s a good amount of excess paint above the belt on the waist. The later Troopers from TBM don’t have this problem, but on all of the 2010 Troopers, everything above the belt is painted, which is a bit quirky.

For accessories, you get only the classic Dragunov sniper riffle like with the original figure. It’s a faithful recreation and at the time, this part was precious and hard to come by. Of course, it’s the only part you get and later releases improved by including the Officer’s AK-47 and a Viper backpack. Still, at the time just getting the black Dragunov was great, and I certainly enjoy having no shortage of them years later.

Pricing Black Major customs can be difficult, as this figure’s gotten much harder to find, as you might expect. Of course, most of the customs including ones from around the same time tend to cap their value around $20 to $30, so it’s fair to say this guy’s probably in the same ballpark. I think Black Major’s second run of Cobra Troopers was better than the first, but this is still a really a cool figure I’m glad to have in my collection.

TBM the black major custom Cobra Trooper black 2010 gi joe vintage hasbro

2010 TBM Black Cobra Trooper Links:

Collection of all 2010 TBM Cobra Troopers

Pre-Black Major Cobra Trooper customs

Later TBM Cobra Troopers

2010 ROC (POC) Elite Ice Viper

Posted on June 8, 2020 by mwnekoman

2010 ROC (POC) Elite Ice Viper

I feel like my readers aren’t going to be much into this one, since this blog mainly focuses on classic o-ring molds, but since Forgotten Figures is having rarities month, I thought it’d be fun to profile a few pre-production and unreleased goodies from my collection. Of course, I don’t have that much unreleased Joe stuff, so I have no choice but to profile a movie toy…

Watching GI Joe the Rise of Cobra when it came out on DVD in 2009 was an actual chore. I’m not a connoisseur of bad films, but to this day I feel it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever forced myself to watch. I also feel that’s a pretty fair opinion, as since then, the movie proved to be a financial failure, most actors associated with the film regard it as a low-point of their careers, and toyline ended in premature cancellation, hence why this Ice Viper was never released. I could rant about all of these things, but the main point that continues to astound me, is the fact that Hasbro still insists that GI Joe’s future hinges on live-action movies.

Visually, the Ice Viper was one of the more attractive offerings from the Rise of Cobra line. The figure looks bulky, unique, and doesn’t venture too far out from what you might’ve seen in ARAH. Of course, for a GI Joe item, it’s relatively monochrome and somewhat unimaginative looking, but it’s not that much worse than something you’d have seen in Valor vs Venom. Overall, the figure features a fairly decent winter-uniform that doesn’t have the ugly alien look you saw on the horrid Vipers and Neo-Vipers from the same time.

The figure’s main issues are a greater reflection of the issues with the 25th Anniversary style construction. It’s a fully articulated figure, but because of it’s large and thick winter jacket that hides it’s barren and undecorated torso, the figure’s not much for posing. The sculpt has overly bulky legs that render it incompatible with almost any vehicle, but the jacket stops the legs from even posing at the waist. Overall, it’s still a decent looking army builder, but the point is that the toy can’t do much besides stand there…

The main attraction to the Elite Ice Viper, is that the colors are slightly tweaked to feature lots of red, and no camouflage. I notice a lot of people aren’t fond of red and white color schemes like you see on certain arctic figures from the Black Major, but I think they work, especially in this figure’s case. Ultimately, one of the worst things about the ROC toy line, was that the toys were flat, and colorless. Everything you saw was a sea of black and gray, which makes a toy like this more appreciable. The red highlights make the design more fun and look like a GI Joe toy, which I see as a major upgrade over the standard colors.

The parts are pretty bad, which is better than average compared to most of his contemporaries. You get the ugly sci-fi pistol that most ROC Cobras came with, as well as a bandaged version of one of the Neo-Viper’s riffle, and a ski-torpedo missile launcher. The guns are ugly, though this figure can hold them well enough, which is not something you could say about every figure from this time period. The missile launcher is just a waste of plastic and doesn’t solicit much comment.

Like with many midnight-run figures, it’s a canceled toy for a reason, and for years this figure was both plentiful and cheap. Since the early ‘10‘s, the supply of these from China has mostly dried up, and you don’t see them so much any more. However, the only thing that’s changed about ROC’s popularity, is that now there’s no more hipsters left to shill for the film, so you won’t likely ever see this toy become a coveted possession. If you’re in the market for one, I wouldn’t pay more than $25… But that’s not an endorsement of this figure.

elite ice viper POC ROC Gi joe hasbro rise of cobra movie pursuit of cobra

2010 ROC (POC) Elite Ice Viper Links:

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1986 Wet-Suit

Posted on June 2, 2020 by mwnekoman

1986 Wet-Suit

In many ways, 1986 represented a restart for ARAH. Popular characters return with new toys, such as Roadblock and General Hawk, while older specialist are somewhat replaced by newer characters that have overlapping specialties (Viper, Leatherneck, Lifeline, ect.). Wetsuit is one of the later, filling the same role as Torpedo from 1983. I’m a fan of both figures, though objectively I think Wet-Suit’s of better quality.

‘86 figures were early priorities for me when I started filling the gaps of my ARAH collection around 2009. Unlike ‘85 figures, ‘86 guys tended to be plentiful and cheaper, while maintaining the same amount of appeal for me. Wet-Suit was one of the first figures I acquired, which meant he got to see a little more action back then as one of my few non-Cobra acquisitions. I also had a real obsession with Lampreys then, which gave Wet-suit more to fight than he might have otherwise.

The truth is, it’s a really high-quality figure. Compared to Torpedo, Wet-Suit has a rich sculpt full of details. Belts and pouches adorn the majority of the figure, with a nice amount of sharpness that makes these details pop. Like the ‘85 Eel, the helmet isn’t removable, but instead features a nice, form-fitting shape that more than makes up for it.

There’s also a lot of painted details, even if some will have issues with the colors. Straps, his helmet, the majority of the suit, he has a lot of painted details and different colors to see too, even a very nice tampograph on his chest. Of course, if the teal and orange aren’t your thing, the 2000‘s provided us with this mold in multiple great and more muted color schemes. I like bright stuff though, and this version seems the most detailed, so for me this one’s the best.

The gear is both one of the greatest things and one of the worst things about this figure. He comes with a lot of nice parts, including a rubber breathing piece, a backpack it connects to, flippers, a large flashlight, and a sea sled. The parts are fun and immerse the figure in his specialty, though the downside is that he doesn’t come with any weapons. It’s really part of the figure’s charm, as with many early ARAH figures, the parts showed what the character does and how he’s unique. Yet still, it feels a little weird he has no gun or knife.

From the looks of it, newbie collectors are paying stupid prices for this guy from time to time. I say newbies, because you can still find complete and nice Wet-Suits for around $5. It’s just sometimes that they’re going for $20+, which is what the rare Mission Brazil repaint used to go for. It’s a cheap figure and a great addition to a vintage collection, but don’t follow the crowd and pay stupid prices.