1991 Flint (Eco Warriors)
When I was a kid I didn’t like this figure very much. He was brightly colored, he didn’t look much like a normal Flint, and his helmet was butt-ugly too. Technically, it wasn’t my figure, but whenever the Joes came out I’d gun for any other Flint besides this one (which usually meant the Battle Corps figure). Most of this derived from the simple fact that this wasn’t the Flint I wanted, and go figure, I started liking this figure better as I got older and after I acquired a Funskool Flint. It’s still not a Flint figure I use very often, but with time I’ve grown to appreciate elements of this figure.
On his own, there’s really nothing too bad about this figure. The sculpt is mostly reasonable looking while maintaining a decent level of detail. Personally I really like his head; it looks more ragged and characteristic than the aforementioned Battle Corps figure from a few years later. The ribbed boots are sort of weird and don’t add much to the character, but they can be easily overlooked. Oddly, I’ve sort of grown fond of his colors; the neon green is bright, but the look is cohesive enough that it appeals to me.
I think the main problem presented by this Flint, is that he’s arguably the weakest Eco Warriors figure. Most of the other toys come with at least a few parts that are somewhat more interesting, or cool clear visors like with Barbecue and Deep-six. Then you have to get over the fact that it’s a pretty big departure from a standard Flint design, too. Of course, in my view the Eco Warriors were a pretty good lot of figures, so that’s not to put this Flint down too much.
For parts, you get an oversized blue gun, an Eco Warriors squirt-gun, and a helmet. If there’s something I don’t like about this Flint, its’ that his parts are pretty weak. His main gun is a strange sci-fi design that I can’t really identify: is it a bazooka, or a laser weapon, or something else? It looks terrible, and unfortunately we saw this weapon reappear a few more times in the 90‘s. The helmet also strikes me as lackluster, given that it lacks the paint featured on Ozone and Clean Sweep’s helmets. Interestingly, commercials depict this helmet with a painted visor like on the card, which implies to me this paint application was cut late in his production.
Looking down the road, they made two very distinct and interesting repaints of this mold, though at the moment I like this one the best. In ‘01, they repainted the figure in desert colors and packaged him with the Desert Striker, which was an okay looking figure, albeit a little bland. Then in ‘10 the body was reused for the convention Red Torches, which looked fantastic, though are very limited in usage. All in all, I think the original release here may have been the mold’s best usage.
Complete Eco Warrior Flint’s go for around $8 or less. These days, I feel really amazed whenever I can find a vintage Joe that doesn’t commend a massive premium. Likely, I assume ‘84 and Tiger Force Flint dominate the interest of anyone who wants a Flint figure, so there’s just no need for this one. I would relate to that, but on it’s own, this is a fun figure to have around.
This is the best Flint headsculpt for sure. On the card art, it appeared that his helmet was actually a helmet with a mesh face covering. He still had blue goggles and you can see how much that commercial paint application improved the helmet overall.
It’s a shame we never got this guy in a rebel pilot orange. Collectors of the 2000’s would have HATED that. But, it would be a figure that was kind of fun to have in existence today.
It’s interesting what molds Hasbro dug out and only recolored once while beating others into the ground. (Yeah, the club reused the body) . This mold is decent, not loaded with silly details like a few later figures.
I never tried to get that fugly gun into his hands back in the day. Or his squirter gun. I sometimes wonder how the hard hands lasted ARAH whole run considering the increasing hand breaking accessories they made.
Why put Flint into Eco Warriors? Only Hasbro knows. We were so close to get getting Ninja Commando Flint. It was like he was trying to get into every special team or something.
The Eco-Warriors are fun figures, Flint is probably my favourite of the Joes, but the others aren’t too bad either. The COBRAs were definitely the better figures, though.
Flint is hurt by having a great head sculpt, but also really needing the helmet to complete the look of the figure. It’s funny, how the early vintage figures really need their weapons to look right but sometimes helmets aren’t necessary (Duke, Roadblock, 86 Hawk, Doc), where with the 90s figures, usually it’s just their helmet that is important.
That Ec0-Warriors commercial has a really interesting Duke custom in it, that I can’t really ID the build of.
That Duke custom appears in other 1991 commercials. For some reason HASBRO brought Duke back in the ads before they brought him back in the toys, so that’s why the custom Duke. He had to appear in live action and toy form, with the 1992 version not ready, I guess.
I believe that’s the Recoil body Duke custom. Someone faked it and tried to pass it off as original a few years ago. It’s a V1 Duke head slapped on a Recoil body and painted up. It’s in some other commercials from the time where you get a better look at it. I want to say Battle Copters.
I’ve been catching up on all of these posts and having a BLAST doing so. Sorry it’s taken me so long. I definitely have to comment on this one first, though. I really enjoyed reading this.
Since Flint was my favorite from the cartoon, I was elated when I got this figure in 91. I did wish he had his beret, but it looked like Flint to me. He immediately became my main Joe. I gave him Downtown’s pistol since I didn’t care for the laser bazooka (that’s what I always call it) or the water squirter, even then.
I also think this figure is a big reason why I love anything neon green.
While I only collected Cobra figures as a kid, I do remember Eco Warriors Flint. My friends had him and I tried to “incorporate” him into my Cobra World a couple of times (like putting his head into Cesspool’s body.) But he was so recognisable to us as a Joe that looked out of place as a bad guy, and I never got it.
Now, after a twenty-year absence from the GI Joe scene, I decided to get a couple of figures for a small “Cobra” display and Eco Warriors Flint is there, either as the face of a Crimson Guard Immortal or as a Red Torch, but he had to be there. He was part of my childhood, even though I never owned the figure.