Monthly Archives: October 2020

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado

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Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado

There’s going to come a point where my posts about custom Cobra Troopers, Night Vipers and Alley Vipers are going to all sound the same, which is frustrating. However, it’s a risk I’m willing to take to keep putting out posts on the different 3rd party releases, as there’s not a lot of information on these out there. Plus, there’s so many of these repaints I genuinely like, I’m beginning to think I just can’t get tired of the Cobra Trooper mold. Here I’ll be looking at The Black Major’s Cobra Soldado, a reinterpretation of the Brazilian Comandos em Acao figure.

TBM’s Cobra Soldado is made from his second Cobra Trooper mold that he began using around 2014. It’s noticeably different from the 2010 mold, but the only real flaw in my view is that the figure’s stance is somewhat pigeon-toed. Other than that, it’s a really solid mold and there’s a lot of changes I like here. Notably, compatibility with standard vintage backpacks, though I also feel as though these can sit better than the 2010 figures, which had an odd habit of their legs wanting to spread apart.

This figure is of course a remake of the Brazilian Cobra Soldado, as mentioned before. It’s really cool that TBM chose to make this because that’s a very nice figure famous for it’s bright blue color it used instead of the standard Cobra blue. The downside of that figure, (besides being rare) is that it makes use of the ‘82 straight-arm tooling. For me and most collectors, this renders a figure nearly useless, so this Black Major release is the first Cobra Soldado that actually works with the other 90% of a collection.

There’s at least three different takes/variants on this figure, which is surprising. The first release has a black cobra symbol and a black mask, and later figures showed up with chrome masks, Micky-mouse Cobra Commander styled silver-symbols, and finally a red-symbol figure that is a slightly different shade of blue. The last figure is the one that stands out the most as it’s blue color looks closer to the original Cobra Soldado, besides having the appropriately colored symbol. Of them, the red-symbol variation is easily my favorite, though I saw them less often than the first release.

Of course, another cool thing about the second Cobra trooper mold is that you get some extra accessories with it. Besides the classic Dragunov, you get a Cobra Officer’s AK47, and the ‘86 Viper’s backpack. I rarely use the packs, but the AK is nice the have in ample supply, and it really adds value to these for me. Of course, I guess you could complain that the figure doesn’t include Rock&Roll’s M60, like the original Soldado, but personally I really don’t care since machine-gunners are niche and not something you need a lot of.

The 2017 run of Cobra Troopers saturated the market a little more than older TBM Troopers. For a while, you saw these show up in good numbers, and less popular figures could be had pretty cheaply. As one would expect, they’re a little harder to find now, and generally they run around $20 a pop. For me, this is a perfectly reasonable price given the nature of these figures, though I’ll probably not be buying more since I already acquired a nice squad while they were cheap.

hasbro vintage arah comandos em acao tbm customs the black major hasbro vintage arah comandos em acao tbm customs the black major

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado Links:

Forgotten Figures

Differences Between TBM Troopers at Attica Gazette

1984 Action Force Laser Exterminator

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Action Force Laser Exterminator

I’ve found that over the years, while collectors put a huge focus on the recolored figures that showed up in Palitoy’s Action Force, less focus is placed on the vehicles. This is par for the course with Joes, as vehicles always come second to the figures. Still, the Action Force line really cranked out some classics out of both Joe molds and their own original molds, and the Laser Exterminator is a good example of that.

The truth is, I acquired this vehicle along with my other Red Shadows vehicles basically as a gift from good friend 00zxcvb, back around 2012 or so. It was a total surprise and probably one of the most generous things I’ve been sent by friends on the internet (Which is among a lot of nice things that friends have sent me!). In a hobby that broadly consists of consumerism and buying stuff from strangers on eBay, it really puts into prospective for me the value of sentimentality when it comes to toys. Many of my favorite pieces in my collection are things I didn’t even pay for.

This vehicle was my first experience with the HAL mold, and I have to say it’s one of my favorites among the early Joe vehicles. It’s a fun toy that looks good and has some pretty fun gimmicks. The turret can rotate in any direction, and also point upwards almost 90 degrees, so it’s fully functional as an artillery unit. Of course, it’s a towed weapon too, which adds options for using it with other vehicles. For a moderately small item that supports one gunner, there’s a fair amount the HAL can do, which makes it much more fun than something like the FLAK.

I think the leg mechanisms are worth some criticism, however. The turret is propped up by the two hooks used for towing it, as well as a third leg that stabilizes it. The tow-hook legs are kind of cumbersome and have a tendency to flop around, while the third leg really doesn’t have much holding it in place- hence why it’s usually missing. The later ASP had much better legs, but to be fair, this vehicle’s older, so maybe they learned as they went.

The colors are really nice on the Laser Exterminator, maybe even nicer than the HAL’s. The bright red is eye-catching, but more than that, the vehicle’s details really come across thanks to the contrasting charcoal and red plastic. The HAL is mostly a dark olive color, so you really don’t get to see just how much detail is featured on the different pieces. The standard HAL was far more realistic, but the colors here are a pretty good example of how brighter tones can be to a vehicle’s benefit when used tastefully.

Laser Exterminator’s are pretty cheap and easy to get. In general, Action Force pieces aren’t all that rare, and most of the collecting focus is on the figure molds. So, the Red Laser who was included with the vehicle will cost you a lot, but the vehicle itself is really only worth around $30. It’s pretty tough finding one with the stabilizer leg and computer, so that will run the price up every now any then. Usually, the worst thing about buying Action Force items is having to pay for shipping from the UK, which will typically cost you as much or more than the vehicle will.

red laser the black major factory custom night viper hasbro palitoy

gi joe uk forein figure action force palitoy

Action Force Laser Exterminator Links:

Forgotten Figures

1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch

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1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch

The Bronze Bombers have a real interesting history with the Joe line, which has been covered by a few sources at various points. To my knowledge, it went from a novel set of near-bootlegs nobody cared about, to a coveted collectors item, and back to novelty most don’t speak much about, or at least that’s how it seems to me these days.

Originally, the Bronze Bombers were a line of GI Joe competitors similar to The Corps, that came out in the late eighties. After going off shelves for some period, the company that made them, Olmec, tried a half-assed revival as they were going out of business by making a Toys “R” Us exclusive set of figures out of licensed GI Joe molds.

Now, things from here get real short-sighted on Hasbro’s end… These figures came out in 1997. One can assume that the licensing agreement between Olmec and Hasbro may have occurred at some point between ‘95 and ‘96, but by the time this set came out, Hasbro had already brought back ARAH! Better yet, because Olmec was filing for bankruptcy, all of the GI Joe molds were forever lost to red tape. I’d be tempted to assume that decisions like this were the fault of spiteful Kenner employees, but a chronic lack of foresight is such a trademark of Hasbro by this point, I really wouldn’t know.

The good news in all of this, is that most of the molds featured in this set are things Hasbro would’ve certainly let go to waste otherwise. Maybe the Club would’ve gone and made some Dreadnok army-builders from a few of them, but I’m pretty sure that still means we didn’t lose out on anything.

Scorch here is a fairly bizarre figure, which is in line with most of the Bronze Bombers. He’s a repaint of the ‘86 Motor Viper, now entirely rendered in navy-blue with green trim, and a bright blue visor. The coloring is so odd I don’t really feel like this figure blends in so well with a standard collection of Motor Vipers, but that uniqueness is really part of the appeal with oddities such as this. On another note, his waist tooling is swapped with the Strato-Viper repaint also included in the set, and for what reason, I have no clue.

Because of this however, I’ve still not really found a role for this guy in my collection. At the moment, I somewhat like the idea of him simply being Scorch, who is a unique Motor Viper apart from the rest of that division. This works too, in that I won’t have to worry about army-building him if only one exists. But exactly what his rank and role is, I’ve not quite ironed out.

The plastic seems pretty brittle on these Bronze Bombers, from what I can tell. It has a decent feel to it and doesn’t seem as delicate as say, Slaughter’s Marauders, but it’s definitely something where I shy away from giving them accessories. If these were a little easier to get ahold of, I wouldn’t give it much thought, but at this point it’d be pretty unfortunate to break one.

As Scorch came in a box set, the accessories are a generic lot intended to be used interchangeably with any of the figures. So, as a quick run down, the set included the Frag Viper’s SMG and Darklon’s gun in white, the Tele-Viper’s camera and Track Viper’s pistol in brown, and some recolored squirt guns from Eco Warriors. Given that like the figures, all of these sculpts were subsequently lost, you can start to see where a few parts went to. Hasbro made a recasting of the Tele-Viper camera, but without the peg on the grip, which was always a little frustrating.

Bronze Bombers were going for a lot of money a while back, but I’ve noticed that their prices have gone down by a lot in recent years. Complete sets will still run around $400, but the figures by themselves generally hit around the $20 – $30 mark at auction. The catch is, they’re relatively rare. There’s probably a generous amount of these floating around, but they don’t show up too often, so finding a particular figure takes patience.

gi joe bronze bombers scorch 1997 motor viper olmec gi joe bronze bombers scorch 1997 motor viper olmec

1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch Links:

Forgotten Figures

PS: If anyone has some more links about Scorch or Olmec as a whole, feel free to drop them in the comments.