Monthly Archives: January 2021

2003 Dial Tone (Tiger Force)

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2003 Dial-Tone (Tiger Force)

Hasbro was prone to some curious choices in the 2000‘s, and one clear example of that was the 2003 Tiger Force 5-pack. In general, I think you could easily regard this as a botched set that failed fans in several regards, such as the inclusion of the maligned Big Brawler, the usage of UK Tiger Force colors, or other tired mold choices like Dial-Tone, who saw a glut of repaints at that time. A little more foresight could have made for a superior set that might be more well regarded, but personally what we did get has aged pretty well.

As I mentioned, Hasbro deviated from the original Tiger Force color palette and went for something closer to the UK Tiger Force colors, seen on figures like Hit&Run and Psyche Out. It’s kind of neat, in that it homages rare and costly foreign figures that most of us will probably never own. However, a large part of the novelty with sub-groups like Tiger Force and Python Patrol, is that the figures feature uniform team colors. Dial-Tone does nicely match up with the UK figures and some from the ’04 convention set, but sadly not with the vintage US figures.

There’s a lot of Dial-Tone repaints, and most of them are figures I don’t think are worth having. This figure is on the nicer end of Dial-Tone repaints, as it’s unique and visually interesting. The black and blue make for a nicely dark colored figure offset by the bright orange tiger patterns that make him stand out. There’s quite a few separate colors painted on him, and I’m even tempted to say this might be the most detailed Dial-Tone repaint. I think this figure would be a lot more memorable had they colored him more like the 2015 convention figure, but the colors and paint are still pretty nice here despite that.

The parts are basically the typical 2000‘s junk you’d expect, with a ’91 Red Star rifle and a ‘92 Gung-Ho backpack. While his original gun is somewhat common, I’d have really loved to have gotten ‘86 Dial-Tone’s backpack in black at some point. As he is, this gear is serviceable, but certainly generic.

For whatever it’s worth, there’s a light-skinned variant of this Dial-Tone out there. I don’t find it particularly interesting, as the skin-tone is more on the pasty side, similar to many of the ARAHC figures. I believe it’s the somewhat rarer variant, as I certainly see it floating around much less than the peachy colored one you see photographed here, but I could be wrong on that.

You don’t see these figures as much any more, which makes them a little hard to price. The sealed set he’s featured in only goes for about $100 MISB, and given that at least Wreckage and maybe a few more of his packmates are more popular than him, I’d find it hard to say these are worth more than $20, and an auction might even go as low as $15.

2003 Dial Tone (Tiger Force) Links:

GeneralsJoes

PeterDB.net

Half the Battle

1994 Shipwreck

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1994 Shipwreck

Shipwreck is probably among the most memorable and iconic GI Joe characters in the franchise. Especially for people who came in on Sunbow, Shipwreck was kind of the cartoon’s alternative to Clutch, as a similar kind of personality who was easier to identify with than characters like Flint, Duke or Snake Eyes. Despite his popularity, he really never received all that many toys, only being represented by his original in ‘85 and this Battle Corps version nine years later.

So this version of Shipwreck is a diver, which is hard to say whether this makes Shipwreck more usable or less usable. Although it’s the most recognizable element of the character, Shipwreck seems a little more cohesive outside of his sailor duds. It weakens his identity a bit, but also makes me imagine a lot of different scenarios where you might find Shippy in diving gear. Since I was a kid I’ve always imagined this Shipwreck going on a lot of sabotage missions, rendering him somewhat of a Joe equivalent to Firefly.

Like many ‘93 and ‘94 figures, Shipwreck is recycles the waist and legs from older sculpts, in this case ‘86 Wet Suit. In a few cases this mold recycling was a little more arbitrary, like with ‘94 Major Bludd, but here I feel like it somewhat benefits the figure for tying him back to Wet Suit, and adds a little continuity to their designs. They’re both GI Joe divers, it sort of makes sense to me that they’d share similar equipment/outfits.

For parts, you get a diving mask, two flippers, a Shockwave pistol, Bullhorn’s Steyr AUG, and a Hit&Run riffle and knife all in black, in addition to a silver missile launcher (and it’s missiles). I always appreciate old figures that came with decent looking black guns, even if it might’ve been nicer for him to have some kind of diver-specific part like a spear gun. The rubber mask is really one of the most fun parts that comes with this figure, as it also makes him one of the only diver figures that has a fully removable mask and air-intake.

This mold got a couple of repaints, most of which weren’t really better than this release, but not really worse either. He showed up in ‘98 as a part of the Navy Assault Unit set, colored black with bright green highlights. He then showed up another time in 2001 as apart of the ARAHC line, looking just like this figure with the addition of paint-wipes. This figure already had fine colors, so I’m not sure there’s much else you’d do with it, though a brighter repaint might’ve been kind of neat.

‘94 Shipwrecks go for about $15 to $20 complete, though for much less incomplete. I notice this with more Battle Corps figures these days, where there’s huge discrepancies between what a complete and incomplete figure will go for. It strikes me as odd, given that with most of these figures like Shipwreck, the parts are totally generic and not even unique to the figure. His exact same tree of parts was included with both Cross-Country and the two versions of Battle Corps Roadblock, so between the three of them, there’s a lot of these parts out there. Either way, he’s a nice figure, and worth getting in some fashion.

1994 Shipwreck Links:

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

JoeaDay

1988 Repeater

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1988 Repeater

Repeater is one of those figures who was never a collecting goal for me, and whom I’ve rarely had much interest in using. He’s a fairly popular figure and I’ve personally held that the toy is for the most part somewhat overrated, however, there’s some objectively good things about him. In fact, he’s probably among the upper tier of late-eighties Joes, it’s just that he doesn’t appeal to me that much personally.

Right away, one of my biggest issues I’ve always had with this figure is his head. His head looks super ugly to me, to the point it almost feels hard to take him seriously. The rest of the sculpt comes across as being nice, but somewhat average, with the best part probably being his chest. The chest sculpt featured a really nice vest with some sharp details on it. It could have looked great mixed in with some other parts on repaints later on, but that wasn’t to be. I may rectify that in my collection with some customs at some point, but GI Joe customs tend to be a drag to make.

His colors are really nice though. The figure is mostly a khaki color, with brown camo and green and black accents. The camo patterns on these late-eighties figures were very nice and distinct, very similar to digital camouflage though I don’t think that was being used at the time. Most of the guys from ‘88 are fairly colorful and bright, so Repeater with his grounded colors stands out as a nice change of pace.

The accessories are one of the most distinct elements of the figure. Specializing as a “Steadi-Cam Machine Gunner”, he indeed includes a steadi-cam machine gun… which isn’t real, but looks pretty neat. His full kit is a green backpack, the machine gun, and hip-mount stabilizer for it. The gun isn’t too unrealistic, as there’s been a few real-life attempts at making a gun with similar ergonomics, but kind of like with this toy, they’ve never been very practical. Repeater can’t really pose or hold his gun very much while mounted to the stabilizer, which renders the set-up useless to me. If you want to get a two-handed pose with it, the best you can do is balance the gun on the stabilizer. While mounted, there’s barely even room for his thumb to hold the gun’s receiver. Putting that aside, the gun and backpack do look very nice though.

Besides the Night Force repaint, this guy got released in Brazil twice, once as Retaguarda and again as Urzor. I’ve always wanted Urzor, namely because he includes a BEAR, but not enough to pay the absurd prices those figures go for. Heck, even the Night Force repaint commends a price far more than he’s worth, which really leaves us with this figure being the only version of the sculpt that’s decently accessible. Given, I think it’s also fair to say that the ‘88 release is the best version too, seeing as how the Night Force repaint has no camo and fewer painted details.

Repeaters are thankfully still cheap on a regular basis. Typically a complete Repeater will run around $8, which isn’t much to pay for a figure that’s relatively so nice. My main gripe is that his head’s ugly and his gun is cumbersome, but everything else about the figure is well done. In an age where collectors are willing to pay $100+ for obtuse, common items, I’m always a little stunned when a decent figure like this one doesn’t go for much.

1988 Repeater Links:

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

Half the Battle

2002 Fast Blast Viper

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2002 Fast Blast Viper

The 2002 BJ’s 8-pack captivates me probably far more than it should, but it’s one of those things that’s just so odd for existing that I can’t help but look at it every now and then. Among the 4 Cobras included in the set is the Fast Blast Viper, a carry-forward of the HEAT Viper retool from ARAHC. I’m not a huge fan of the V1 HEAT Viper, or the Fast Blast Viper, but this figure is probably the more interesting take on the design.

Armed with specially designed battlefield weapons, FAST BLAST VIPERS are sent out to lead an attack with only one objective: stop G.I. JOE forces. Each one has learned to withstand tough battlefield conditions. They obey every order from COBRA COMMANDER instantly and without question. To make them formidable, FAST BLAST VIPERS have been trained to wipe out any fear or hesitation in attack situations—they show no emotion no matter what happens. They are mean and aggressive opponents with many combat skills and are tough enemies of the G.I. JOE team.
“We fight until we win.”

The Fast Blast Viper is a fairly vague entity who as a character I don’t like very much. If you read the file card included with this toy, it’s actually amazing how it manages to say so little about what he is, in so many sentences. “Fast Blast Vipers fear nothing… do exactly what Cobra Commanders says… are good at everything, blah, blah, blah”. What on earth is he supposed to be? Obviously, the answer to that is nothing, but that still doesn’t render the figure useless. This red repaint in particular makes a nice grunt for stuffing in vehicles and pairing with other crimson figures. I don’t mind it, but I wish Hasbro’s laziness was a little less transparent here.

Like the rest of his pack-mates, the BJ’s Fast Blast Viper is decked out in Crimson Guard-esque red colors. One of the curious problems of the BJ’s 8-pack is that no two of the figures really have a matching color scheme despite all being red, though the Fast Blast Viper here probably came out on top for the usage of black and gold on his details (compared to an Undertow with bits of gray, a Storm Shadow with brown, and Firefly with copper and gray). It’s a good look and provides some options for the FBV, who doesn’t serve much of a purpose if you already have or like HEAT Vipers in your collection. To be honest, this is probably the second best usage of the HEAT Viper mold after the Python Patrol variant from 2003.

I never really liked the mold changes made to the FBV over the ‘89 HEAT Viper. The balaclava head is generic and doesn’t provide much benefit to the figure, even if the original HEAT Viper head was a weird asymmetrical design. Other than that, they went out of their way to remove the shoulder peg from the original sculpt, which really didn’t benefit the figure any and leaves behind this weird tab where it should’ve been. None of this really ruins the figure, and in his own right the FBV is something that looks pretty good, I just don’t understand why Hasbro made these seemingly pointless tooling changes.

The parts are an obvious area where this figure is going to lose out. You get a Sound Attack version of the Spearhead rifle, a Hit & Run knife, ‘91 Dusty pistol, and a ‘91 Sci-Fi gun. All very generic stuff you should have piles of if you’ve ever collected 90‘s and 00‘s Joes, and a poor selection of gear at that. I used to really mind this figure’s lack of missiles for his legs, but really he looks fine without them, and all they really do is make me nervous one’s going to fall off.

From the looks of it, this figure has gotten a little bit harder to find than his black counterpart. Despite this, it’s still safe to say that the BJ’s Fast Blast Viper is worth less than the black one, and you can find them from time to time for probably $6 to $8. Usually they’re more often in lots, and without parts as many of the ones you see on the market are likely the Chinese overstock that was saturating eBay a few years back. Like the figures he’s packaged with, it’s a toy no one’s collection desperately needs, but it’s nice to have if you like crimson figures.

2002 Fast Blast Viper Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

GeneralsJoes