1985 Tomax & Xamot

Posted on June 29, 2021 by mwnekoman

1985 Tomax & Xamot

“They don’t fight with steel and claw, backed with muscle and honest sweat…The chase you with paper, wound you with your own laws and kill you with the money you loaned them.” In a lot of ways, there’s something interesting represented by the Crimson Guard Commanders, Tomax and Xamot. Mind you, I’m not overly fond of these two, mainly just for the fact that a: they’re a little corny and b: they’re fairly hard to use. Despite that, Tomax and Xamot are an interesting pair, both in execution, and in cannon.

I knew of Tomax and Xamot since I was kid because of their prevalence in the Sunbow cartoon. I thought they were neat, but they also didn’t interest me very much relative to other characters. When I had the chance to get the 25th figures back in ‘08, it excited me, but only so much before I lost interest in them. Then at some point around 2011, I got the original Crimson Twins, took one photo of them, and forgot about them just like with the 25th figures. For some reason, these guys just don’t stick in my mind the way other (and often, more obscure) Cobras do.

They are very cool characters however, it’s just that it’s part of what makes them hard to use. Re-reading their filecard, I find the references to the Algiers putsch and their involvement in the bush wars to make them a lot more interesting. Other than that though, they’re basically high-ranking corporate thugs. Which is interesting, but maybe not the most intense role for an action-figure terrorist.

The whole twin angle ranges from being reasonably fun to incredibly hokey depending upon what you watch or read. Probably part of why I found them to be corny in Sunbow, was the whole “feeling each other’s pain” thing. It was okay, but it also brings them a lot closer to the silly side of Cobra like with Raptor or Big Boa. Then again, they’re certainly a lot better than Zandar and Zarana, the twins from next year over.

The figures themselves look very nice, and display some very ornate sculpted details. There’s a lot of silver armor all over the figures, and while it’s prone to wear, it looks very nice in contrast to their Cobra-blue outfits. The only thing that really bugs me about them, is that they really aren’t identical. Xamot’s face is noticeably more chiseled than Tomax’s, especially when you look at his chin. I guess it’s the best they could do, but it’s always bugged me a bit.

The accessories are another area where the Crimson Twins are very weak. Included are two of the same gun (one each), and a hook they share. It’s okay that they’re light on accessories, but the gun included here was sadly one of the weakest sculpts in the entire line. Frankly, I really don’t know what it’s supposed to look like, and it just looks dumb with them (and worse with anyone it was later included with). It doesn’t hold the figures back too much, but compared to everything around them, these were some really bad parts.

Tomax and Xamot seem to be heavily affected by the current wave of anything-goes pricing. Some sets will sell for upwards of $60, others will barely muster $17, complete and in fine condition. At least it’s not as bad as the 25th figures, which are now routinely hitting $100… Back on topic, my Xamot’s actually pretty rough, so someday I might replace him since the prices on incomplete twins aren’t too bad, some of the time. But for now, he suits my needs for what he is.

1985 Tomax & Xamot Links:

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

Joe a Day

Half the Battle: Tomax, Xamot

1987 Blaster

Posted on June 22, 2021 by mwnekoman

1987 Blaster

The Battle Force 2000 was a relatively decent set of toys, although the extent of their quality ends at that. It’s such an odd sub-team of figures, mostly sold in two-packs and all with such an overbearing sci-fi motif, that they wind up among the likes of Cobra-La in terms of unpopular groups. I mildly like most of them, but they all have similar problems and are noticeably less nice than the figures released around them.

The characterization of the BF2000 is a little weak overall, and Blaster’s no exception to this. It’s a little hard to care for him too much when he’s barely utilized in the comics, and his filecard can be summed up as “hovercraft guy”. Then you have the sculpt, which is nice, but also lacks too many features that say a lot about him. Ultimately, it reduces Blaster to being more of a generic background role rather than being someone I can use prominently most of the time.

It should be said though, that Blaster is a good looking toy, and works well enough apart from his group. His sculpt is very asymmetrical and a little random looking, but I appreciate the sci-fi aesthetic they were going for with this one. He always reminds me of this corny illustration of a “future soldier” from a 1990 DoD video documenting the Advanced Combat Rifle program. Because of this, I’ve always associated Blaster as being a guy who mainly does demo-videos of suspect military designs that will never see the light of day.

One thing Blaster really has over most of his BF2000 buddies, is his color-scheme. He’s got a fairly unique deco and camo-pattern which looks very nice on the figure. There’s also a good amount of paint applications here, which make Blaster look very detailed. While I very much dislike his asymmetrical gloves and those weird ringlet things, it does look more detailed with the extra paint there, so the detail makes up for the weaker parts of the sculpt. The only real gripe I have, is that his elbows appear to be clothed, but are cast in flesh-tone, oddly.

His accessories consisted of a mask and a gun. The mask is usually long-gone with these, as was the case with the one I got in a lot years ago. It’s a very non-essential part though, and he’s rarely depicted with it. As for the gun, I’d really love to know what happened over at Hasbro when they designed the BF2000 weapons. It’s a very terrible, blocky sculpt that the figure can barely hold. Most of the BF2000 had terrible guns like this, and it’s a noticeable step down from quality featured among most of his contemporaries.

Blaster’s are common, and even when complete barely top $15. If you dig around, you can probably still get one cheaper, and he’s very common in lots. In the crazy world of modern Joe pricing, he’s pretty cheap, but that probably just underscores how ambivalent the GI Joe fandom is to this group as a whole.

1987 Blaster Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

3D Joes

1992 Parasite

Posted on June 15, 2021 by mwnekoman

1992 Parasite

90‘s GI Joe vehicles were often not on the same level of quality as 90‘s GI Joe figures, at least in my opinion. Certain vehicle options were quite poor, or questionably designed in a way you never saw from the vehicles we got in the 80‘s. One very underrated gem amidst all of this however, is the Cobra Parasite. It’s a simple vehicle, but it’s nicely sized and has a ton of play value, enough that’s hard to believe it shares a release year with the RAT, at the very least.

The Cobra Parasite is basically a Cobra APC, and it does a good job of being a go-to party wagon for your 90‘s Cobras. It fills a similar role to the HISS II, and in comparison to that vehicle, the Parasite feels far more basic and simple. However, it overall does the job a lot better, as while it lacks the fancy railing and more detailed construction, it makes up for it by featuring a more spacious troop bay, which can carry 6 figures as opposed to the HISS II’s 4.

One little gimmick that’s often ignored is the top-mounted catapult. I really hate this part of the vehicle, so I can see why it’s usually given no attention. It works in the same way as the Incinerator’s catapult, though oddly enough I don’t think they really share any tooling. The worst thing about it is that it looks completely tacked on, and just detracts from the vehicle’s overall shape, which is quite pleasing otherwise.

The Parasite has an interesting look that I feel is pretty well in line with a lot of Cobra vehicle designs. It has a very angular geometry that fits in nicely with any of the HISS tanks, or other boxy ground vehicles like the Maggot. One flaw that might irk a good number of folks is that the driver is totally exposed in the front turret. It’s a little goofy, but it’s also in line with most other prominent Cobra vehicles, which typically provide their pilots little in the way of protection.

Fun-fact, did you know the wheels on the Parasite are shared with at least two other vehicles? Both the Hammerhead and the Blockbuster use the same wheels as the Parasite. It’s probably another way Hasbro was cheaping out at the time, but it’s actually kind of interesting since I don’t think I’ve ever seen too many people notice this.

The worst thing about the Parasite is by far it’s colors. They’re not only bright, they’re an obnoxious mixture of orange and purple, which clashes with almost everything. It would look a lot better even if it were just solid purple, but the orange is really hard to take seriously whenever you see it. A lot of GI Joe fans have breathed life into this vehicle by giving it a quick coat of paint, which can really show how much potential this vehicle has (see the links below). Sadly, Hasbro never brought this vehicle back in any way, and a repaint in the 2000’s could’ve been pretty popular if they did it right.

The price that Parasites go for now shows almost no consistency, and seems like another indicator of the current collecting bubble. Every now and then, a Parasite will hit some absolutely stupid price, like $40. Most of the time, they go between $10 and $25, which is already a pretty wide price range. Before the era of the COVID collector, these routinely went for dirt, and it was easy to get a complete one for no more than $15. It’s a very common vehicle and I think it’ll return to the $15 price tag before too long.

1992 Parasite Links:

Custom by Scrapiron-Scavanger

1983 Clutch

Posted on June 7, 2021 by mwnekoman

1983 Clutch

For most of my collecting years, I’ve typically ignored a lot of the ‘82/’83 First Thirteen Joes. I see the characters as being an integral part of the GI Joe universe, though at the same time, most of those toys leave something to be desired relative to the prices they maintain. 39 years ago, I think most of these were a lot more tolerable. For me though, it’s a little hard to justify ‘83 Hawk for example, when ‘86 Hawk is a nicer alternative, that’s a heck of a lot cheaper. Clutch, doesn’t fall into this dynamic quite as much.

Of the 1982 cast, certain figures had a little more individuality than others. Clutch happens to be one of those figures, as he has a unique torso, and only had to share his head with Breaker and Rock&Roll. It doesn’t put him in quite the same position as Stalker, or maybe even Snake Eyes, but he is a lot stronger than Short-Fuze, or Grand Slam. Even the reused head seems more forgivable, as beards tend to obscure your facial shape, which kind of makes people in real-life with full beards look more generic.

Of course, I think what makes Clutch for virtually everyone is his appearance in the Marvel comics. I didn’t particularly care for the character until I read the first Marvel issues sometime around ‘08. He stood out to me as one of the more fun and vibrant characters in those early issues, and it solidified my interest in his figures a lot more. Prior to that, I knew GI Joe through Sunbow reruns and the ’87 movie, where most of the ’82 cast plays almost no role.

Of course, most of the Clutch toys out there are relatively blase. Not a lot of bad ones, just not a lot of good ones, either. Besides this toy and it’s ‘84 recolor, there’s a Mega Marines figure who looks nothing like Clutch, a very mediocre Spy Troops figure, a comic-pack figure with anemic skin and a pea-head, a better looking and more expensive convention figure, and then a few post-25th releases of the character. Compared to the other attempts, the 25th and POC figures aren’t so bad really, but they’ll never look right with an o-ring collection, leaving this figure and the ‘84 release as the only decent representations of Clutch.

V1 Clutch is a fairly good looking figure. The unique torso is nice and leaves a strong impression at time when half of the figures on shelves had Grunt’s torso. The head is a fine sculpt as well, and didn’t age as poorly compared to later figures in the same way that Hawk and Grunt’s ugly mugs did. For a guy who’s just meant to sit in a jeep all day, there’s a surprising amount of care that was put into him.

His only accessory is a helmet, which isn’t of much detriment to him. It’s the same generic piece used on him and almost every other ‘82 Joe, but the toy was designed for the helmet and it looks good on him. I have always sort of wished there were some more pistols from this point in the line, as the Joes were fairly lacking in sidearm options in these first few years. The best you can give him is Snake Eye’s uzi or Mutt’s MAC-10, but there’s not a really good M1911 or anything like that.

Getting a good Clutch is surprisingly not too hard. At the current market’s prices, you can get a complete Clutch with a passable VAMP for $40 if you look around. A lot of Clutches sell for around $30, but he should really be worth less than that, especially when you consider that ones with the VAMP don’t go for much more. Also worth noting, that I’ve seen at least a couple of Clutches show up with swivel-arms, and fat crotches, implying that some people are passing off poorly pieced together frakenstiens of the ‘82 and ‘83 figure, as a legit example of either one.

1983 Clutch Links:

2005 Serpentor

Posted on June 1, 2021 by mwnekoman

2005 Serpentor

The 2000‘s comic packs did a lot more wrong than they did right, but that was not always the case, such as with the #49 set. The reason this set’s so nice, is because you got arguably the best o-ring Firefly, and excellent update to Serpentor, and a hastily degrading Scrap-Iron who’s easy enough to sit aside.

I’m sort of ambivalent to Serpentor as a character. He’s unnecessary as a concept, and as I feel GI Joe relies so heavily on Cobra Commander as a central character in the plot, it’s a bad idea to try and replace him. Regardless, both the cartoon and the comics tried pretty hard to make the character appealing, so I have some interest in him for that. The Arise Serpentor, Arise mini-series was one of the more fun Sunbow storylines, likewise, I associate him a lot with the Cobra Civil War from the comics, which was another highlight. Put another way, the character is corny and irritating, but also a decent plot device you can associate with some of GI Joe’s better stories.

Unlike many of his comic portrayals, this Serpentor comes in bright shades of green and yellow, with yellow paint making up a lot of his details. Like with many comic-pack figures, he features a new head with a scowling face. I dislike how small it is, but it looks alright with his helmet on. The head can be put aside, and it leaves you with a fun, brightly colored repaint. The end result is a figure that retains the overall look of Serpentor while still providing something new and interesting, which is exactly what this figure needed to be.

For me and likely others too, one of the biggest appeals of this figure is that it’s one of the few Serpentor figures that’s decently easy to get and keep in good shape. The original ‘86 Serpentor has the infamous gold-plastic-syndrome plastic, which means the figure is overly fragile and virtually a ticking time-bomb, especially now that most of them are about 35-years old. The only other release of the character before the ME stuff was the ‘02 ARAHC repaint, which is virtually an unreleased figure. And then there’s this one, which was available for years with unsold overstock of these sets, available at or below retail price. Essentially, this one wins by default.

On that note, it’s sort of weird there isn’t more Serpentor toys. Even after the shift to 25th Anniversary style construction, there was two haphazard attempts at the character, before he was to be put away once again. He’s iconic enough that you’d think he’d be around a little more often, but alas, such is not the case. Joe fans rarely even seem to complain about his absence, which mildly gives me the impression there’s still more disdain for this character than there is fondness.

As for his parts, you get about everything you could hope for. Included is his cowl/backpack, a removable helmet, his tiny little knife, and a nice yellow cape. Something extra to make him a bit more interesting would’ve been nice, but I guess you get that in the form of the helmet. He’s really a figure where all of his parts are unique to him and can’t be switched with anything else, lest you worsen the figure’s look. With that in mind, it’s nice he’s one of the few vintage sculpts to retain most of his original parts.

For the longest time, this whole set Serpentor was included in was cheap and common. I got mine sealed, years after the fact from Amazon for something like $10, which was probably stock from when they managed online sales for TRU. Right now, anything can for random and absurd prices, but generally this set’s never been worth more than $30, sealed. With the current state of both Joe prices and inflation, that’s still a pretty good price for what you get.