Monthly Archives: November 2021

1993 Mace

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1993 Mace

The 1993 Joe line really isn’t for everyone. In fact, this is probably the point where overall, the line was going down in quality and cheaping out on things where possible (generic weapons, repaint figures). Still, there’s an esoteric appeal to many of the figures from this year, Mace is a pretty good example of that.

Because he’s such a seldom seen character, I tend to forget his specialty is as an undercover operative. Technically, that means he should be hanging out with Headhunters and Cobras most of the time, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen him used that way. My general tendency is to give him a gun and pose him standing near a cardboard building, but if I had paid more attention, I might have done some cooler things with him sooner. Too bad I’ll probably forget about him again as soon as I’m done writing this.

Mace is a pretty decent looking figure. He’s got a unique looking head and his design is overall, fairly subdued for a figure from ‘93. The most egregious thing about him is the size of his torso, which is huge. I’d go as far as to say he’s comparable in size to Road Pig, which sort of makes him look out of place, even among his contemporaries. Other than that, he’s a little boring for not having a lot going on, but there’s enough detail there to make him an okay background guy.

His parts are pretty terrible. Included is an EM-2 rifle from Ambush, a pistol from Updraft, an SMG from ‘92 Shockwave, and ‘91 Low-Light’s knife, along with the helmet and launcher combo from Muskrat, also released in 1993. The first thing that catches my attention here is that launcher… It’s a missile launcher he wears on his head! It’s silly enough to be humorous, but it’s still terrible. All of his weapons are cast in yellow plastic, which renders an okay selection of parts somewhat useless. It’s a pretty good match for BAT yellow though, so if you wanted, one or two of these guns might look okay with an ‘86 BAT.

It’s worth mentioning that Mace was originally to be a part of the DEF line, and there are rare carded examples to prove this. The figure was not changed at any point to my knowledge, just the packaging when Hasbro canned the DEF line. I had always guessed they’d have had different parts or something, but to my surprise, the figures were released as intended: just the packaging was changed.

A complete Mace runs around $15, which seems like a little much for him, but it is what it is. People are more willing in general to pay a premium now for complete 90‘s figures, and because he does come with several parts, complete figures will go for a little more in general. Of course, if you hate the yellow parts or just want one for a custom, individual figures can be had for around $5.

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1993 Mace Links:

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

Joe A Day

Half the Battle

1988 Voltar

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1988 Voltar

Among all of the non-Cobra entities GI Joe has to deal with, the Iron Grenadiers are easily my favorite Cobra alternative. Most of their figures weren’t perfect, but as villains, they make a lot of sense and have an interesting esthetic. Voltar’s a good example of this, as he’s very much not perfect, but also a cool little figure in some other ways, that does a lot of things I like.

Voltar was originally part of my brother’s collection, but was one his odd figures that captivated me a lot. I think it’s because he had several things I liked going on, which included: A robotic monocle-helmet, gold, and evil facial hair. He wasn’t enough of an evil cyborg to outclass Vapor, but he fell into his role as a general. At this point in my childhood, he had Power Rangers style battles with Ninja Force Bushido and the ‘92 Eel (who was a good guy, to me).

My fascination with Voltar didn’t end there though, and I continued to like this figure in particular, even into my teenage years when 25th Anniversary was my collecting focus. I really wanted a Voltar to go with my Destro from that line, but that was at the point when acknowledging the GI Joe line after 1986 was a blaspheme. Mixing modern and vintage figures has always looked way too dumb to me, but I still think there was a few odd moments when 25th Iron Grenadier Destro hung out with Voltar and Metal Head just because I liked them that much.

All that sentiment aside, Voltar’s a nice figure in some ways, and a weak figure in others. There’s a ridge on top of Voltar’s helmet, that seems to nicely line up with the one on the normal Iron Grenadier: an underappreciated bit of continuity between them. I also think his head sculpt is nicely sharp, best illustrated by the prototype Long Range figure that reused his head, and looked much better without the oversized helmet (instead, Long Range got a new head that looks much worse). A few parts of his design leave something to be desired, around his knees and his gloves in particular, but other than that it’s a nice looking figure. I like that he uses gold and black to tie him into the Iron Grenadiers, but also introduces magenta as a color for the group.

I like his parts, but they’re definitely not for everyone. He included a backpack, SMG, and a condor. His SMG is pretty unpopular, frankly, I don’t like it much myself. However, when I see it, I just recall a lot of memories of using this gun in various colors as a kid. It looks powerful, and fit into hands pretty well too. The backpack’s okay, but kind of a mess. Then you have his pet bird, which is probably the strangest part of the figure. It really doesn’t tie into the character any at all, though I sometimes wonder if including a vulture was a play on his role as a general for a war-mongering arms dealer. Was there a quota for animal pack-ins? Either way, I’d use the birdy, but mine’s missing the feet.

Voltar was sold in an “Ultimate Enemies” pack with Muskrat. I don’t know why these two have each other as nemeses, but it seems like something fun and goofy enough to think about. While we’re on his role in the fiction, I really hate how Hama treated a lot of later characters like this in the comic. Sure, Raptor was dumb and nobody cared if he was tossed into a volcano and never seen again, but Voltar? He seemed like a fun and resourceful enough character to keep having some kind of role. But, he wasn’t Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Zartan, Scarlet or Baroness, so he had to get killed off in favor of continuing to over-expose the soap opera of five or six characters.

Voltar’s a cheap figure surprisingly enough, you can get a mint complete one for around $15 with some regularity. Given that I was losing bid-wars on broken Iron Grenadiers at the beginning of the year, I thought he’d be a tad pricier just as a member of the group. Obviously, most folks just don’t care about this guy a whole lot, though part of me wants to be hopeful it’s a sign prices are starting to soften again overall.

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1988 Voltar Links:

Forgotten Figures

Joe a Day

3D Joes

1991 Snake Eyes

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1991 Snake Eyes

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m not a huge Snake Eyes fan. I like him, but I don’t love him, and he plays a reduced role in my GI Joe world. In the 12 year run of the original ARAH line, there was 5 major Snake Eyes figures, and of them, this may have been the best design. I’m still pretty ambivalent to it overall though.

Truth be told, I don’t think most of the original Snake Eyes toys were all that good. You have the unpainted ‘82/’83 figure, with a soft head sculpt and relatively little going on. An okay ‘85 figure, which is more interesting than the first, but still has a kind of doofy sculpt. An ‘89 figure which comparatively was very nice with tons of accessories. Then you had one other figure, with the Ninja Force (and Shadow Ninja) figures that came out after the ‘91 figure, and those were easily the worst. It’s odd, given that this design is a little more obscure, but I think there’s a case to be made that this was the best Snake Eyes figure for a few reasons.

One thing I really like, is that this Snake Eyes returned him to his look as a commando, and downplayed the ninja thing a little more. I’m partial to Snake Eyes as an enigmatic commando, though most of the toys put more emphasis on the ninja angle. Parts of the toy still look overtly ninja-like, but we see a return to the the goggles and mask combo, which really ties him to the original sculpt.

I also really like that this is one of the only Snake Eyes toys that isn’t totally monochrome. While the figure still features mostly black as a base, details are shown with blue, light-gray and even a little red and silver for the mask. It’s not so overbearing that it screams “90‘s toy”, but breathes a lot of visual interest into Snake Eyes that the other versions of him sorely lack.

His parts are okay, but not the figure’s strong suit. He includes an orange, suppressed SMG, two orange swords, and a backpack missile-launcher with a grappling hook. In terms of gear, the older Snake Eyes figures beat this one by a longshot, though I think his gun looks nicely interesting despite the orange. The grappling hook was a creative way to incorporate a missile launcher, though I never was very hot on parts like this, even as a kid. Probably the nicest thing is that he includes two swords, allowing him to wield them akimbo, which is neat.

There’s a couple repaints of this mold, which are pretty good in their own right. You have the ‘04 Desert Patrol figure, and another one from ‘05 in the Heavy Assault Squad. The thing is though, is that most of these figures really don’t surpass this one in terms of coloring. They’re more reasonable looking, but this figure already was a nicely colored toy, and the repaints tend to diminish that, with generic color schemes that are far less eye-catching. I’m glad they exist, though the ‘91 release remains the best use of the mold to me.

For all of us GI Joe cheap-o collectors, this Snake Eyes is still nicely affordable. A mint complete figure tends to go for around $7, though do note that the second sword is often times missing. It’s not a perfect figure, but this might be my favorite Snake Eyes from ARAH. He presents a lot of qualities and is an all around solid figure of a mostly over-exposed character.

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1991 Snake Eyes Links:

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

Joe a Day

2003 C.A.T. II

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2003 C.A.T. II

In terms of Hasbro’s 2000‘s failures with GI Joe, few items strike me as more of a flop than the KB Toys exclusive Crimson Attack Tank. Mind you, I didn’t watch that go down live, as in 2003, I was a mere 9-years old. But the 2003 CAT had a long life at retail, and languished on the aftermarket long enough for me to pick one up cheaply as a teenager. Because of that, I probably like it better than I should.

You wouldn’t know it now, but used to, Big Bad Toy Store sold a decent amount of vintage items. Usually, their prices weren’t all that good, but every now and then something would set around for long enough that they’d put it on clearance. Occasionally, I’d pick up a decent deal from them this way, such as with the CAT II, which had been rotting at KB Toys stores a few years prior. I missed out on the best CAT II clearances there, mainly because I was only taken to KB Toys once a year. Though, if I had seen the CAT II at retail, I can guarantee I wouldn’t have bought it, because I was a germophobe as a child and refused any toys with open-packaging like the Spy Troops line had.

The CAT II was my introduction to the MOBAT mold, and I have to say, I’m glad I started with a CAT II and not the MOBAT. I’ve always enjoyed this vehicle for providing me with an interesting, realistic looking tank for my Cobra arsenal, that also stands out nicely in photos. However, outside of the niche the CAT II provides, the MOBAT sucks. It barely does anything, figures don’t fit on it, the sculpted details are clearly closer to 1/35 as opposed to 1/18… There’s barely anything good I can think to say about it. The only thing fun about this toy is sitting it in the background of photos.

With that said, I don’t hate the CAT II at all. It has all the problems of the MOBAT, but at the very least the CAT II is interesting and eye-catching, while the MOBAT is dull and easily replaced by several better GI Joe tanks (the Mauler). I do wish that I could fit a few more troops on the CAT, or at least a driver, but for $10 with a cool Crimson Guard Immortal repaint, I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth out of it. That said, I’ll probably never buy an ’85 CAT unless I find it near that price too.

Cobra having GI Joe weapons is a seedy and interesting idea that really appeals to me in the fiction. GI Joe’s top-secret and experimental weapons falling into enemy hands speaks not only to Cobra’s fighting capabilities, but also to the levels of Cobra’s entrenchment. Personally I’m not really familiar with the CAT’s comic appearances (if it even had any), but it speaks to the traitorous nature of the arms industry, and works well with a shady character like Destro slipping around. It gives me something to play around with in my head, which again, is more than I can say for the MOBAT.

Sadly, the days of cheap-as-free CATs are all but over. Now, it’s hard to find a CAT II, and when you do, it’s usually some nerd selling it as a buy-it-now for $100. It’s not worth that in any regard, but it’s not very often you’ll find one left to open pricing besides that. I honestly wonder how many of these were just tossed in the trash or ended up in landfills somewhere. There had to be thousands of these that never sold, and most collectors only wanted it for the CGI repaint. Personally, I think it’s a neat toy, but it’s only fun for a few dollars.

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