1993 Night Creeper Leader
I’ve been on a late-90‘s kick lately, which I think is supported by the fact that there’s simply so many figures from ‘93 and ‘94 to talk about. These are far from the best figures in the vintage line, but for me, they’re both nostalgic and interesting to take photos of, since even to this day, most of the figures are fairly underexposed. This Night Creeper Leader for example, has very few dio-photos.
When it comes to ninjas, I’m pretty picky. I tend to find that it’s easy for ninja plot lines in GI Joe to get out of hand, and when GI Joe gets away from being a military fantasy, that tends to kill my interest. For example, I got pretty bored with the comic issues that featured Jinx and Billy a lot, or issue 91, which stood out to me as being less interesting during a recent reading of the later Marvel issues.
Night Creepers however, really manage to blend things together and capture the cool and fantastic side of the GI Joe franchise. They’re ninjas, but they’re also modern looking assassins who are believably dangerous. It feels like to me they tie ninjas into the military fantasy of GI Joe somewhat better, rather than feeling so much like a martial arts fantasy spinoff of the brand, which is more of what you see with so many Arashikage ninjas.
The Night Creeper Leader reuses the lower half of the ‘90 Night Creeper, and has a new chest, head and arms. This tactic was pretty cheap of Hasbro, as at the point to where half of the toy was recycled as well as all of it’s parts, you weren’t getting very much that was new. At the same time, the designers did a good job with this limitation, and by reusing Night Creeper parts, the Night Creeper Leader has some nice and obvious continuity with his troops. The new parts of his sculpt look super muscular, and he has a pretty solid look for a ninja.
This figure came in orange with black details and tiger stripes, whereas the recolor from the next year used purple, yellow and gold. I’m usually surprised that the purple color scheme seems to be the more popular one, as this orange look is far more pleasing to my eyes. Of course, if you really hate 90‘s colors and want something fun to do, you can just swap the legs on this guy for a Night Creeper and then paint the torso details to match. I’ve thought about doing that, but then my Night Creeper Leader would lose some of his distinguishing features, and I think he needs them.
His accessories include the Night Creeper’s Crossbow, two ‘91 Snake Eyes swords, a Hydro Viper knife, Road Pig’s crossbow and shield, and lastly, the launcher from the ‘93 HEAT Viper, as well as it’s missile and a stand. What’s odd about this part runner, is that these parts were basically never reused, only reappearing for the ‘94 repaint as far as I can remember. I don’t really like the Road Pig parts very much, but it’s cool you can give them to Sonic Fighters Road Pig and they match perfectly. I also think it’s neat they brought back the Night Creeper crossbow, once again, for continuity, and they also gave him some nice swords you didn’t see to much (Not used in Ninja Force!). Interestingly, his crossbow has been retooled to feature a smaller grip.
The 1993 Night Creeper Leader is far from a rare or expensive figure, but like many 90‘s items, a tad bit of a pain to get complete. A 100% complete figure seems to go for about $20, and carded figures only fetch $25. Figures missing a part or two drop down to around $12. It’s a fun figure and even the current market’s failed to make him unaffordable, so I think these will be around for years to come.
There’s a black version of the NCL’s gear runner that was included in the mail-away 1993 Collector’s Kit.
Ah, I knew I was forgetting something! That runner is so hard to find, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a picture of it. I’d sure love to have those SE swords in black though.
I can’t get into this guy. While I tend to really like orange figures, something about the NCL bugs me. I suspect it’s leftover from the mid 1990’s when I’d find this guy relatively often and not buy him. As such, I don’t even really care for the 1994 version. But, he does look good in photos and is a solid pairing for the 1993 Slice, too.