2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper

Posted on November 29, 2022 by mwnekoman

2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper

Uncharacteristically for a 2000‘s GI Joe item, the entire Cobra Night Watch set is an example of a good idea with mostly good execution. In a time pretty long before TBM, Hasbro put out a set of Cobra Troopers and Officers in unique colors to represent a niche role. It’s something collectors wanted enough to make the aforementioned bootlegs extremely viable, though for whatever reason, Hasbro really only every touched the idea with this set.

Seventeen years later, I feel these are still holding up very well, even with so many excellent TBM Troopers floating around. That could always change, as the biceps on mine are a slightly different hue from the forearms. At the moment, that doesn’t bother me too much, though I’d absolutely hate for these to suddenly join the ranks of spontaneously discolored 2000‘s figures. Other than that bit of paranoia, they’re still a set of figures with great decos that maintain most of the classic Trooper sculpt, which is enough for me to like ‘em a lot.

In their original six-pack, you got four troopers and two different Squad Leaders, AKA: Cobra Officers. Of the Troopers, most were the same although one switches the normal Caucasian skin-tone for African, just like the other army-builder sets before this. Because I acquired my set piecemeal, I never got the black one since someone routinely bid-sniped me on every single auction I’ve ever tried for. I figured one day my patience would pay off and I’d complete my set, but instead everyone randomly became a toy collector and prices doubled.

Overall, the figures have a nice paint scheme. There’s camo on the pants and helmet, extra color on parts of the webgear, additional Cobra and Night Watch markings on their helmets and biceps. They did a good job of bringing out the little details on the sculpt, and it’s right at the perfect amount of paint before they’d start to look busy. If anything, the markings on the sides of the helmet might have been a bit too much, but it always feels a little unfair to fault a toy for having too much paint.

Like many of the Cobras from their time period, they feature V1 Roadblock’s arms and waist in lieu of the ‘83 Cobra’s. It makes them look a little chunky, but I don’t mind it much. The original lower arms were apparently still floating around, since Hasbro used them for the comic-pack Trooper, though this guy replaced them for Roadblock’s entire arm. Looking back, I sort of find it weird Hasbro switched the arms around for every Cobra Trooper they released back then (the Infantry Forces used Thunder’s arms), you’d think they would have settled on one replacement like they did with all the Viper repaints from back then.

Their accessories aren’t great, but they work. Included is the super generic ‘03 Overkill knife and Sand Viper’s G36 rifle, which was also the gun for nearly every other Joe and Cobra released between ‘03 and ‘05. Thanks to the pliable thumbs, the figures can at least use this gear, but it really does not do them justice. Then again, I suppose I should just give them credit for including guns at all, as Hasbro could’ve tossed in a bunch of ninja weapons like they did with the Shadow Guard.

Night Watch Troopers go between $10 and $20, with the accessories not playing a huge factor in that value. Even if you buy them in lots or the complete set, they tend to always average around $20 each, so when you occasionally get them for less, you’re doing good. These have always been pretty popular, so that’s not really surprising. $20 still feels like a lot for an ‘05 figure to me, but that’s in line with what a bootleg Cobra will cost you, so it makes sense.

2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper Links:

1983 Torpedo

Posted on November 21, 2022 by mwnekoman

1983 Torpedo

While I don’t have a mint example of many of the figures from this year, I’ve occasionally contemplated that ‘83 might be my favorite line-up of GI Joe figures: at least from a minimalist point of view. A lot of the figures from this year were pretty plain and seem less remembered compared to the cast of the next two years, but in ways, that’s also their charm. Very ordinary and down to earth renditions of various military specialties, similar to the ‘82 guys, but with more personality and a lot less green. Torpedo very much falls into that.

With that said, Torpedo is by far probably the most no-frills, plain-jane diver you’ll find in this toy line, but I like that about him. This theme was done several times over between the Eels, Wetsuit, Hydro Viper and later the Battle Corps renditions of both Wetsuit and Shipwreck; with all of those figures you see a nice progression of play features and complexity that make them a tad more exciting than V1 Torpedo. At the same time, all of them are more fiddly, and definitely more busy looking than this figure, which I think is what gives him some staying power in my eyes.

As suggested, Torpedo’s sculpt is very basic with not a lot going on, he’s a guy in a wetsuit and that’s about it. Like with most early Joe divers, his diving mask is sculpted on, although unlike with later attempts, he has no hoses or anything to connect his respirator to his backpack. It makes him a little less interesting for a guy with a limited role, but it’s not a deal breaker. All of the other divers with their respirators look a tad more sophisticated, though that comes at the cost of a small and easily lost piece of rubber to complete their look. I’m not sure if this is a case of less is more, but it does make him a little easier to handle.

Torpedo features some pretty tiny feet, which I suppose represents his form-fitting wetsuit and lack of big bulky boots that most Joes wear. It’s sort of nice in some ways, though in today’s world it’s translated into a lot of figures with broken heels. There simply isn’t enough plastic there to last over time, especially with the suction caused by inserting and removing his flippers (look out for that). Foot pegs are something collectors are having to avoid more with time, though you don’t really hear about such a thing with the Snow Serpent’s snow shoes, so I think Torpedo’s just a little more worse off than usual.

For parts, you get a backpack, harpoon gun, and two flippers, in line with the simple kits seen in these early Joe releases. He has everything he needs, which includes some kind of weapon at the very least. GI Joe seems to interpret that most divers have a standard issue spear or harpoon gun for underwater combat, though to my understanding, no SEAL uses a weapon like this. As for his backpack, I’d like to point out that this is one of the first and rare examples of a figure with a painted part. The oxygen tanks have a nice splash or orange-red on them, which is a very eye-catching detail.

This mold has a lot of repaint potential that never really got tapped into. Funskool released the mold in three different colors, gray, blueish-gray and yellow. He was then repainted with the Cobra Night Landing as a ‘97 release, and came out again in similar colors to the original as Wet-Down in ‘01. The GI Joe club floated the idea of using this mold for Cobra Divers IIRC, though that never manifested and they promptly dumped the classic sculpts. Bootleggers like Red Laser Army got some good usage of his head for various figures, though I don’t think the entire mold was ever used. Guess if I want some repaints of him, I’ll have to do it myself.

A complete ‘83 Torpedo is worth around $15, and is not very hard to find at all. Truth is, that’s a little more than I expected him to go for, but it seems like a reasonable amount for an early Joe. Although mint ones are pretty plentiful, he does seem like a figure that’s prone to damage in a variety of ways. He’s also horribly boring and pretty useless without his parts, so that likely has an effect on his value too.

1983 Torpedo Links:

1987 Sky Sweeper (Battle Force 2000)

Posted on November 14, 2022 by mwnekoman

1987 Sky Sweeper (Battle Force 2000)

The weird thing about the Battle Force 2000, is that half of their vehicles are as lame as you’d expect, and half are cooler than they honestly should be. A great example of the later can be found in the Sky Sweeper, which has become a go-to vehicle in my GI Joe armory, and it even has a life away from the Battle Force 2000, too.

I have a slight fascination with the Battle Force 2000, which definitely makes me confront how much my tastes have changed over the years. When I was a kid and up through my early collecting years, I hated this group more than Cobra-La. The pulpy sci-fi aesthetic just seemed so chintzy and out of place to me. I remember looking at them online with my brother, who explained to me that in the comic they all died except Dodger; which sounded a lot cooler than it really was. That changed at some point years ago, though I still don’t like them a lot.

All of the original Battle Force 2000 vehicles had a gimmick, where you could combine pieces from each to form the Future Fortress. I have to give it some credit as an example of where the line kept trying to do new things and innovate, but this was a horribly corny and greedy idea (you had to buy EVERY vehicle to assemble the set). It’s also crappy, in that certain vehicles were more compromised than others to include a Future Fortress piece: This Sky-Sweeper has only a small block on the back, which looks fine, though the Marauder for example, fared less well. Then again, I’m really not sure what the Marauder was supposed to be in the first place, so maybe that one was just a bad idea overall.

That aside, the Sky Sweeper is an excellent vehicle, and by far my favorite anti-air vehicle (I like it better than the Armadillo and the Asp!). It’s the perfect size, with a similar profile to the ‘83 HISS, just trading some height for a little extra width. The guns are large and look powerful, with two side guns and a turret in the back, plus four missiles. Thanks to it’s nice size, the vehicle is fairly roomy, and it’s easy to fit any driver you want (including bulky figures like Knockdown), and there’s foot-pegs for several more commando friends to hitch a ride. Overall, it delivers a lot of play value for it’s size, and that’s probably the vehicle’s strongest point.

If there’s one thing I don’t like about this vehicle, it’s the turret on the back. At a glance it looks pretty good, though almost all of my issues with this toy revolve around this turret. There’s nothing there to hold the gun up, which means most of the time it just flops around freely. It also lacks any sort of control sticks for a figure to hold onto, meaning you just have to play pretend back there. Usually you can find a way to reason out the turret with no controls, though here it’s a fairly glaring flaw.

A surprisingly nice detail here is the clear orange headlights above the canopy. It’s strange and unusual for an ARAH vehicle to feature something so nice, when most headlights prior and after were represented by stickers. You didn’t even see this detail make a comeback much until 25th Anniversary, when clear plastic lights were added to the VAMP mold and the Arctic HISS. I’m sort of left wondering if the BF2000 vehicles had some gang-molded parts, as it would make a little more sense if the Sky Sweeper’s lights were just an extra tacked onto the mold for the Vector’s canopies.

I’m pretty mixed on the Battle Force 2000‘s signature colors, which you can see represented on the Sky Sweeper. On the plus side, the silver, green and blue mixture is pleasing to the eye and sets them apart from the sea of olive GI Joe vehicles that were still being pumped out to that point. With that said, silver is not really a realistic color for a tank, so it mildly requires more suspension of disbelief than some of the fluorescent colors you’d have seen in the 90‘s. Assuming the mold was still around, I think it’s a shame the Sky Sweeper never got a repaint, as a green/beige one could’ve been interesting as a beefed up Armadillo.

Sky Sweepers tend to run around $20, sometimes more or less depending on shipping, but it’s usually somewhere around there. Sadly, finding a complete one does require a fair bit of hunting. The antenna, headlights, and one or all of the missiles can often be missing. Truthfully, it’s not hurt too bad by not having the antenna or the missiles, but the headlights looks amazing, and you definitely don’t want to miss those.

1987 Sky-Sweeper (Battle Force 2000) Links:

3D Joes

2004 Red Ninja Viper

Posted on November 8, 2022 by mwnekoman

2004 Red Ninja Viper

Most of the TRU exclusive 6-packs from ‘03 through ‘05 were invalidated by the Black Major. Many of these were and still are cool figures, though often flawed in enough ways that a few years of high quality bootlegs could easily replace them. Such is the case with the Red Ninja Viper, as although TBM’s Storm Shadow bootlegs have some quality issues too, these figures are probably even worse. I find novelty value in these figures still, so here’s some paragraphs on what that is.

I was not buying GI Joe toys in 2004, so I missed out on the initial run of this guy as well as all of the other Valor vs Venom releases. I didn’t get to go to Toys R” Us often as a kid, so I didn’t even know about these sets until some time around ‘05. Had items like this been more available to me, I probably would’ve bought them. Back then, I wanted GI Joe figures that looked familiar and somewhat subdued like these, and not the more goofy looking things they were pumping out in the retail line (Venomous Maximus, eww…). That’s not to say I think Hasbro would’ve been better off relying on then 20 year-old molds for the main line, though the direction and overall branding with Valor vs Venom was a mistake that cost them my interest in the line.

The Red Ninja Viper has some pretty snazzy colors. He’s very drab and muddy compared to Agentina’s Satan or TBM’s Red Ninja. I’m sure at the time I might’ve been upset he wasn’t brighter and didn’t blend better with my vintage ninjas, but now I have TBM’s figure, so I can enjoy this guy as something different. It appears he has the same paint masks as the Black Dragon Ninja who also comes included in his set. This picks out all of the mold’s important details and even paints his gauntlet and arm-bands a separate color, which is nice. Also featured in his paint job is some ARAHC-style wash or paint-wipes. I think the figure would’ve looked better with clean plastic, but it doesn’t kill it for me.

The real downfall of this figure is that the plastic quality is complete crap. When I acquired my first pair, one of the figures immediately crumbled at the shoulder. Apparently, these having poor quality plastic is a fairly well documented issue, and it definitely lowers them a lot now that TBM’s figures are floating around. I would probably still be army-building this guy right now, but knowing there’s a chance the figure will spontaneously crumble does a lot to point my interest elsewhere. Feeling them in hand, the plastic is shoddier than even something like ‘97 line, and it wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say these are some of the worst feeling figures I’ve ever touched.

For parts, he includes only the bow and arrow from ‘02 Scarlet, ‘93 Snake Eye’s sword and knife, and the curved sword from ‘92 Nunchuck. You couldn’t have found a worse part to give this figure if you tried with the bow and arrow. They’re parts meant for Scarlet’s crossbow, so they look dumb and the figure can’t even use them. A figure like this is hurt for not including the original Storm Shadow accessories, but almost anything else would’ve been better than this. The other parts are okay comparatively, though there’s something to be said for how badly out of place it looks for a figure from nearly the beginning of the line, to be paired with parts from the end.

Red Ninja Vipers seem to hit around $15, usually with some amount of their generic gear (it’s hard to say what a “complete” figure is, since there’s two identical figures in the Ninja Cobra Strike Team, with separate sets of parts). I like the colors on this figure enough that I’m still tempted for more, but the quality being this bad kills that notion for me. Spending that much money on a figure that could crumble just while handling it seems like a really bad idea, especially when TBM figures are out there as an alternative.

2004 Red Ninja Viper Links:

Forgotten Figures

Joe A Day

Half the Battle

The Viper Pit

Monthly Archives: November 2022

2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper

2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper

2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper Links:

1983 Torpedo

1983 Torpedo

1983 Torpedo Links:

1987 Sky Sweeper (Battle Force 2000)

1987 Sky Sweeper (Battle Force 2000)

1987 Sky-Sweeper (Battle Force 2000) Links:

2004 Red Ninja Viper

2004 Red Ninja Viper

2004 Red Ninja Viper Links: