2004 Quick Strike

Posted on March 27, 2023 by mwnekoman

2004 Quick Strike

New-Sculpt era vehicles often presented some interesting ideas, but fell flat on execution. That’s somewhat the case with the Valor vs. Venom Quick Strike, which is a nice looking and mildly fun vehicle, though flawed, in several aspects. Generally, these are flaws that could’ve been easily resolved with small design alterations that simply were not made, which makes me suppose the people designing these toys simply were not so invested.

In 2004, Hasbro cared about GI Joe enough to release more than a requisite AWE Striker and HISS Tank for a vehicle lineup. In fact, there were more than 20 vehicles released that year if I didn’t count wrong, which is fairly hard to imagine at this point. Unfortunately though, the 2000‘s were not the 80‘s, and what would’ve been a banging assortment in 1992 was muddled by standardized price-points, obtuse gimmicks and the lack of a creative play-pattern. With a little more wiggle-room, something like the Quick Strike could’ve been a nice successor to the Monster Blaster APC, but such is not the case.

The Quick Strike is a medium-size vehicle with a similar size and profile to the original HISS Tank. It has a maximum capacity of about 6 figures, which includes two in the front cabin, one in each turret, and one on each of the two foot-pegs on the rear of the vehicle (just magically standing there with nothing to feasibly hold onto). The anti-infantry gun pivots both left and right, and can be aimed up and down too. Meanwhile, the lift-up missile launcher is fixed in it’s position, and can’t be aimed at all. Two additional missiles for the launcher are stored at the very bottom of the vehicle in the back (which doesn’t seem very intuitive). It really doesn’t do that much of interest, but it’s also not a very big vehicle, so it’s a little forgivable.

The back of the box describes the Quick Strike as an “Armored Vehicle”, presumably because any designation more specific than that would impart a purpose this vehicle likely cannot achieve. Something I find odd about the vehicles from this era, are their often over-engineered gimmicks that serve questionable purposes, while somewhat failing at more basic things you’d want to do with a GI Joe vehicle. A missile launcher really could’ve been stuffed anywhere else on the vehicle, like hanging off the side or underneath the cockpit, but instead it’s smashed into the rear of the vehicle, where I really would’ve much rather had some extra seats or a computer station. Most of the vehicles from the period are like this, where mid-sized vehicles usually had some kind of towering cannon pop out to fire a missile in one direction, at the cost of virtually any other play feature.

A strong point of the Quick Strike is that it does look relatively good. The sculpt is decent in most places, and it has all the familiar tapestries of a classic GI Joe vehicle, including shovels, tow-rope, hammers, and various other tools strapped to the outside of the vehicle. Personally I think this vehicle is rather photogenic; it fills up the frame really well, and it looks decent to have figures posed around it. It’s simple look and camouflage paint job also help it look decent with older sculpts, in particular, I think it pairs up somewhat nicely with the DEF guys, who never really had a good ground vehicle.

Quick Strikes don’t appear to be as cheap or common as they should be, with complete examples floating between $40 and $50 when you find them. I got mine back in ‘19, and if I recall correctly I only paid around $20 for a MISB example, meaning prices have essentially doubled since then. It’s bizarre to me, since I really don’t think 2000‘s GI Joe has that much of a fan base, I certainly haven’t seen any large amount of individuals demanding iconic characters like Dr. Link Talbot be remade for Classified… So I really have no clue who’s behind the market for $50 Quick Strikes.

2004 Quick Strike Links:

Joe A Day

Generalsjoes

1987 Nemesis Enforcer

Posted on March 21, 2023 by mwnekoman

1987 Nemesis Enforcer

In some ways, I feel like you can’t have an opinion about Cobra-La that’s not an opinion about GI Joe: The Movie. Partly, I think that’s because these toys would have no reason to exist if not to be the movie’s new villains. So if you like the movie, you probably like Cobra-La. If you hate the movie, you probably hate Cobra-La and the Cobra-La Team 3-pack. For me, the movie is an absolute guilty pleasure, and I’m open Cobra-La because of that; the same thing is pretty much my opinion of Nemesis Enforcer.

As a design and concept, Nemesis Enforcer provided GI Joe with an interesting opportunity to do some very odd things. I feel like this something crucially missing from modern interpretations of the brand, as Nemesis Enforcer really has a lot more uniqueness and identity embedded in him than your run of the mill Ghost Clancy: Call of Honor-inspired commando toy. There’s a deeper imagination present here of the kind of enemies GI Joe might face, which in Nemesis Enforcer’s case, is an abominate and soulless creation of an ancient bio-mechanical society. It’s like something from a super market tabloid, and in it’s own way I find a great deal of interest in that.

Uniqueness aside, Nemesis Enforcer is not the most breathtaking figure I’ve laid eyes on. I like the Royal Guard a lot better, though Nemesis Enforcer is leaps and bounds better than Golobulus, if only for the fact that the lower half of the toy isn’t a green-turd. I feel like the figure suffers from the fact that the sculpting on his outfit is a little more vague, and at the same time, the details of his face don’t contrast very well. Speaking of his face, I think it’s neat they painted his eyes as a pair of eerie white dots as opposed to painting them normally, but again, it doesn’t show up very well.

Nemesis Enforcer takes the liberty of using some fairly unusual colors for a Cobra. 1987 was the year where purple became a Cobra color, but on Nemesis Enforcer, it’s more of a lavender shade, much lighter than the Techno Viper or the Hydro Viper from ‘88. It’s paired with red details and some tan/off-white, along with a few other colors for small details (silver on his arm spikes and white for his aforementioned beady-eyes). These colors accentuate him nicely, and give him the feeling of something a little bit older than his release year. The kitsch colors make me think of a comic-book villain from the 60‘s or early 70‘s (I guess Magneto fits that criteria).

His parts are very odd. He comes with no ordinary weapons, but instead a pair of backpacks representing the appendages he could spontaneously grow on his back, one that features a pair of bat wings, and another with a series of green tentacles. Both are made from a soft, rubbery plastic, which is pretty unique to this figure. It’s hard to justify a GI Joe with no real weapons, but as a kid I would’ve probably liked this a lot. I loved Guyver and characters that had blade-appendages on their arms, so he would’ve probably found some roles among the likes of Blanka. Likewise, these backpacks would’ve probably seen plenty of use with the Star Brigade. Makes me sort of sad the tentacles never saw a use again, using it as a parasitic growth on some random Cobra repaint would’ve been really cool.

A mint, complete Nemesis Enforcer is worth about $10, though ones with the filecard consistently hit $20. Relatively speaking that’s not too expensive, though as a maligned faction, Cobra-La has never been popular, which has shown through to the pricing of these figures for years. I find Cobra-La a lot of fun as some kind of novelty, and also because I liked the movie, so I’m glad figures like this one remain affordable when most Joes are not.

1987 Nemesis Enforcer Links:

1988 Storm Shadow

Posted on March 13, 2023 by mwnekoman

1988 Storm Shadow

Storm Shadow as a GI Joe is a concept I’m not so sure about. At this point, it seems to be something that’s been mostly forgotten about, which I find weird since Tommy was a good guy for more of ARAH than he was bad, but I suppose it goes to reinforce the notion that GI Joe died after 1987. Regardless, this was a pretty fun toy, and it also completely changed the character of Storm Shadow from it’s release to the line’s cancellation in ‘94.

Despite being a year of toys I like a lot, 1988 has a lot of random guys, and not quite as many surefire winners like you had seen in years prior. From that end, you can see some of Hasbro’s motivations for bringing Storm Shadow back with a new figure, since from what I understand of the old stories, the original was one of the first ‘84 guys to sell out anywhere you could find Joes. Plus, your only other big-shots were probably Road Pig, Iron Grenadier Destro and Sgt. Slaughter, two of which were vehicle pack-ins. To a mild extent, it makes Strom Shadow the poster boy for 1988, which surprises me, as it’s not something I normally think about.

I don’t think this is my favorite Storm Shadow sculpt overall. The hooded design does a nice job of differentiating this figure from the original, while maintaining the look of a ninja, though I find the sculpt leaves something to be desired. It’s detailed, and the proportions are alright, though speaking of the later I tend to find that the way the figure goes from baggy sculpted pieces to thin sculpted pieces to be a little jarring. It’s not necessarily wrong, just awkward by sight and feel, like around his shin guards, or the bagginess of his perpetually lifted sleeves. On his own, it’s a fairly good ninja toy, but when compared to the standard set by the ‘84 Storm Shadow sculpt, I don’t think it’s quite as nice.

While plenty of details go without paint to show them, I think the deco is one of this figure’s stronger elements. You have the distinctive Tetris-block cammo that premiered in ‘88 and saw seldom use afterwards. We probably lost a few nice paint masks for the cammo, but I like it, and the figure seems a little more memorable for having it. You also have the Arashikage clan tattoo featured prominently on Storm Shadow’s right arm, which I think is probably the most substantial detail featured on the figure. Without that one detail, I think this would be a much more boring figure, but it’s presence is cool and eye-catching, especially since the rest of his colors are a fairly monotonous mixture of white and gray.

Storm Shadow includes a red backpack and sword, a black claw and compound bow. Like a lot of ‘88 figures in my collection, I have the misfortune of not having completed this guy years ago when prices were cheap. Fortunately in this figure’s case, his parts were reused quite a bit in the following years, so the claw and bow are parts I have several other copies of. The bow is a bit hard for figures to hold, so I don’t like it too much, but both parts look alright. The backpack is one of those with hooks for sliding his sword into; this was a common gimmick in ARAH, though one I’m also not so keen on. To me, it seems like the clips had too much of a tendency to stress the sword or break off, which limits them to just looking odd on the backpack. I think these parts being bright red looks a little weird too, but there again, this figure didn’t have a lot of color, so that’s probably the motivation for that.

After it’s use here in the US, the mold went to Brazil and later Funskool who used it for very similar releases. Then the mold was recalled by Hasbro who put it to use for a pair of repaints, a boring and uninspired green figure in the ’04 Ninja Cobra Strike Team set, and a Red Ninja Viper included in a comic-pack. Both of the later repaints are fairly mediocre, and I think their boring decos make the mold seem a lot worse. The lack of a satisfying repaint from this mold makes him one I’d be tempted to buy some extras of for customs, but that might require more energy than I’m willing to put in, given this release is already good enough.

Mint complete examples of ‘88 Storm Shadow go for around $20, though I notice the figure is both fairly common and also one that frequently goes well above that price, and slightly below it too. To me, that means the figure is probably worth less than $20, but there’s still some holdover pricing from the seller’s market of the past few years. While it’s not my favorite version of Storm Shadow, nor one I’ve even used in pictures until just the past year or so, it’s still a very solid toy, so I think the pricing is about right for it.

1988 Storm Shadow Links:

1989 Darklon

Posted on March 6, 2023 by mwnekoman

1989 Darklon

Darklon’s an interesting figure to me, particularly for the fact that he’s one of those figures that’s really grown on me since I got him. Of course, like half of the Iron Grenadiers he’s fairly flawed, but the character was pretty cool, and if any classic Cobras needed replacing in the 80‘s, it was probably Destro more so than Cobra Commander.

Overall, Darklon’s kind of a tough sell. His first problem is that he’s tied to a vehicle, Darklon’s Evader. I believe I’m more open than most people to oddball GI Joe vehicles, though the Evader is something I’m fairly certain I’ll never own unless it’s by pure chance. Usually, when Hasbro packed an important character with a small vehicle, the character was some kind of big badass, and the vehicle was more like an oversized accessory (See Zartan, Serpentor, Sgt. Slaughter, ect.). In Darklon’s case, he’s kind of an oddball in bell-pepper colors, who comes with a motorbike(?) too embarrassing for a Funskool Batman figure to use. Maybe in a different context it wouldn’t have seemed so strange to me.

The main appeal of Darklon is his albeit underdeveloped character, which mainly only existed for a brief tenure in the Marvel comics. That’s one way of saying the toy really isn’t that good, as without some interest in his role in the GI Joe world, this wouldn’t be a figure much worth paying attention to. Still, I associate him with some pretty cool issues and moments in the comics, such as the debut of the Python Patrol. He did more than Voltar anyways.

Now normally in a comic-book story line, having a popular character whose getting worn-out replaced by his family member who pretty much does all of the same things (Just more evil!), is a pretty shabby way of trying to get repeated interest and sales, but with Destro and Darklon, there’s actually a pretty good case for it. By this point in the comics, a lot of the older Cobra’s were played out and over-exposed. Destro especially, saw his character melt and go from being a ruthless, terrorist arms-dealer, to being some kind of half sympathetic anti-hero, dedicated to Baroness, and nice enough to smooth over her life-long hatred of Snake Eyes! I think it would have been better if a character like Darklon had played a bigger role after his initial appearance, especially since I do think he was genuinely cool for the few scenes he had.

Putting his character aside, Darklon’s a guy who wears an outfit so random and asymmetrical it looks like something that’d be made by an AI-art generator. Asymmetry is a big theme in the Iron Grenadier aesthetic, so I understand it’s role here, but Darklon still might look just a little too random. Probably the most strange detail is the strap of tiny gold grenades on his right knee, which is among the dumbest grenade-oriented details I’ve seen on a GI Joe toy. Though, in Darklon’s defense, maybe they’re just decorations.

Everything else is just kind of okay for him. I like his head, the mask-sculpt especially looks pretty neat; the texturing on his shirt is nice too. Nothing special, but a good enough figure to represent a gaudy European warlord. In that context, even his wack-o colors aren’t so bad, but the Bronze Bombers repaint into Crazeblaze is much better. That would be my go-to Darklon, but mine’s missing his arms, so I still have to fix that at some point.

Despite being a late-era vehicle driver, Darklon gets the privilege of having a gun. It’s a terrible kind of weapon that looks more like an air-soft or a Nerf gun, so I’ve yet to bother with one. My personal replacement for this is the black version of Skydive’s pistol, also included with Battle Corps Leatherneck. It has a bulky, sci-fi look to it, which I think suits him pretty well.

To my Surprise, mint complete Darklon’s fetch a steady $15. Ones missing the gun go for about half of that, and ones sold with the Evader trend towards $30. Not the worst price, but more than I’d have expected for figure that’s both obscure and somewhat unremarkable. I like him and he brings value to my collection, so I suppose others just see him that way as well.