1988 Spearhead & Max

Posted on September 25, 2023 by mwnekoman

1988 Spearhead & Max

I’ve not put enough time lately into writing and taking photos. Part of that is because I’ve been going through tubs of childhood toys looking for lost vehicle parts, and usually finding everything except the one I’ve been looking for. In spite of that, I needed a Joe who I have at least two photos of this week to post about. Looking through my options, there’s quite a few figures that inspire some thought on my part, but I want to take a little more care while having fun with them; I needed someone to essentially be filler. In a lot of ways, that kind of sums up my feelings on Spearhead & Max.

So yeah, of the 1988 single-cards, Spearhead & Max is probably my least favorite release. To me, everything about him feels obligatory, forced and somewhat lackluster. Starting with his character, his filecard is just WEIRD:

Spearhead was the youngest and most successful insurance salesman in the Pacific North West. It was said that he could sell a term policy to a dead cow. Everybody like him, trusted him, and bought more insurance from him than they could afford. Spearhead denies that guilt was a factor in his decision to join the army—he simply felt that somebody had to do it.
“Some guys, they’re gonna lead a combat assault, right? They jump up and holler, ‘Follow me!’ and charge full tilt at a bunker—halfway there, they look back, and no one’s behind them! Of course not. The guy was a jerk. Spearhead could jump face first into a vat of rabid hyenas and fifteen guys would follow him. No hesitation. They’d jump SMILING. And of course, Spearhead’s mad cat, Max, is always a source of inspiration.”

He’s supposed to be really charismatic I guess? The text doesn’t really say anything interesting about him. It feels like some kind of joke I’m not getting, which may be the case, but even then his character just feels phoned-in. His secondary specialty is finance… Which I guess is unique, anyway.

The sculpt on this figure doesn’t do very much for me. His proportions feel really out of place and distinctly of lower quality than every other sculpt from ‘88. His head’s on the smaller end, his torso is super bulky, then his legs are really skinny looking. Kind of a shame he looks like a stern and cool trooper on the cart art, but the figure just has this ho-hum random dude kind of look to him.

The colors don’t really do him any favors, either. This entire year of figures was hurt by the more sparse paint applications, but among the few colors you’ll find on Spearhead is a heaping helping of orange camouflage. My current mentality for GI Joe is that if colors look good, then it’s enough reason to have them on a fantasy commando toy. With a similar looking figure, ‘92 Duke, he uses bright red for highlights, and it looks great against his light tan. A peachy tan with orange is both bright, and rather unappealing to me visually.

For accessories, you get his helmet, a rifle, sword, backpack and of course Max, his bobcat. The inclusion of a bobcat always came across to me as if they had a checklist of features to have in every year, and “good guy with pet” was one of them. His rifle looks like crap. For years I’ve had this figure and completely forgot I never bothered with getting his real gun, but I have other copies of the sculpt; I’m familiar enough with it to know I don’t really need it. It’s so cartoonish looking, why is the tip of the barrel so huge? It looks like some kind of weird suppressor. Then it has two magazines too: why? They look like different kinds of ammunition, but I can’t figure out what the second feed would be for. The only mildly cool thing is it has a strap, which adds a bit of play value. His sword is another mystery, it’s oddly kind of ornate like some sort of ethnic weapon.

A mint complete Spearhead & Max runs a solid $15, but even one imperfection often drops him down to being $6. He’s always been on the cheaper end, and because of that he does tend to make a fun addition to a turret, or just as buddy to go with someone cool like Shockwave or Repeater. All things considered, I don’t hate Spearhead (& Max), I just don’t really have any reason to like him, either.

1988 Spearhead & Max Links:

1987 Techno-Viper

Posted on September 18, 2023 by mwnekoman

1987 Techno Viper

At a glance, I would’ve one time told you that the worst year of ARAH figures was 1987. It’s a very unique line-up of toys, as in the course of about three years you go from mildly realistic contemporary military costumes in 1985, futuristic sci-fi designs for 1986, and then you wind up on 1987, which mixes pulp fiction with super-villains. It’s an unappealing transition, but even among the wacky designs, there’s hardly a figure from ‘87 that’s truly bad (And that one figure is probably Golobulus.). A few figures are even stand-out classics, like Falcon and Outback; for the Cobras, it’s easily the Techno-Viper.

Besides that I like the figure a lot, I realize I don’t have many substantial observations to make about the Techno-Viper. I think part of that’s because I’m a little nostalgic for this figure, which is something I don’t often feel about GI Joes, or much of anything. This was one of the first Joes I bought when I got into collecting vintage stuff when I was around 15, along with V1 Major Bludd, a Lamprey and a Stinger Driver. I think that’s a bit of an odd scenario, since I know most of you didn’t buy toys as a teenager, and likewise, I think people are usually more nostalgic for their early childhood. For me though, it was a good time: toys were cheap, and I didn’t have much better to do than daydream about plastic terrorists from the Cold War, and occasionally take some odd photos of them while learning how to do that. I still sometimes think about that mish-mash selection of Cobras going on missions, only for the fact that I got them at roughly the same time.

There’s a lot going on with the Techno-Viper that makes him such a cool figure. I think first and foremost the idea is a lot of fun. They’re basically combat engineers and maybe a little more, which makes them versatile characters you can always pepper in to a few scenarios. As the only generic, single-carded Cobra in his year, having a guy who mostly only fills a support role seems a little tame, but he works as a nice replacement for the Tele-Viper who would’ve been discontinued by this point, and he’s a little more action-oriented than that figure too.

Another thing they have going for them is looks: The Techno-Viper is one of the most visually appealing Cobras ever created. The purple and dark-purple colors are really eye-catching, and do nicely to compliment Dr. Mindbender. It’s a really well painted figure, and all of the major details and elements present on the sculpt are highlighted with a few colors of paint. The only thing about the sculpt I’ve never been to keen on his his helmet: it’s a little soft looking and more vaguely shaped than what you see on his card art, the size and paint on it are still very good though.

Finally, his accessories are absolute winners. He includes a hydraulic clamp (usually called a claw, but I think the card calls it a clamp), a sledgehammer, a wrench, a plasma rifle, a backpack and two hoses that hookup his tools to his backpack. There’s a lot of fun that could be had posing him with his various tools, and it’s very nice they have thin handles that let him hold them really easily. Without his parts, this is still a very fun figure with some uses, but these accessories are really one of the main factors that make him stand out.

V1 Techno Vipers remain relatively affordable figures most of the time. In general you can get a good one, mint and complete for around $13; BiN’s commonly go for around $20. This figure is especially prone to elbow cracks, so you might want to look out for that when buying one. Oddly, I’ve noticed prices can be really inconsistent on some of these, where sometimes figures with a lot of damage will outprice relatively mint examples. In particular, the elbow cracks don’t seem to stop people from randomly paying way more for a figure.

1987 Techno Viper Links:

1993 Dino Hunters Low-Light

Posted on September 11, 2023 by mwnekoman

1993 Dino Hunters Low-Light

Dinosaurs were to the nineties what ninjas were to the eighties. This is mostly caused by Jurassic Park, and in short order you saw Hasbro branch out and make an exclusive set of figures for Toys R” Us: GI Joe’s Dino Hunters. This was to become a new format of GI Joe releases, where you’d get two repaints and a vehicle as some kind of team, it would’ve resurfaced in 1995 with the Arctic Assault set, but instead that was canceled for Sgt. Savage, a toy line well remembered for it’s high-quality and selling out so fast you’d never dream of seeing them stacked to the ceiling at Toy Liquidators…

Anyways, this isn’t April Fools, though I did use that occasion once to remark on the hilariously bad dinosaur included with this set. Of the four items included, it’s easily the worst, but the Dino-Hunter (that’s the vehicle, it could use a better name) and Low-Light might be tied for the best items in the set. At times, the fluorescent yellow has made me wince at this figure a bit, but past that it’s a really nice repaint, and I like it a lot better than Low-Light V3 (who he’s a repaint of) in a few ways. I know a lot of people consider 1991 Low-Light an underrated figure. I see a lot of that release’s quality and I do like it, but he’s still probably my least favorite Low-Light figure. His appearance just changed so much form his ‘86 design that I could never really recognize it as Low-Light.

Dino Hunters Low-Light on the other hand has a really nice color-scheme and deco. Besides the fluorescent yellow (which does compliment his vehicle really well), Low-Light swaps a lot of the black he had featured on his pants for a nice olive green tone similar to what you’d see on plenty of older Joes, the Tiger Force figures especially. He also has a more emerald green color on his undershirt, so the figure has a nice range of complimenting colors, and it does nicely to make the neon seem less jarring (Compare this to Dino-Hunters Ambush’s orange, which seems way more out of place.).

My favorite painted detail on the figure though, would probably be his eye-brows. His eyebrows are black, not blonde like the rest of his hair. It’s a little touch of continuity between the figures, which implies the black-hair of the ‘91 figure is his natural color, while the original figure and this one show him with bleached hair. It’s one of those little things that you wouldn’t have thought anyone would’ve cared enough to do, given this is a random exclusive repaint at the tail-end of the dying toy line.

For accessories, you get ‘91 Low-Light’s customized uzi and helmet with visor, Airwave’s rifle, ‘91 Mercer’s smaller gun, Skydive’s pistol, and Hit & Run’s knife, and a figure stand. Right down to the color, most of these parts look exactly the same as ‘93 Leatherneck’s. His helmet’s visor is not the same as ‘91 Low-Light’s, it has no paint and is entirely black. Despite that, nearly every single “Dino-Hunters” Low-Light helmet you see for sale is just the common retail release. The uzi is also different, the sculpt was simplified and the stock no longer has hollow sections in the middle (Again, the same as Leatherneck.)

The last complete Dino Hunteres Low-Light sold for a whopping $158, which actually out prices some desirable Night Force figures. I find this grating, as this figure isn’t that rare (there’s always at least a few for sale), and while it’s nice, it’s not $158 nice. Also, the one I have pictured here isn’t mine, it my brother’s that he loans me for photos. So I don’t really have this figure in my own collection. I’d like my own, but there’s no way I’d ever pay that much for it, so bleh.

1993 Dino Hunters Low-Light Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

3D Joes

Funskool Scrap-Iron

Posted on September 4, 2023 by mwnekoman

Funskool Scrap-Iron

Scrap-Iron’s always been a favorite character of mine, which I mostly attribute to this Funskool figure I got cheaply early in my collecting years. As a child I was somewhat of a germaphobe, and going into my early teenage years I retained this feature; which closed a lot of doors when it comes to an interest in old toys. For a brief window I only bought MOSC figures, which prompted me to buy more Funskool items than I probably would have otherwise (at the time, I had a very scathing opinion on them). In hindsight this was very good, but I’ve wondered if it hadn’t been for that, if Scrap-iron might’ve been overlooked for every other classic Cobra I could’ve had.

The funny thing is though, is that rather than being excited and satisfied with carded o-ring joes that didn’t trigger my germaphobia… I was rather unsatisfied. So much so that I got over myself and started buying old stuff, cause I had too much I wanted and Funskool figures seemed pretty lame at the time. Before they were chic, cool and overpriced, Funskool figures came across as toys for cheapskates, since they were generally like Hasbro figures, just with less paint and terrible quality-control. Then at some point the government changed the chemicals they were putting in the water, which is what made us collectively decide that Funskool rules and the neon-90‘s were actually pretty cool!

Funskool’s release of Scrap-Iron is reasonably solid and interesting. For the most part, he’s the same colors as the Hasbro release, though noticeably the blue is somewhat brighter and now his chest is painted flesh-tone instead of red like an undershirt. I’ve always thought this made the figure look like he’s somewhere unbearably hot like a desert or a jungle, so it has it’s charm, although it’s not too convincing. The upper-arms have also been swapped for Toxo-Viper biceps, which I do think is a small upgrade.

The downside in all of this is that the quality of this figure is complete crap. I do know that Funskool made Scrap-Iron’s for a very long time, and some of them were painted better than others (Vehicle pack-ins and certain odd years too.), but this figure was painted like poo. The paint is thin and smeared in several places, and along his collar is a noticeable bubble that I find very distracting. Now that we’re all old and hunting for novelties, it’s easy to sometimes forget why Funskool overstock was a thing into the early 10‘s.

Of course, a place where you don’t loose out in this instance is the accessories. Funskool Scrap-Iron comes with all the parts you’d get with Hasbro Scrap-Iron, and that alone validated this figure’s existence for a long time. That includes his RAR machine-pistol, and his complete rocket launcher system, all in colors similar to the original’s. At a time when this figure only cost $3, these accessories certainly made him worth it, although that’s mostly lost on newer collectors.

I’ve recently made an unfortunate discovery that my Funskool Scrap-Iron has yellowed suddenly. This one’s partially my fault, as unlike with Hasbro’s 2000‘s plastic that turns for no reason, my Funskool Scrap-Iron got nabbed by his launcher’s missiles. When I pulled them out of his bag, they were extremely sticky, meaning they leaked plasticizer, which probably is what discolored my figure. So if you have this guy, I recommend keeping his missiles somewhere else, isolated from any other parts or figures.

The only two Funskool Scrap-Irons that sold recently were BiN’s, that went for $65 each. I find that very silly, but it is what it is. For figures like this one, the sad fact is that a lot of the novelty they provided is lost once they started hitting around $20, and anything past that would be a very questionable purchase. There’s a lot of very interesting international figures you can get for not much more than that, and a mint complete Hasbro figure doesn’t fetch $65, in fact they barely go for $30.

Funskool Scrap-Iron Links:

Forgotten Figures

The Viper Pit

Monthly Archives: September 2023

1988 Spearhead & Max

1988 Spearhead & Max

1988 Spearhead & Max Links:

1987 Techno-Viper

1987 Techno Viper

1987 Techno Viper Links:

1993 Dino Hunters Low-Light

1993 Dino Hunters Low-Light

1993 Dino Hunters Low-Light Links:

Funskool Scrap-Iron

Funskool Scrap-Iron

Funskool Scrap-Iron Links: