Monthly Archives: December 2023

2009 Rockslide (Past and Present)

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2009 Rockslide (Past and Present)

Well guys, I made it almost a whole year of posting on the blog without missing a week (that I can remember). That was until this week though, when I got some kind of fairly bad sinus infection that had me away from doing… much of anything. So with not quite the photos I wanted for one post and not many options for others, I was left asking myself what toys I realistically don’t feel like taking new photos of: the 2009 Rockslide fit the bill almost perfectly.

The Rockslide, formerly known as the Polar Battle Bear, is really a fantastic toy. So when I say I don’t feel like taking new pictures of it, it’s not because I dislike it; rather, it’s just because I’m a boy of the deep south. Outside of a freak stint of snow I got in the 2010‘s, it almost never snows here. So I don’t get to use arctic vehicles very much, and trying to find some method of making fake snow with copious amounts of white powder never turns out the same. Plus if I put that in the yard, the local homeless population might mistake it for free smack.

Hasbro making a skimobile in 1983 was a pretty bold choice, especially given that the only figure that really went with it was Snow Job. It has a nice size to it and is fairly reasonable looking, which is a staple of the early line, but I always do appreciate it. The rotating skis, and linked chin-guns add a good bit of fun to something that could otherwise get tired pretty quickly. It’s easy to take little things like that and the removable engine cover for granted, but when you compare it to a similar item like the LCV Recon Sled, you can see how a niche vehicle like this provides a decent amount of play value, whereas the Recon Sled gets boring… as soon as you touch it.

Of course, this post isn’t about the ‘83 Polar Battle Bear, it’s about the ‘09 Rockslide. So, here’s some weird tidbits about this release: First, the boxart is a new asset for the set, not vintage art. And instead of showing the included Snow Job figure, it shows what’s pretty clearly V1 Frostbite driving it. I assume this is probably an artifact of a canned 25th Anniversary release, since I remember there being computer listings for an entire wave of vehicles we never saw in any capacity. Other than that, it’s basically an unchanged ‘83 Polar Battle Bear, as even the foot-pegs are left in the vintage size. Like with the Snow Job included, the white is a slightly cooler tone than the original, which frankly I like the look of a bit. Also, I think the date stamp was 2002 on the bottom, from that time they gave it a big dumb missile launcher.

Oh yeah, another weird thing about this release is that it’s part of the Past and Present series. Hasbro had planned a full lineup of figures that would be released as Target exclusives (if memory serves), which would give you an original ARAH figure (represented by a 2004 comic-pack repaint) and the present version, which would be an unchanged copy of a ROC Joe. This exciting (not!) little idea never came to fruition after the entire ROC line failed at retail, this set especially. Nothing of value was really lost, though I always thought it was funny that Hasbro had stuff like this planned, but then just a year or so later all of the original o-ring tools fell into a black hole or something.

So the whole boxed set now fetches around $45 to $50, though I assume the, uhhh, “ARAH Rockslide”? -The old one, would probably go for much less on it’s own, but good luck finding one. This is one of those items that was pretty nifty when it came out as being a way of getting a very old vehicle in new, clean white plastic. Most of that appeal is gone now though, since it’s way harder and more expensive to get one of these than a nice vintage PBB.

gi joe past and present rockslide polar battle bear skimobile gi joe past and present rockslide polar battle bear skimobile

2012 Inferno BAT (The Black Major)

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2012 Inferno BAT (The Black Major)

Another week of “just not feelin’ it”, so another random Cobra recolor. Here’s The Black Major’s Inferno BAT, a figure I like an awful lot, but never did as much with that I once dreamed possible. With that said, I think this is the most memorable BAT custom he made, partly because it’s just a lot of fun to see a figure like the BAT decked out in solid orange. Also, I think he’s the Inferno BAT, but I’m going off my often hazy memory, so that may have not been the original name.

As a part of the early waves of Black Major figures, this wave of BATs all feature some mold oddities newer renditions lack. Namely, old TBM figures were designed to be incompatible with other vintage Joes, so the backpack pegs are twice as big and the extra hands for the BAT aren’t compatible with V1 BATs. I always hated this about these older figures, as it seems like something that was done in the vein hopes of pacifying the hobby-mafia, and as that didn’t work it was later phased out. Personally though, I always hate taking a loss just to appease people that hate me having fun in the first place.

The orange color is nice and deep. It’s very close to the reddish-orange of the V1 Alley Viper, which even a lot of Hasbro figures have failed to perfectly emulate. Other than that, it’s a very simple, no-thrills kind of recolor, keeping most of the 1986 BAT’s basic paint masks and not adding anything to it. The only thing I really dislike about the deco is the silver paint, which covers the orange plastic very poorly compared to other colors like blue. I always thought it was weird he skipped over doing a crimson BAT, but I think orange ones are a lot more useful than a robot in elite ceremony colors.

For accessories, you get the standard kit of ‘86 BAT parts, just modified in ways to make them unique as mentioned before. So that includes the backpack, and four removable appendages (a flamethrower, a claw, a gun, and a hand) The BAT hands have a tendency to fit too tight or too loose in the backpack, so a few copies broke right away, while others remained just fine. Nothing a pin vice and some rods can’t fix, but who knows if I’ll ever feel like doing that.

I think I mentioned in an older post that the quality on these were okay. I mostly stand by that, but these orange BATs do remind me that the lot wasn’t great either – “mid”, to use some modern jargon. Ill-fitting pegs make the arms break easy, and of course they have some stance/tolerance issues with their o-rings. There’s enough there to be worth griping about, but then I remember how much cheaper these older bootlegs were: a whole lot of 5 BATs only ran something like $25. The world’s a much different place almost twelve years later, so you can’t make cheap toys like that any more. Still, it was so much more fun and easy to overlook fairly serious flaws just for how cheap this stuff used to be. 1 o-ring figure in 2023, from either Hasbro or anyone else, costs me as much as 5 did back in 2012.

If you’re in the market for one of these, good luck, because I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen one for sale. At the very least I don’t see many TBM BATs running high premiums, so it shouldn’t cost a lot when you find one, it’s just that you’ll have to hunt for a while. A lot of these old customs tend to disappear like that, especially as they enter crypts like my personal dwelling, where I buy a lot, but never sell. Of course, there’s a newer 23‘ BAT in Alley Viper colors with the camo, but the orange isn’t as orange and purty as my figure here, you should be jealous.

tbm bat cobra gi joe arah custom 2012tbm bat cobra gi joe arah custom 2012

 

1992 Roadblock

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1992 Roadblock

Also known as the recall Roadblock, this one’s famous for it’s missile launcher deemed too powerful to be left in the hands of children. What it should be famous for, however, is being the best looking Roadblock toy ever made. For a guy who’s competing to have the most toys released in the vintage line, Roadblock did pretty well with almost every toy of him being a good one.

Roadblock V4 is serious business. The design is very down-to-earth and even somewhat more similar to the modern “operator” look more in the vein of Classified or an FPS game. He looks to be wearing a ribbed sweater vest over a black shirt, which looks a little nerdy, but I’ll let it pass just for the nice texturing provided on the sculpt. The brightest color featured here is the blue on his pants, which really isn’t a weird color for commando slacks (though, it would’ve been slick if they were marbled plastic like Cross Country). For years this was my favorite Roadblock toy, and honestly it might still be despite my love for the ‘84 and ‘86 figures.

The sharpness of the sculpt here is peak ARAH perfection. Everything is rendered with crisp detailing you didn’t see just a few years earlier, and really didn’t see again until roughly 2010 or so. I do like 2000‘s GI Joes, but the Nu-Sculpt era and 25th Anniversary figures still tended to look pretty doughy until the POC line for the most part. It’s something I feel the ‘91 through ‘94 line really doesn’t get enough credit for, as the overall quality here was probably the best Joe would be for at least the next 15 years.

So there’s two sets of accessories for this Roadblock: the original recalled ones, and a new set that came with ones on a Battle Corps card in 1993. For the recall set, you got an extremely large LMG with what looks like a night-scope, a rotor-launching missile launcher and a new knife. For the Battle Corps release, you just got a ho-hum repack of the Cross Country/Snow Storm (and later Shipwreck) parts, which included V1 Hit&Run’s carbine and knife, V1 Shockwave’s pistol, Bullhorn’s Steyr AUG, two missiles and a stand all in black, along with a blue launcher, exactly like Cross Country.

The recall accessories show back up in a few odd places, but not as many or as nice as one would hope. Funskool Roadblock, Blaster and Red Dog have the LMG in black. The knife later would show up with 1993 Guile in black, neon red with Long Arm and in neon yellow-green with LAW. So some options are out there to get the knife. Also be aware that Guile’s knife looks very similar to the recall one, but is shinier.

This mold was brought back for a couple of nice repaints too. There’s a recolor of the figure that came out later in ‘93 in more typical colors, followed by a Funskool release that mimicked the original ‘92 figure. Hasbro seemingly got the mold back around ‘04, and then put out two more in the TRU sets, one in the Anti-Venom Task Force, and a similar one in the Heavy Assault Squad. I feel like there was some untapped potential in this sculpt for a new Crankcase, since the sweater-shirt combo looks kinda similar. Some brighter winter colors might’ve been nice too, since oddly this mold was almost only featured in dark colors.

Roadblock’s with the Battle Corps accessories tend to hit between $15 to $20, while Roadblock’s with the recall accessories trend towards $400! Ultimately, this toy was released to mass retail and shouldn’t really be that rare. Alas, you attach the word “recall” to something and some nerd will wet himself over the idea of having a special Roadblock that’s better-er than someone else’s. If the LMG and knife never showed up again, I could understand the novelty of wanting the see the rare parts, but similar ones were released with common figures. Anyways, paying $400 for a common toy is dumb, but this Roadblock rules so he deserves having a big number next to him.

1992 Roadblock Links:

Forgotten Figures

Forgotten Figures (Rarities Post)

Half the Battle

3D Joes

2016 Cobra Trooper (Techno Viper Colors) (The Black Major)

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2016 Cobra Trooper (Techno Viper colors)

I’m feeling pretty burnt-out on Joe this week, and I think my solution for that going forward is that I’ll just write about one of the many color variations that The Black Major has put out over time. Will it solve my burnout? Probably not, but while I’m in a frump, it gives me a chance just to cover some of these repaints in detail. I can’t make an interesting blog post about the Cobra Trooper or the Night Viper seven or eight times over again, but I think it’s worthwhile to dump some content on these for the sake of posterity.

The 2016 run of TBM Cobra Troopers was really a good lot. His first wave of figures from around ‘09 put a bigger focus on realistic, environmentally themed colors; the 2016 figures instead go for some punchy colors inspired by various facets of the brand. It’s flavored a bit by contemporary trends, but each set of figures did a good job of exploring the various kinds of Cobra Trooper repaints we needed, that Hasbro never gave us. In this figure’s case, his colors are lifted off the ‘87 Techno Viper.

Seeing the original Cobra rendered in the “Cobra Purple” that’s synonymous with the line’s later years seems bizarre yet oddly enjoyable. Mind you, it’s just a tad more pink than the Techno Viper’s purple, but it looks pretty close when they aren’t side by side. You could use him as a Techno Viper in training, or even use him to represent an ordinary trooper from the later years of the organization. Maybe Cobra adopted purple as their color after the end of the Cobra Civil War, to represent a new identity. Or not, my Department of Destruction Cobra Handbook didn’t elaborate on the meaning of purple uniforms.

When this figure came out I thought I’d never get tired of Cobra Trooper repaints. To a mild extent, I have. After this set of Cobras TBM really explored every avenue he could with the sculpt, and while a few useful looking repaints came out later down the line, a lot of the ones he did last year just didn’t resonate with me. They aren’t bad, but at current pricing I’d rather just bolster my existing collection with a few more troops here and there, rather than get another one-off recolor. Of course I get that there’s always demand for more troopers, so I don’t fault the later ones for existing; I just personally got my fill.

Another oddity of the 2016 TBM figures is that most of them include painted weapons. I think this was mostly just because of the mold layouts, but thanks to it you do get some particularly exotic pieces. This figure includes the classic Dargunov and the Officer’s AK-47, as well as a V1 Viper backpack and figure stand all in bright silver, the same tone used for the figure’s face-mask and knee pads. The silver AK is incredibly cool. The details of the sculpt pop with the metallic paint, plus it makes a great compliment for so many other figures. Lampreys, of course Techno Vipers, and Ripper all look pretty natural with it.

You can still get these for somewhere between $20 to $25, which isn’t bad for some obscure bootlegs that are around 7 years old now. Some of the “factory customs” have gotten a little pricey over time, especially when they’re not too weird like this figure. When they were new these repaints sat around for a while at something like $7 a piece, but those days are long gone now, just like the spending power of the dollar.