2009 Surveillance Port

Posted on January 30, 2024 by mwnekoman

2009 Surveillance Port

As a brief Walmart exclusive during the Rise of Cobra line, Hasbro unexpectedly released a series of Battle Station sets, most of which were previously thought to be “lost” forever. It was a rare example of fans asking for something over and over, finally getting it, and being happy enough for it to sell out in most areas before Christmas. Well, at least it sold out in my nerd-heavy town, there’s always that one guy who got a pile on clearance for a dollar in some state where nobody lives, but whatever.

Of course, there was a lot of bittersweetness in all of that: like the fact that the Battle Stations that were “gone forever” for years on end, were suddenly “found” just in time for the big movie push! It’s almost like no one was really trying to get the molds back whenever these were asked about before. I’m always really dubious of the “lost molds” excuse because of things like this, as to me it seems more like the revolving door of nobodies just can’t get invested enough (or stay on Joe for long enough) to bother finding them, but like with these sets, they’re out there. We were also going to get a Mauler release in ROC before the whole line was killed, makes ya’ think doesn’t it?

For the most part, the 2009 Surveillance Port is the exact same toy as the 1986 version. Some new colors might’ve been fun, but releasing it without many changes was also a welcome sight. The foot-pegs were altered to fit the smaller, 25th-style feet, and some new stickers were added. For the most part though, the two toys are practically interchangeable. Of course, the new one seems to be made of some insanely cheap plastic, as there’s odd stress marks all over various parts of the toy. I have two copies of the thing I bought new when they were released and both are like this, which is pretty lame. The decal sheet is probably the only source of any major changes, with new monitor stickers for the inside, and a standard Cobra marking replacing the unique design on the front. The new monitors are okay, but don’t contrast as well since the stickers are too dark now. I also don’t understand why they ditched the “snake binding a globe” decal, as it looks a lot more generic without it. Oh well.

The Surveillance Port itself is a very odd little toy, I’ve never been entirely sure what it does, besides surveil people. It seems a little excessive just for spy equipment, and with the guns it feels a little more like an improvised bunker or fortification of some sort. I somewhat speculate that it was really just meant to be a new Cobra Bunker with more play-value, but at the same time there’s nothing wrong with that, and I don’t know enough to make light of it. Some of the dumbest looking GI Joe items like V2 Mercer’s gun or the RPV were mostly based on real-world equipment, so you really never know.

Random bit of trivia: the smaller machine gun for the Surveillance Port is reused from the Slugger. So if you only have the gun from the Surveillance Port, you can use it as a substitute for the Slugger’s. It stands out a little bit more on the green ones, but it’s a decent match for the grey plastic of the ’97 release.

Like the other Battle Stations, the strength of the Surveillance Port was that it gave you a play environment at a very low price, about at much as a single-card in ‘86. For that much, it’s a very fun piece that interacts with figures nicely and has a solid amount of value for play or just to display. The 2009 release kept this appeal, as it retailed for a mere $14.99 and included two Anniversary-style figures, and a fold-out cardboard display. Since figures retailed for about $8 back then, it was a surprisingly generous offering.

Fair pricing for a 2009 Surveillance Port is similar to a 1986 one, probably because the toys themselves look fairly identical. So with a little hunting you can get one for around $20, even sealed. The Hobby Mafia will charge upwards of $75 for a BiN on this one, but that’s grossly overpriced if you compare it to what an auction tends to run. With that said, this set really doesn’t provide anything that the original doesn’t besides newer plastic, so it’s only worth considering as an alternative.

2009 Surveillance Port Links:

Generalsjoes

HISS Tank

1992 Dice

Posted on January 22, 2024 by mwnekoman

1992 Dice

A minor quibble I have with 90‘s GI Joes, is the point where the majority of Cobras became somewhat redundant, faceless mooks. Don’t get me wrong, I like army-builders as much as the next guy, but the distinct personalities tend to stick in my head a bit more compared to some specialty oriented Viper. It’s mostly a ‘90 and ‘91 problem, but 1992 suffers a lot for it too, just because there were fewer figures released that year. Anyways, Dice stands out a lot just for being a unique 90‘s Cobra, at a point when the line needed a little more of that.

In many ways Dice could almost pass for one of the coolest Cobras made since the 80‘s, though he suffers a fatal flaw as a gimmick oriented Ninja Force figure. I’m not averse to gimmicks inherently and I think the designers at the time were being fairly wise to keep with trends and expand their audience a bit. Armor Tech for example, is usually viewed as an abomination to Joe’s classic construction, but as a very small child I actually liked those better, they struck me as something similar to Duplo blocks for their toddler friendly simplicity. So at face value the different construction is mildly respectable, but I think it’s aged poorly in a major way: There’s no way to change this figure’s o-ring besides cutting his torso in half, and thirty-two years later that makes all of these suck pretty hard.

Back to Slice- I mean DICE (Really, I’d never keep them straight if it weren’t for the orange Slice repaint.), he’s a fun character, and one that I find sad to have become an obscurity. His design is really solid, and on that front him and Slice probably are the best Cobra’s of the 90‘s. The dragon mask is interesting for the way that it hides most of his face but still shows a lot of skin around his mouth and exposes a nicely detailed bandana he wears under it. I like that since most of the Cobras by this point didn’t really show much of their faces, which is cool and all, but also makes a lot of them less memorable. His colors are nice too, being mostly dark purple and black with some silver.

It’s also nice that his gimmick doesn’t hamper him too much. He’s one where you twist his torso and then he slings back, like T’Jbang. Because of it, he has no waist joint, but comparatively that’s not so bad when you look at Snake Eyes or Scarlet’s t-crotches, or the Night Creepers who can barely do anything with their arms. The proportions also make it out nicely unscathed by his gimmick, Dice looks bulky and muscular but not exaggeratedly so. I think some people dislike the relative lack of a waist, but I think it looks like a combination of muscle and maybe some bulky protective gear.

For accessories, you get a simple silver axe and halberd (or bo-staff, as the filecard calls it). If you like living risky, you can get some fun two-handed poses with the staff, though I’m personally beyond testing what remaining plasticity his thumbs have left. Naturally, you don’t get any kind of backpack for him since none of the Ninja Force figures had peg-holes for them. It’s odd too, since Armor Tech figures still kinda had them, but I guess for the ninjas there just wan’t enough room. I like his little axe, but forgot to ever take a picture of him using it. His job is “Bo-Staff Ninja”, so it always feels weird to pose him with anything else.

As a random piece of trivia I thought I’d document, I have both a domestic American Dice and a Dice that was released in Mexico if I recall. The Mexican figure is no different as far as I can tell from the American one, and even the card back is the same, just with stickers placed over the English text. The only thing I can say is that figure came to me MOSC with some unusual wear: one elbow is cracked like an ’88 figure, and only one half of one thigh is slightly discolored. So it’s not an interesting foreign figure or something like that, just something that appeared cheap a decade or so ago. I only bother talking about it since I’ve not seen anyone even mention such a figure existing, so now you know.

The price on Dice might make you think twice… or not, just rhyming. Decent examples still go for less than $10, though on bad days he seems to run for a little more than that. It’s not a hard figure to find at all, and one that’s pretty durable with only two large parts to keep up with. Ninja Force lots tend to run pretty cheap too, though that’s probably because most of the lame-o’s like Dojo are just dead weight on a more desirable figure like Dice.

gi joe 1992 1993 ninja force snake eyes dice night creeper

American Dice

1992 Dice Links:

1988 Duke (Tiger Force)

Posted on January 15, 2024 by mwnekoman

1988 Duke (Tiger Force)

Tiger Force Duke is two things I like, being that I like Duke and I like Tiger Force. Yet, strangely enough I don’t know if I feel that much of a connection to the figure besides it being the tiger-pajamas Duke who mostly only comes out once a summer to play with his other tiger-print friends I like more. Which has it’s appeals, given that the original Tiger Force is a very strong set of figures, so just having a Duke to match them isn’t a bad thing.

Objectively, I think there’s a case that can be made that Duke is the third weakest figure of the set. The worst figure is probably Frostbite, just because he’s the one that makes the least sense, and second would be Bazooka, since keeping the football jersey and losing the colors doesn’t really hold much appeal. Duke loses a lot for the scant paint on his head, with V1 Duke making the head work with his painted teeth and a separate color for his hair. Tiger Force Duke changes his hair color to brown, presumably to save on money since it matches with the color on his belts and bandolier. He also has these weird peachy-tan pants that are a shade that doesn’t really match with any of the other Tiger Force Figures. Most of the other figures share a color or two between them that works nicely towards making the Tiger Force look like a cohesive team, but Duke’s pants don’t match with anything. It could look worse, but I’ve always felt he looks a tad bit inferior when you sit him next to Flint.

It’s a good looking figure despite all that though, and I’m probably the odd one for not holding him in such a high regard. The olive green shirt is a nice shade that still perfectly fits with the heavy use of green from early in the line. The brown details and peachy pants also do nicely to make him look less monotonous and show more detail than the original figure, which is a big plus. If he had more orange or yellow on him, he’d probably be a lot less popular, and I don’t know if I’d really like that either. The worst thing he probably has going for him though, is that I always compare him to Flint, and while this is a good figure, that one’s a great figure.

The Duke mold went through a lot of changes up to the Tiger Force release. I’m going to assume something must’ve go awry with the arms early on, since late-release Dukes from Hasbro and Takara both swapped over to V1 Grunt arms (Probably when they sent the Doc mold to Plastirama?). Tiger Force Duke (and later, Chinese Duke) has Hit & Run arms, which works pretty well as a substitute, though I’m not sure I’ve seen a shirt like that with elastic cuffs before. The Tiger Force release also benefits from only using the sharper Duke head, compared to the original which had both this version of the sculpt and a doughy, soft looking version early on.

For parts, you get the same kit of fun gear from V1 Duke: a tan helmet, a green backpack, an M-32 Pulverizer and a pair of binoculars in dark grey. The green backpack is really nice and because it’s a common color, it also pairs decently with a few other figures. The helmet’s the same color as his pants, so it’s also unique to him and not easily mistaken for any other version of the casting.

Tiger Force Duke’s run around $25 for a mint complete figure. You’ll find some examples that swap the gun and binoculars for similar black versions though, so that’s something to look out for (mine’s usually pictured with alternate parts, since my only copy of his gun has a broken barrel). It’s a lot for a figure, but just a year or so ago Tiger Force anything would be hitting north of $70, so it doesn’t seem to bad to me now.

1988 Duke (Tiger Force) Links:

Attica Gazette

Half the Battle

3D Joes

1985 Ripper

Posted on January 8, 2024 by mwnekoman

1985 Ripper

I’ve always been fine with Dreadnoks, but something that surprises me about my own interest in recent years, is how much the appeal of the Dreadnoks have grown on me. There’s a limit to that, and a few good reasons my interests have taken me there. Because of that, I’m sometimes prone to think that Ripper might (Might!) be my favorite figure from 1985, the same year with classics like the Snow Serpent, Flint and the Crimson Guard. He’s not perfect, but he’s also a lot of fun for reasons, so here’s my best attempt at articulating that.

One thing Joe blogging has really made apparent to me, is just how far and few between Cobras are in GI Joe. It’s a standard toy marketing kind of thing, because good-guys always sell a little better than bad-guys. Still, it means that if I spend every other week looking at a Joe, then a Cobra, I’ll run out of unique Cobras to write about way faster than Joes. Troop-builders and the umpteenth bootleg Latrine Viper in Tiger Force colors gets pretty repetitive to talk about too, so unique Cobras become even more valuable in my collection. So just by virtue of not being a faceless Cobra, this is the first thing that highlights the appeal of a figure like Ripper.

Another thing I like about Ripper, is that he’s a perfectly disposable thug. A lot of the Cobras like Firefly or Wild Weasel are just too cool and competent to have stumbling around and losing all the time, otherwise how could you take them seriously? Dreadnoks like Ripper are kind of like a Viper who just has a face. The human element of the character makes him more of a fun lens to explore Cobra through, and he’s not owned by the organization so much that he always has to follow orders like a good little robot. It gives him a life of his own, yet he’s very far from a Marry-Sue kind of character.

Ripper has a really good sculpt: simple and to the point like his contemporaries. His head is a little large and caricatured looking, but it’s still sharply detailed and expressive. Buzzer and Torch might have slightly better proportions, but the wrinkles in Ripper’s face and the texture on his hair make him seem more detailed than the other two. The paint applications also do a good job of making him more distinct and interesting. Bright blue and green aren’t a common color combo, and the added camouflage on his shirt makes the figure seem even more detailed. Then you have some of that wonderfully fragile Hasbro gold to highlight his necklace, armband, brass knuckles and knife.

For parts, you get a rifle, jaws of life, his backpack and a hose. The jaws are his distinctive Dreadnok weapon, and if it was his only weapon it’d certainly knock him down a peg, but the added bonus of a rifle is probably one of the best elements of the figure. Having a gun lets him fight in battles like a normal figure, which you can’t say for Buzzer or Torch. His rifle is a modified version of Snow Job’s, which also gives it the added benefit of being easy to hold and scaled quite nicely. The jaws of life is a mildly fun contraption too, mainly for the fact that it stores on his back when he’s not using it. When in use, it’s pretty unwieldy, but it’s possible for him to get a two-handed pose with it.

A big shame about V1 Ripper, is that we never got a cartoon accurate repaint despite the potential for that to be an unique and attractive figure. After Hasbro’s release, he went to Funskool where they made a normal one and the uber-rare purple-shirt version. Then there was a crappy Joecon repaint based on the purple-shirt one, and finally a comic-pack release, that was bland and uninteresting besides the nice black accessories it came with. Admittedly, there’s not much you could do with Ripper’s sculpt besides making different looking Rippers, but it’s always a little vexing to contemplate some cool recolors that will never be a thing now.

Ripper is still a really cheap figure, on a good day you can get one for around $13 complete with mint gold paint. I think I’m mostly alone in liking him a lot, as he’s always been a cheap acquisition and he’s only marginally more expensive now than he might’ve been ten years ago, despite my dollar only being worth half as much. In some ways, I think that’s somewhat of a testament to the fact that Dreadnok fans are relatively a vocal minority, as I still have to get into a knife fight for a broken V1 Dusty or Iron Grenadier to paint, but nice Ripper’s continue to run cheap despite being prominent in both the comics and cartoon, and a figure from Joe’s zenith year.