1997 Snake Eyes (Commando Team)

Posted on November 24, 2020 by mwnekoman

1997 Snake Eyes (Commando Team)

Snake Eyes is a character I’ve always appreciated as an adult, but never really had much attachment to. This is probably because of the fact that I grew up more with Sunbow cartoon, where Snake Eyes never played a very prominent role. Because of this, I’ve for the most part never put a big focus on obtaining Snake Eyes figures, especially once I had the ‘97 release.

The commando look for Snake Eyes has always been my preferred appearance for the character, though to be frank, ‘83 Snake Eyes is kind of a bad toy. The sculpt is alright, but he has no paint at all, and looks flat because of it. The ‘97 figure improves on this a lot by adding details to things like his web-gear, goggles, explosive and so on. A lot of other (and probably better) repaints provided this same quality later, but this was the first one I got, so for a long time I’ve felt this is the only Snake Eyes I really need.

Of course, it’s a little annoying that this figure uses the ‘84 Roadblock waist. It looks thick on him, though overall I don’t think it hurts his look that much. The thing is though, I can’t figure out why they went to using the Roadblock waist. The original Snake Eyes waist was still floating around at the same time and was used on Stalker and numerous other figures in the Stars and Stripes set, but wasn’t used for this figure or the Snake Eyes in the Stars and Stripes set.

The biggest fault of these 1997 figures is the oversized rivets. Ever since I was a small child, I can’t remember a GI Joe figure I’ve broken: not a thumb, crotch, or gun. As an adult however, I’ve had both a ‘97 Cobra Commander and this Snake Eyes break at the shoulder, in both cases, from a light touch while handling them. Thankfully RTG (Attica Gazette), hooked me up with some similar looking arms from the comic-pack era, which has kept this guy in action since his arm broke.

Some interesting choices were made for this figure’s parts. Unfortunately, his satchel of explosives is gone and instead he picks up a black version of ‘86 Hawk’s backpack, along with the sword from ‘84 Storm Shadow, his original uzi, and a laser rifle from ’84 Baroness. The sword was a pretty nice inclusion, and I think the fact that it’s the same sword Storm Shadow uses adds something to the character. The backpack and Baroness rifle were some lazy inclusions though, and seem really out of place to me.

From time to time, you can get this Snake Eyes for about $10. Usually, he’s easier to get in the full Commando Team 3-pack, with a more interesting Storm Shadow and Lady Jaye for around $25 to $30. If you want the whole set, I think those other figures worth more to have. On it’s own though, this Snake Eyes is invalidated by a lot of later releases that did the same thing better.

1983 Will Bill

Posted on November 17, 2020 by mwnekoman

1983 Will Bill

Wild Bill finds himself in a tough spot in my collection. I sort of like using him, but I have no attachment to the character, and I don’t own a Dragonfly for him either. Besides this ‘83 Wild Bill, there’s a couple of other iterations of the character I own, most of which are nice figures too; it’s just I don’t really have much use for the character. Still, he’s an early figure that’s memorable in comparison to later vehicle drivers, so I thinks he’s worth a look.

Oddly enough I think what bothers me so much about him is the cowboy motif. This coming from a guy who mildly enjoys Cobra-La and ninjas, for some reason a cowboy doesn’t sit right. Which on my end is rather silly, as really he’s a reasonable looking figure. I just dislike the motif on a very subjective level, and that’s all there is to it. Probably, I wouldn’t have this slight against the figure were I born closer to his release, as I think cowboys were a lot more popular in the early eighties, but by the time I came around, they were lame.

The sculpt is pretty nice and simple. Personally, I feel like his head detracts a lot from it, as in general it’s way too big. Other than that, it keeps with the early line’s style of simple designs with tasteful amounts of detail. I think the sculpt on his chest with the oddly unpainted dog tags is particularly good looking, and a shame we never saw it used anywhere else besides the Funskool release.

The paint applications are about what you’d expect for a vehicle driver, though I take some interest in the bull tampograph on his belt-buckle. It’s a very small, silver paint application, which of course means it’s prone to wearing away, but as it’s such a small detail, most likely go without noticing it. I also found it oddly nice they painted his revolvers white, when nothing else on the figure is this color, and they could’ve just as easily painted them the same color as the knife of his chest.

I’ve never felt like Wild Bill was so married to the Dragonfly that it’s wrong to use him in other vehicles, so that grants him some usefulness in my collection. The only thing is I don’t like helicopters and aircraft very much. So ultimately, Wild Bill is limited to only the occasional use with a Tomahawk or maybe a few of the other oddball helicopters I have like the Retaliator. Of course, of those two the only one I really like is the Tomahawk, so to that end, there still isnt’ much to do with him.

So have crazy 2020 prices made Wild Bill a coveted and expensive figure? In truth, not really. You can get a mint with filecard Wild Bill for around $8 still, which is not much more than he’s ever gone for. Of course, you might have to look around to get one with both a nice bull-buckle and nice white pistols, but he’s a common figure that still is only worth a few dollars, which is good.

1983 Will Bill Links:

Attica Gazette

3D Joes

Joeaday

2018 Red Laser’s Army Blackout

Posted on November 10, 2020 by mwnekoman

2018 Red Laser’s Army Blackout

The Spy Troops line from 2003 is remembered for it’s terrible sculpts, goofy gimmicks and relatively brightly colored toys. In many ways, the line was poorly done, but in others, it’s still worth remembering. If you look past Spy Troops and it’s follow-up Valor vs Venom, it was probably the closest we ever got the GI Joe’s glory days in the 80‘s. Detractors of this era might find that a dubious statement, but think about it: Spy Troops was the last time GI Joe had a major push with mostly new products and a fair amount of new characters, with everything that came afterwards being an unending deluge of adult-targeted remakes and nostalgia driven impulse buys. Even the new 6-inch Joe line, is mostly just stale remakes of the same old ideas and characters.

Blackout came as a part of Red Laser Army’s controversial set of customs in 2018. He’s been largely overshadowed by the other customs in the set, which include remakes of the Argen 7, as well as new characters with incredibly well done skull masks. Compared to that, Blackout doesn’t have much going for him, but it’s safe to say he’s a fun little remake of a popular Spy Troops character, and his limitations certainly don’t make him any worse than what he’s based upon.

The figure’s made from a variety of ‘83 tooling, like Short-Fuze’s torso, Grunt’s head, Snake Eye’s legs and Clutch’s arms. I’ve found that these parts are starting to get pretty boring as far as third party stuff goes, but here, it kind of works for a few reasons. First, as his character portrays a reject from the GI Joe team, it’s seems pretty appropriate he’d be done up in a similar uniform to the original thirteen Joes. There’s also not been that many figures that were done in black and silver like this from that era, so it works, even if it’s a little stale compared to other RLA offerings.

The only real problem I just can’t get past is the head; Grunt’s head simply does not work for me here. It’s butt-ugly and doesn’t look much like Blackout from Spy Troops. I guess RLA didn’t want to commission a new head just for this guy, but this could’ve been so much better with a Caucasian casting of Doc’s head, with the glasses painted up like his original goggles. Heck, I like that idea enough I might just do it myself.

For parts, you get Gnawgahyde’s sniper rifle and bi-pod. I’m not sure what to think of this choice, especially as his only accessory, but it works. In my mind, this gun is permanently associated with Gnawgahyde, so seeing it with anyone else feels weird. Then again, he can hold it a couple of ways, and at the very least it’s a vintage sniper rifle that’s not been done to death.

Not many of these were made, so finding them at all takes some work. It’s very hard to price these because of that, but among 3rd party items, these are rare and you won’t see them very often. Of course, I don’t think this was a highly demanded item in the same vein as some other 3rd party releases, so I wouldn’t assume them to have a value beyond $40~, which is where most figures like this top off in value. I preordered the set he was in and got this guy at a highly discounted price, though I’m not sure I’d bother hunting for him now if I didn’t already have him.

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado

Posted on October 27, 2020 by mwnekoman

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado

There’s going to come a point where my posts about custom Cobra Troopers, Night Vipers and Alley Vipers are going to all sound the same, which is frustrating. However, it’s a risk I’m willing to take to keep putting out posts on the different 3rd party releases, as there’s not a lot of information on these out there. Plus, there’s so many of these repaints I genuinely like, I’m beginning to think I just can’t get tired of the Cobra Trooper mold. Here I’ll be looking at The Black Major’s Cobra Soldado, a reinterpretation of the Brazilian Comandos em Acao figure.

TBM’s Cobra Soldado is made from his second Cobra Trooper mold that he began using around 2014. It’s noticeably different from the 2010 mold, but the only real flaw in my view is that the figure’s stance is somewhat pigeon-toed. Other than that, it’s a really solid mold and there’s a lot of changes I like here. Notably, compatibility with standard vintage backpacks, though I also feel as though these can sit better than the 2010 figures, which had an odd habit of their legs wanting to spread apart.

This figure is of course a remake of the Brazilian Cobra Soldado, as mentioned before. It’s really cool that TBM chose to make this because that’s a very nice figure famous for it’s bright blue color it used instead of the standard Cobra blue. The downside of that figure, (besides being rare) is that it makes use of the ‘82 straight-arm tooling. For me and most collectors, this renders a figure nearly useless, so this Black Major release is the first Cobra Soldado that actually works with the other 90% of a collection.

There’s at least three different takes/variants on this figure, which is surprising. The first release has a black cobra symbol and a black mask, and later figures showed up with chrome masks, Micky-mouse Cobra Commander styled silver-symbols, and finally a red-symbol figure that is a slightly different shade of blue. The last figure is the one that stands out the most as it’s blue color looks closer to the original Cobra Soldado, besides having the appropriately colored symbol. Of them, the red-symbol variation is easily my favorite, though I saw them less often than the first release.

Of course, another cool thing about the second Cobra trooper mold is that you get some extra accessories with it. Besides the classic Dragunov, you get a Cobra Officer’s AK47, and the ‘86 Viper’s backpack. I rarely use the packs, but the AK is nice the have in ample supply, and it really adds value to these for me. Of course, I guess you could complain that the figure doesn’t include Rock&Roll’s M60, like the original Soldado, but personally I really don’t care since machine-gunners are niche and not something you need a lot of.

The 2017 run of Cobra Troopers saturated the market a little more than older TBM Troopers. For a while, you saw these show up in good numbers, and less popular figures could be had pretty cheaply. As one would expect, they’re a little harder to find now, and generally they run around $20 a pop. For me, this is a perfectly reasonable price given the nature of these figures, though I’ll probably not be buying more since I already acquired a nice squad while they were cheap.

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado Links:

Forgotten Figures

Differences Between TBM Troopers at Attica Gazette

1984 Action Force Laser Exterminator

Posted on October 20, 2020 by mwnekoman

Action Force Laser Exterminator

I’ve found that over the years, while collectors put a huge focus on the recolored figures that showed up in Palitoy’s Action Force, less focus is placed on the vehicles. This is par for the course with Joes, as vehicles always come second to the figures. Still, the Action Force line really cranked out some classics out of both Joe molds and their own original molds, and the Laser Exterminator is a good example of that.

The truth is, I acquired this vehicle along with my other Red Shadows vehicles basically as a gift from good friend 00zxcvb, back around 2012 or so. It was a total surprise and probably one of the most generous things I’ve been sent by friends on the internet (Which is among a lot of nice things that friends have sent me!). In a hobby that broadly consists of consumerism and buying stuff from strangers on eBay, it really puts into prospective for me the value of sentimentality when it comes to toys. Many of my favorite pieces in my collection are things I didn’t even pay for.

This vehicle was my first experience with the HAL mold, and I have to say it’s one of my favorites among the early Joe vehicles. It’s a fun toy that looks good and has some pretty fun gimmicks. The turret can rotate in any direction, and also point upwards almost 90 degrees, so it’s fully functional as an artillery unit. Of course, it’s a towed weapon too, which adds options for using it with other vehicles. For a moderately small item that supports one gunner, there’s a fair amount the HAL can do, which makes it much more fun than something like the FLAK.

I think the leg mechanisms are worth some criticism, however. The turret is propped up by the two hooks used for towing it, as well as a third leg that stabilizes it. The tow-hook legs are kind of cumbersome and have a tendency to flop around, while the third leg really doesn’t have much holding it in place- hence why it’s usually missing. The later ASP had much better legs, but to be fair, this vehicle’s older, so maybe they learned as they went.

The colors are really nice on the Laser Exterminator, maybe even nicer than the HAL’s. The bright red is eye-catching, but more than that, the vehicle’s details really come across thanks to the contrasting charcoal and red plastic. The HAL is mostly a dark olive color, so you really don’t get to see just how much detail is featured on the different pieces. The standard HAL was far more realistic, but the colors here are a pretty good example of how brighter tones can be to a vehicle’s benefit when used tastefully.

Laser Exterminator’s are pretty cheap and easy to get. In general, Action Force pieces aren’t all that rare, and most of the collecting focus is on the figure molds. So, the Red Laser who was included with the vehicle will cost you a lot, but the vehicle itself is really only worth around $30. It’s pretty tough finding one with the stabilizer leg and computer, so that will run the price up every now any then. Usually, the worst thing about buying Action Force items is having to pay for shipping from the UK, which will typically cost you as much or more than the vehicle will.

Action Force Laser Exterminator Links:

Forgotten Figures

1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch

Posted on October 6, 2020 by mwnekoman

1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch

The Bronze Bombers have a real interesting history with the Joe line, which has been covered by a few sources at various points. To my knowledge, it went from a novel set of near-bootlegs nobody cared about, to a coveted collectors item, and back to novelty most don’t speak much about, or at least that’s how it seems to me these days.

Originally, the Bronze Bombers were a line of GI Joe competitors similar to The Corps, that came out in the late eighties. After going off shelves for some period, the company that made them, Olmec, tried a half-assed revival as they were going out of business by making a Toys “R” Us exclusive set of figures out of licensed GI Joe molds.

Now, things from here get real short-sighted on Hasbro’s end… These figures came out in 1997. One can assume that the licensing agreement between Olmec and Hasbro may have occurred at some point between ‘95 and ‘96, but by the time this set came out, Hasbro had already brought back ARAH! Better yet, because Olmec was filing for bankruptcy, all of the GI Joe molds were forever lost to red tape. I’d be tempted to assume that decisions like this were the fault of spiteful Kenner employees, but a chronic lack of foresight is such a trademark of Hasbro by this point, I really wouldn’t know.

The good news in all of this, is that most of the molds featured in this set are things Hasbro would’ve certainly let go to waste otherwise. Maybe the Club would’ve gone and made some Dreadnok army-builders from a few of them, but I’m pretty sure that still means we didn’t lose out on anything.

Scorch here is a fairly bizarre figure, which is in line with most of the Bronze Bombers. He’s a repaint of the ‘86 Motor Viper, now entirely rendered in navy-blue with green trim, and a bright blue visor. The coloring is so odd I don’t really feel like this figure blends in so well with a standard collection of Motor Vipers, but that uniqueness is really part of the appeal with oddities such as this. On another note, his waist tooling is swapped with the Strato-Viper repaint also included in the set, and for what reason, I have no clue.

Because of this however, I’ve still not really found a role for this guy in my collection. At the moment, I somewhat like the idea of him simply being Scorch, who is a unique Motor Viper apart from the rest of that division. This works too, in that I won’t have to worry about army-building him if only one exists. But exactly what his rank and role is, I’ve not quite ironed out.

The plastic seems pretty brittle on these Bronze Bombers, from what I can tell. It has a decent feel to it and doesn’t seem as delicate as say, Slaughter’s Marauders, but it’s definitely something where I shy away from giving them accessories. If these were a little easier to get ahold of, I wouldn’t give it much thought, but at this point it’d be pretty unfortunate to break one.

As Scorch came in a box set, the accessories are a generic lot intended to be used interchangeably with any of the figures. So, as a quick run down, the set included the Frag Viper’s SMG and Darklon’s gun in white, the Tele-Viper’s camera and Track Viper’s pistol in brown, and some recolored squirt guns from Eco Warriors. Given that like the figures, all of these sculpts were subsequently lost, you can start to see where a few parts went to. Hasbro made a recasting of the Tele-Viper camera, but without the peg on the grip, which was always a little frustrating.

Bronze Bombers were going for a lot of money a while back, but I’ve noticed that their prices have gone down by a lot in recent years. Complete sets will still run around $400, but the figures by themselves generally hit around the $20 – $30 mark at auction. The catch is, they’re relatively rare. There’s probably a generous amount of these floating around, but they don’t show up too often, so finding a particular figure takes patience.

1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch Links:

Forgotten Figures

PS: If anyone has some more links about Scorch or Olmec as a whole, feel free to drop them in the comments.

1984 Cobra Commander

Posted on September 29, 2020 by mwnekoman

1984 Cobra Commander

There’s a lot to say about Cobra Commander. To a certain extent, you can argue he’s the central character of the GI Joe story line. After all, GI Joe’s plot entirely centers around countering and defeating Cobra, and by association, Cobra Commander. Of course, he’s also one of the most prolific characters too, with almost as many toy iterations as Snake Eyes, and in ARAH alone, more.

When I started collecting vintage figures, this Cobra Commander was among my first dozen or so acquisitions. At the time, I remember being ecstatic to own another figure besides Major Bludd that was so old, as it felt cool to collect figures that were a decade older than me. Given that, I don’t have many memories of doing much with this figure besides photographing him a lot. It’s weird, because other figures I acquired in the same period like Major Bludd and the Lamprey, bring me a nostalgic feeling for how exciting it was to buy old Joes back then, whereas this figure I’ve kind of just taken for granted. Of course, I partly attribute that to the fact that I already had several other Cobra Commander’s that were pretty good.

I really like the figure’s deco, it’s striking yet at the same time blends well with the early Cobra cast. With that said, it’s to be forever compared to the original CC color scheme, and those colors are ultimately my preference. The light-blue coupled with a bigger focus on a contrasting red color is both more interesting and iconic than this figure, which is dark and relies on gold for most of the secondary coloring. It’s not without it’s own merits and some like the more regal look of these colors, but to me, the brighter ones are better.

The sculpt’s an area where the figure again really shines, namely for new head. Among his ‘82 contemporaries, it was fair to say V1 Cobra Commander had a more interesting and nicely unique design, and that holds up well with the hooded version. The hooded head sculpt is well done on this figure. It’s simple, but portrays an ominous look fitting of an anonymous terrorist leader. It seems like a simple thing to get right, but when compared to subsequent hooded commanders, that wasn’t always the case. A few examples from Valor vs. Venom and the early 25th line show how it can be done wrong, and while I love the Talking Battle Commander/Battle Corps sculpt, it’s certainly a lot sillier looking than this one.

Like with V1 Cobra Commander, your only accessory here is his laser pistol. In ways, you could look at this as being kind of boring. In other ways, it was a charming example of a figure with a part that had play value built in to it, as well as expanding the character from just what could be seen in the toys. Being able to store the pistol on his back was a neat way for them to add a little more interest to an otherwise less action-oriented character. As well, the fact that Cobra Commander had a unique, sci-fi gun as his personal weapon over the Soviet surplus his legions came armed with, spoke to the character.

This would be the last V1 CC repaint besides Red Laser to come out, and sadly the 3rd party producers have yet to tackle this mold, either. I personally think it’s a shame as there’s a lot of potential left in the Cobra Commander mold, plus you can pretty easily make some army-builders out of him, too. The fact that the mold’s remained untouched all these years at the very least has prevented it from becoming diluted, but I’d still like to see it done up in the canceled ‘97 color scheme, or black and silver like some of the later CC’s.

‘84 Cobra Commanders have always been easy to obtain figures, and thankfully they look like something that’s going to stay that way, too. Last couple of auctions I saw for this figure ended around $10, which is pretty fair given the craziness of the market as of late. For one with a bit of paint wear, I got mine for $4 or $5 dollars as I recall, which was about a decade ago.

Cobra Commander Gijoe Hasbro ARAH vintage action figure

I did dioramas a lot differently 11 years ago.

1984 Cobra Commander Links:

2008 Hulkbuster Squad

Posted on September 22, 2020 by mwnekoman

2008 Hulkbuster Squad

The late 2000‘s Hulk movie and it’s accompanying toy line was a curious and seemingly low-effort endeavor for Hasbro. You saw the return of several popular toys from years past, like the sensational Hulk-glove roleplay toy from the last forgettable Hulk movie, and several GI Joe sculpts making an appearance, such as this Hulk Buster.

He came sold in a two-pack with Emil Blonsky, though the figure’s not named in this ambiguous “Hulkbuster Sqaud.” set. The focus of this post is on the generic Hulkbuster, who was made from Valor vs Venom Bazooka, with a glued-on helmet from the Spy Troops Sand Viper. It’s actually an interesting looking figure, and I used to use him interchangeably as a faceless mook and disposable individual character who worked with Lowlight.

These figures came out to relatively little fanfare, as by the time they were released collectors were firmly obsessed with the 25th Anniversary figures. Of course, because these are made from New-Sculpt molds, they also don’t provide anything for ARAH purists, either. As such, it’s become a rather overlooked release in the Joe world, as it doesn’t provide much of interest to either of the major collecting demographics. Still, I find releases like this to be very interesting, especially for the fact that it’s part of a pattern of GI Joe tooling reusage in licensed brands that goes back to things like the Street Fighter Movie toys from the 90‘s.

It’s based on a good sculpt, so nicely this Hulkbuster is also a pretty good figure. Given, I think it’s a waste they glued his helmet on, which is the biggest flaw of this figure. Because he has a permanently attached night-vision helmet, the figure is much more limited in usage than he would be if the helmet were removable. For the past few weeks I’ve contemplated some pictures I could take of him, but then I realized you can really only use him in the dark.

The two-pack included a ton of parts that seem to be ambiguously intended for either this guy or Emil. Given, most of these parts besides the M4 carbine aren’t very good, and at that, the M4 mine included was somewhat warped out of package. Of the random mishmash of parts, you get things like 25th Roadblock’s 50. Cal (without the tripod), the uzi from 25th Snake Eyes, an M240 SAW (without a magazine!), the sniper rifle from DTC Lowlight, ‘91 Dusty’s pistol, DTC Footloose’s M4, and lastly, a very bad missile launcher. It’s a fair amount of guns, but really the only usable parts are the pistol and M4.

Hasbro pushed a few more GI Joe cameos into the 2008 Hulk line, including a set of Steel-Brigades in a TRU exclusive pack with a Hulk figure. Additionally, the exploding Hulk-Attack Humvee was heavily based on the Valor vs Venom Jungle Strike Humvee, although it’s extensively retooled. To my memory, this set marked the last time you’d see GI Joe molds being used outside of the GI Joe brand until Hasbro’s Jurassic Park line from 2013. At that, most of those figures went unreleased or were ridiculously hard to find.

You don’t see these two often, but the last one I saw sold carded for $16. These days, something like this is a pretty cool novelty to have around, and I personally find it fun to collect these oddball releases of Joe molds that showed up under different brands. With that said, this figure’s only okay at face value. The glued-on helmet kills a lot of his potential, and the accessories are pretty bad too. Can’t objectively say he’s worth getting unless you really just like obscure and oddball stuff as much as I do.

2008 Hulkbuster Squad Links:

Joeaday

Funskool Muskrat

Posted on September 15, 2020 by mwnekoman

Funskool Muskrat

Although not the case as much anymore, at one time a collector could acquire Funskool figures as a sort of “poor nerd’s” toys. Most collectors of the time preferred the superior Hasbro versions, so Funskool releases were seen the same vein as a knock-off. Still, for the economical and less picky collector, it was a fun way to often acquire interesting variants, or if nothing else, a cheap stand-in for an American figure. Sometimes, it was even a fun way to acquire a relatively common figure, such as with this Muskrat.

Amusingly, I had almost forgotten how I got this figure, until I remembered it was at the same time that I got a lot of Funskool Hydro Vipers from some guy who was likely dumping off large amounts of his collection. It’s a little depressing to think about, but buying ARAH figures in the early ‘10‘s was a good time. Everything was super cheap, and nothing was really too scarce either. Of course, the reason it’s sad is because I think a lot of it was from people selling their collections because of the economy, and also o-ring collectors exiting the hobby once it was apparent Hasbro had abandoned them.

1988 figures are kind of like cult classics when it comes to ARAH. They were produced in smaller numbers, the media tie-ins were sparse that year, and not a lot of people talk about half of them. Still, it was an incredibly strong year of figures, certainly an improvement over ‘87. Muskrat’s that kind of figure that’s very hard for anyone to outright hate: he has great colors, fun parts, and a creative specialty. It’s a good balance of being a reasonable looking soldier while still having a gimmick fun enough to make him unique.

Funskool Muskrat is in no particular way different from Hasbro’s Muskrat, besides being made with all the typical hallmarks of a Funskool figure. The figure’s a remarkably similar green color to the Hasbro one, and most of the other paint applications are more or less the same. He’s missing the red stripe that was painted onto his boogie board, but that’s no big deal depending on how you look at it.

For parts, you get the pump-action shotgun, machete, and boogie board from the original release. Besides the machete being silver and the missing stripe on the boogie board, there’s nothing new going on here. With that said, Muskrat was a figure who came with some simple, but really nice parts you saw frequently in the years after his release; both the shotgun and machete were common to 90‘s part trees, and were usually the kind of thing you didn’t mind getting a few extras of given their realistic and easy to use nature.

Comparatively, Muskrats aren’t that hard to get ahold of, still. A good supply of these coming out of Russia still float around the market, and they weren’t produced too long ago, either. Of course, buying from Russia is hard and costly, so that limits how easily you can get one. Overall, I’d say you can get a loose complete figure for less than $15 if you hunt, which is about the same as the Hasbro version right now.

1990 Sonic Fighters Tunnel Rat

Posted on September 7, 2020 by mwnekoman

1990 Sonic Fighters Tunnel Rat

Tunnel Rat’s a good figure who’s also been the recipient of a number of good repaints. After the figure debuted in ‘87, it went on to get a repaint for the Night Force, Sonic Fighters, a Funskool release, another Night Force release, Desert Patrol, and finally a comic pack figure. Each of these repaints are pretty decent, though the Sonic Fighters one is one I’ve had since my childhood, so I felt like looking at it recently.

A few of the Sonic Fighters repaints are some really solid releases that are arguably better than their original counterparts. Falcon and Law, for example, are very high quality repaints. Tunnel Rat on the other hand, isn’t particularly interesting or special. You swap his green shirt for a maroon one, and his black pants for drab khakis, It’s not actually a terrible color-scheme per say, just not really useful or interesting like some of the others.

The problem with Sonic Fighters Tunnel Rat, is that he’s simply not the best at anything. If you want a realistic looking figure, the original is by far the best. If you want a bright and interesting looking toy, the Funskool version is better for that. Which leaves us with this version, which doesn’t have much of a niche. In it’s own right, this is an alright looking figure, but would I recommend it over one of his other repaints? Probably not.

Some decent parts were included in this release, though nothing earth shattering. While the oversized Sonic Fighters backpacks are generally maligned items, I think Tunnel Rat’s is kind of cool- it features a sculpted on ammo box with more feeds for his LMG, so at least the details match up nicely. You also get his classic LMG, an ’87 Cobra Commander gun, a Knockdown gun, and a mortar from the ‘85 Snow Serpent. I have a hard time associating this mortar with anything besides a Snow Serpent, though it’s a nice bonus either way.

The noobie filled Joe market has this guy going for about $20 complete. Like a lot of 90‘s figures, he does have a lot of parts to look out for, and I’m not sure the production numbers on these Sonic Fighters were all that high (probably in the ballpark of Python Patrol and Tiger Force, thought that’s just a guess). I expect once the economy improves, a lot of nostalgia hipsters will outgrow toys again and go off to go buy cars and fishing equipment. For now however, this guy goes for more than he’s worth.

1990 Sonic Fighters Tunnel Rat Links:

Half the Battle

Joeaday