1989 Slaughter’s Marauder’s Spirit

Posted on May 20, 2019 by mwnekoman

1989 Slaughter’s Marauders Spirit

I’ve talked about the Slaughter’s Marauders at least once before when I posted about Slaughter’s Marauders Low-Light, but perhaps an even more interesting figure to look at is Spirit. Both as a character and a repaint, I have some thoughts on him, and like the rest of the Slaughter’s Marauders, he’s a good bit of quirky fun.

V1 Spirit is a toy I like, and think is iconic, but I do have issues with it. His costume is pretty chintzy, his colors are decent, but if not somewhat bright, and the figure discolors to an ugly shade if you look at it wrong. Nothing major, but a few of these problems are solved by his inclusion in Slaughter’s Marauders. While he has the same palette as the rest of his sub-team, the green shades feel well suited to Spirit, and it solves the problems I mentioned, which is something his contemporaries in Tiger Force and Python Patrol rarely did.

Of course, the figure still has plenty of it’s own issues. Like the fact that the plastic quality is the same shoddy Brazilian plastic used for all of the Slaughter’s Marauders figures. More so than the others I had a really hard time tracking down an example of this guy that wasn’t broken, and had to combine a few to get a decent example. Also terrible: He has no eyebrows! I’m not really sure what to think about that. It feels like a missing paint application, but then again, maybe he just changed his look like Duke in the Tiger Force?

Spirit’s accessories are similar to the V1‘s, with a few differences. Most obviously, all of his parts are in black now, which makes some of the details a bit harder to see, but at the same time acts as a nice color alternative to the originals. His belt/skirt features a brown drape instead of red, and is nice for being slightly more muted. I’m not sure if there’s any significant changes to the gun’s sculpt or to Freedom, but as A-man told me with Low-Light, his gun was changed so maybe the same happened here.

I have a hard time picking a favorite Spirit figure, since I feel like there’s problems with all of them. The Slaughter’s Marauders colors on this one provide me with a reasonably colored version of Spirit, that doesn’t yellow easy or look terribly out of place among a larger Joe roster. Of course, this comes at the cost of his eyebrows and plastic quality, and for that reason, I can never use him without feeling uneasy.

You have to be a pretty hardcore collector to want to bother with Slaughter’s Marauders, honestly. A mint, complete SM Spirit will run around $30, and is not too easy to find, either. Broken figures with a few parts will still run between $15 to $20, which with most other Joe items, would seem absurd. My personal strategy with these has been to target them in lots and buying multiples of cheap junkers to slowly piece together a perfect figure. More often than not, an SM figure will at least have one break on it somewhere, and when a figure nets me extra spare arms and crotches I have less to fear about using them in photos too.

Slaughters Marauders Spirit Hasbro Gi Joe 1989 ARAH V2

1989 Slaughter’s Marauders Spirit Links:

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2012 30th Anniversary Dollar General Cobra Trooper

Posted on May 6, 2019 by mwnekoman

2012 30th Anniversary “Basic Assortment” Cobra Trooper

Ah, 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar. The prophecy which foretold the apocalyptic demise of the once unstoppable American icon, GI JOE. Truly a tumultuous year for Hasbro with the titanic failure of their Battleship film, leading to a one-year delay of the second GI Joe film, only about a month before it was set for theaters and after the toys had already been sent to retail. The results of this sealed the fate for the brand for the better part of the 2010‘s, and should the Snake Eyes movie flop, possibly forever.

I’ve rarely spoken of Modern Era sculpts on this blog, despite that I do still collect them and a number of the new figures and characters are quite good. I don’t figure my readers here have much interests in them, and in truth many of them leave me strained for a commentary of substance. The Basic Assortment Cobra Trooper, however, is a fascinating figure in several ways, partly for the nightmarish picture it suggests of Hasbro’s corporate culture.

As the story goes, the GI Joe design team was tasked with making an assortment of cheaper, low-budget GI Joe figures for sale at low-end stores and pharmacies, namely Dollar General. It’s in line with infrequent releases Hasbro had made for those stores to that point, like the Valor vs Venom single-cards and later assortments of o-ring repacks like we saw in 2008. Like those, these were intended to be straight repacks of recent ME sculpts with reduced paint applications and accessories. Only, the memo the designers got was so vague, they assumed they were to create brand-new figures, with only the names of the characters to go off of.

It was one time that a horrible miscommunication gave the collecting community something to really go nuts over, and the figures were a hit at retail. But what it really shows me is just how terrible the communications are at Hasbro, and I’m left wondering how many of their dumbfounding mistakes through the 2000’s may have been a result of such incidents. Around this time, I remember reading on Glassdoor.com a bunch of bad reviews of the company, namely centering around similar stories of supervisors and bosses with a seemingly deep lack of communications skills…

With that said, the figure is really interesting too, beyond his backstory. Knowing the Hasbro designers were left to their own devices to create a figure that was a “Cobra Trooper”, I’ve often wondered what the inspiration behind this black-clad Cobra might have been. As he was released in 2012, I’d find it greatly amusing if the figure was based on the then recent Black Major Cobra Troopers. Although, given the web-gear, officer insignia and AK-47, it’s somewhat more likely that the figure may have been based off of the Sideshow Collectible’s Cobra Sniper who looks somewhat more similar.

The Pursuit of Cobra Cobra Trooper sculpt was a pretty good modernization of the classic Cobra Soldier design. There’s some issues one might associate with any modern-style GI Joe figures, but overall the quality of the sculpt and articulation sufficed for my needs. But with that out of the way, one discrepancy between ARAH and Modern that’s left me somewhat jaded is the presence of interesting repaints. With the classic construction, there’s a lot of oddball stuff to go and check out or find interesting, new uses for. However, with modern figures, Hasbro’s focus was far more on lazy, half-assed “updates”, leaving little room for repaints like this Trooper, who graces my collection as something fun and new.

For accessories, you got a helmet, AK-47, web-gear, knee-pads and a stand. For a figure that came at half the price of a retail figure at the same time, it was a good amount of parts and even left me wondering why the main retail line couldn’t be more like this. If cutting away the glut of reused weapons, and trimming down the paint applications meant selling GI Joes for far fairer prices in the ever worsening economy of the early 10‘s, why didn’t they do this across the board?

This Cobra Trooper is mildly easy to come by and generally goes between $15 – $18 bucks. Can’t say a modern figure with almost no paint or parts feels worth that compared to what vintage figures you could get for that much, but if ARAH isn’t your thing, maybe so. Unlike the inferior blue repaint of this release that replaced this one in later assortments, this figure was very popular upon release and was usually the first to go when collectors began ravaging dollar stores for these figures in 2012. As a recolor of the ubiquitously loved Cobra Trooper and being based on a decent mold, I’d expect this figure’s value to mostly stay where it is.

Gi joe cobra Trooper pursuit of cobra dollar general exclusive

2012 30th Anniversary “Basic Assortment” Cobra Trooper Links:

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1994 Major Bludd

Posted on April 1, 2019 by mwnekoman

1994 Major Bludd

1994 is full of great and often overlooked GI Joe figures, like Star Brigade Roadbloack, or Battle Corps Shipwreck. To be frank, I think ’94 might be the best year of the 90’s besides 1990. With that said, of the onslaught of figures released that year, a few came out rather questionable, like Major Bludd.

When it comes to Major Bludd figures, Chinese Major Bludd is best by far. Historically, almost every domestic Bludd has had some kind of problem in my eyes. V1 has the stupid arm, V2 has too many grenades, and every Bludd after this was made out of some combination of the tooling used for these first three. So with that said, this figure isn’t alone for having problems.

The design of this figure is just downright strange. Part of that comes from his reusage of the ’92 Toxo-Viper waist and legs, but even the new tooling has a weird aesthetic. The look of his folded robe simply does too much to invite Flash Gordon jokes, and has a very pulp sci-fi look to it. Given, there’s some very nice details here with the painted red trim and medals on his chest, and a bandolier too.

His head’s been given a pretty strong redesign. The helmet is similar to the V2, but he’s been given the addition of some silver painted horns along the top and a single-eye visor. A little over the top, but it’s still a different look that compliments the character. Details like this make me sad we didn’t see these continued into a ’95 line.

I almost forgot about this figure’s gimmick too: a hidden arm blade! Or elbow spike as the file card calls it. I’ve had mixed feelings on it since I was kid, with it perpetually sticking out of the back of his arm when you don’t want it, but it’s still a nice touch that harkens back to the cybernetic arm of the original. It’s one of those sorts of details that makes the figure feel like just a little special effort went into the design.

All things considered though, this figure won’t ever be my go-to Major Bludd. There’s a lot here I could like, and the purple robe isn’t a bad look either. At the same time though, the outfit looks a lot more formal than I’d expect for the seasoned mercenary that Bludd is. With a few other version at hand, it’s hard to justify using this one too much.

Major bludd 90's 1994 GI Joe battle corps hasbro arah vintage action figure crimson guard imp metal head

I want to say his parts included here are typical for the era, but honestly, they might be below average. Everything is cast in bright red plastic, and you get the dreaded Rock-Viper riffle, Destro pistol and combat knife. Over time I’ve almost grown fond of the neon weapons included during this period for their unique appearance, but it’s just too tiresome when every figure comes with the same, gigantic sniper riffle.

Getting a mint, complete example of this figure around $5 is still relatively easy, and carded figures are plentiful for not a lot more. These days, a price like that could be seen as somewhat of a dismissal by the collecting community, but I have to say this figure could provide a fair amount of value for that much.

1994 Major Bludd Links:

2004 Big Brawler (Version 4)

Posted on March 19, 2019 by mwnekoman

2004 Big Brawler

Big Brawler’s a name pretty infamous to Joe collector’s who were around in the early 2000‘s. At best, I think he could sort of be described as a meme that represented the low-quality characters that were being created at the time. Some collector’s even seemed to feel somewhat insulted by the character. With that said, there’s some value that can still be gleaned when Big Brawler’s figures are taken at face value.

This particular Big Brawler reuses the part recipe and paint masks from the Tiger Force Big Brawler who came out the year before. In fact, many of the colors are the same as that figure, with the major differences being the color of his shirt, skin, and hair. Clearly, the figure was designed as a part of a set that was meant to be budget priced, and the fact that he’s not changed more can be easily overlooked. Back then it might’ve been less acceptable, but it 2019 without the other figure in my collection, I don’t mind.

His main fault as a figure is that the character is junk, and the paint is just a tad too limited. Particularly, the unpainted bullet belts on his legs just leaves a lot to be desired. At the same time, as he is essentially just a repaint of Salvo, it’s nice to see that Salvo didn’t become yet another ARAH mold that would be forever without a repaint (ignoring the other Big Brawler and Balrog). Of course, I think Salvo is superior to any color variant of this Big Brawler, but it’s still nice for the variety.

BIG BRAWLER started out in Army Intelligence before he was tapped to join the G.I. JOE Team, bringing an impressive catalogue of specialized skills and talents. Equally at home in dense tropical undergrowth as he is in concrete urban badlands, he has survival and observation abilities on a par with jungle cats and feral street criminals. Proficient in small arms, squad-level infantry weapons, and platoon support weapons, BIG BRAWLER also holds rank in several martial arts disciplines. Trained as a psychologist and having participated in several military psychological operations, he knows that as good as you are with a weapon, you can’t win a fight unless you can think three moves ahead of your opponent, and then have a surprise for him!
“Never start a fight you can’t finish, never drink water that a purification tablet won’t dissolve in, and always brush your teeth when you’re in the jungle!”

In other words, Big Brawler’s good at everything he does, and is trained and educated in everything. Also, he’s a psychologist… Man it’s not as bad as his original Rambo-wannabe bio, but this file is just dumb. It also really leaves Big Brawler without too much of a purpose, and definitely as a character to improvise with. I can’t think of much to do with him at the moment besides having him man vehicles and act as squad filler in dioramas.

His only accessory was a silver version of the customized M4 we saw around a few times in the New Sculpt era. It’s actually a pretty nice part, but it’s also extremely generic. I don’t feel like it does much to accentuate a character in need of some added appeal.

I’m having a hard time pricing this version of Big Brawler. I think I got mine in a lot about a year or so ago, but I really don’t remember anymore. And other than that he’s another bad victim of the GI-drought, where there’s nothing showing up on eBay routinely enough for me to say “that much.”. So I’ll assess the figure like this: The character is terrible, and the figure is mediocre. But he’s not badly colored and has the cool novelty of being one of a few Salvo repaints. So if you see him somewhere, he’s a decent addition for around $8, but at that, it’s a figure that any collection could do without.

Gi joe Big Brawler 2004 Valor vs Venom VAMP Toys R Us Exclusive GI Joe ARAH Spy Troops

2004 Big Brawler Links:

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1989 Gnawgahyde

Posted on March 11, 2019 by mwnekoman

1989 Gnawgahyde

In the late era of ARAH, Gnawgahyde came as both a character of minor prevalence and as one of the last Dreadnoks (the last new one, IIRC). Of course, all of that screen time is limited to the DIC cartoon unfortunately, but that doesn’t stop Gnawgahyde from being a pretty great figure, like many others from his year.

As one of the figures I’ve had since I can remember by way of my brother, Gnawgahyde left me feeling somewhat ambivalent as a kid. Even back then, I didn’t like the DIC episodes, so cartoon reruns didn’t sell me on him as a character. Moreover, because it was a figure that was technically my brother’s, I didn’t know what parts were his, and this is one of those figures that’s really made by his parts.

Of course, that’s not to say the core figure’s design is bad. There’s a ton of detail all over the sculpt, and his face has a pretty cool expression too. I think the profile of his head’s a little long, but it’s still a good sculpt. The necklace and fur-vest on the torso are also great details, and the look of the fur does nicely to separate him from the rest of the Dreadnoks made to that point.

In regards to the sculpt however, one thing I never have liked about him is the functioning knife holster on his leg. It was an ambitious attempt for the time, and a cool little feature, but it seems to want to always bend the handle of his knife outwards. Why would I want to put a knife in there just to get it bent? Besides that, it looks kind of bad.

His accessories are many, and quality wise are all over the place. The hat and sniper riffle are quite nice, while his machete is simply fantastic. I had so much fun with that part alone when I was a kid, giving it to ninjas and such with the wrist clip it featured. With that said, it’s pretty sad they never reused it during Ninja Force. I like his bow alright too, but with the presence of the machete the knife feels like overkill, meanwhile the quiver just looks terrible to me. The sculpt is giant, and there’s no sculpted detail on the front of it!

Then there’s his boar. This was also the point of the line where any figure that could conceivably include an animal, had to include an animal. Is it his pet? His next victim? It’s pretty distinct looking, with the piercing in it’s ear. Though at the same time, I have a hard time imagining this is a guy who cares very much about animals.

Complete Gnawgahydes routinely go for about $20, though more often than not you’ll find them missing at least one part, which cuts the price in half. Typically, it seems the most commonly missing parts are the knife followed by the bipod. For a character as memorable as this guy (for a post 1987 character), with as many parts as he has, I’m a little surprised he’s not going for more.

Gnawgahyde gi joe cobra dic 1989 90's arah cartoon dreadnok hasbro

1989 Gnawgahyde Links:

2015 Basilisk (50th Anniversary)

Posted on March 4, 2019 by mwnekoman

2015 Basilisk (50th Anniversary)

The 2010‘s have been a weird time for GI Joe, mainly because of the movies that were meant to revive the brand, but ended up destroying it instead. The GI Joe design team at Hasbro got gutted, leaving only a handful of folks to work on the 50th Anniversary line while the line died a slow death in the back isles of the now defunct Toy’s ‘R Us. And it’s here, where the Cobra Basilisk came to be in the Dessert Duel set.

I skipped over this set initially in 2015, and I still haven’t bothered with anything past this particular vehicle. Despite that I rarely photograph or write about them, I actually do like the modern GI Joe figures, but my disinterest in the figures in this set has less to do with construction and more to do with the items chosen. The Elite Horseman seems fairly bland, while the Chuckles figure is made up of tooling I saw too excessively back then. That leaves the FOE Striker, which again was a decent repaint of an item I’ve simply seen too much (the AWE Striker). So from the set, the Basilisk was the only item that caught my attention, which simply wasn’t enough to warrant purchasing at retail.

The Basilisk itself is just a repaint of the POC Wolf Hound, which was a retool of the Spy Troops Snow Cat from 2003, or at least I assume. The bottom hull is still date stamped 2002, so at least that part remains unchanged. Meanwhile, the vehicle has seen the addition of a brand new missile launcher unit and Modern Era compatible foot pegs. A vintage loyalist might find the loss of proper foot pegs to be a minor irritation, but personally I don’t fret over it much.

Other than this, I’ve never owned another version of the Snow Cat, so I don’t know first hand what it’s launcher unit was like. Still, I like the changes made to the updated one pretty well. It’s removed the clips on the sides of the unit mount that were highly prone to breakage, and additionally has been given a missile launching gimmick rather than just having the rockets sit there in slots. I think it looks a bit better now since the launcher has a bottom to it and is much less hollow, although the blunt-tipped missiles are a visual down grade over the vintage ones.

But enough about the tooling, what makes the Basilisk interesting? Well, on that end it’s completely subjective. One way you could look at it is that it’s a borderline neon repaint of a GI Joe vehicle as a Cobra one for seemingly no apparent reason. Another way you could look at it is that the Snow Cat is a fairly mundane looking artillery vehicle that, in different colors is more useful once it’s no longer restricted to a certain environment. I’m still up for adding a Snow Cat to my collection at some point, but I think I’ll probably be using this vehicle more than I ever will use the Snow Cat.

With that said, the colors are shockingly bright on this thing. It’s not bad looking at all, but the blue is a much more vibrant color than you typically see on Cobra items. It makes me think a lot of the ‘91 mail-away Ferret, but other than that it barely would match up with anything. The red windshield pushes it a bit in terms of brightness, though I wouldn’t mind this if it were slightly more transparent. Despite it’s appearance, the windshield technically isn’t opaque, but it’s nearly impossible to see a figure through it. I see this as a flaw, though it’s not particularly a major one.

The Basilisk is a weird repaint that most collectors will never covet, much less care about. Right now you can get them around $20, which is a very fair price and for that much the vehicle provides a lot of potential. I imagine in the future the supply of these will continually dry up in line with the 15th Anniversary vehicles and the DTC ones as well, so now’s probably the best time to grab one. Either way, it’s the sort of item destined to drown in the bog of obscurities that GI Joe has been since the mid-2000‘s, but it does provide something different for a collection.

Gi joe cobra basilisk 2015 50th anniversary poc snow cat tru exclusive sdcc

Cobra Basilisk Links:

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TBM Steel Brigade (1992 Mail Away Remake)

Posted on February 26, 2019 by mwnekoman

TBM Steel Brigade (1992 Mail Away Remake)

As a kid, mail away toys were a constant item of my desires as they were for my brother as well. Unfortunately, I had the kind of no-fun parents who thought that any toy you paid postage for was a scam. So when I started collecting as an adult, you can imagine my embitterment upon discovering the aftermarket prices on V2 Steel Brigades… Little to say, this Black Major Reproduction became an immediate item of my interest.

So around late 2017, The Black Major produced a run of custom Steel Brigades in assorted color varieties. Of them, he made a reproduction run of V1 and V2 Steel Brigades, with some obvious and tasteful differences so that anyone can tell them apart form one of Hasbro’s. The V2 Steel Brigade remake was of great interest to me, even though I’m not the type to shy away from paying for a decent collectible.

The thing is, the 1992 Steel Brigade is a figure that simply out prices what it’s current value should be today. You see them plenty in comparison to other rarities, but that doesn’t stop these from fetching anywhere from $300 to $500. That’s simply too much for a domestic release. But, the colors are interesting and it does well to compliment my 90‘s collection, which is why this custom serves my needs perfectly.

The figure is quite similar to the Hasbro version with a few obvious differences. First, all of the colors are much brighter. This may be off putting to some, but I think they match very well with some of the other brightly colored items from Battle Corps and such. Second, the arm patch is now silver instead of white. Third, the belt is now solid gold, and does not have the black details of the Hasbro version.

The Black Major Steel Brigades were overall some pretty good figures quality wise, but the run had one general problem in the way that they had a lot of difficulty holding their guns. Their grips were too tight while their guns had handles too thick: certainly a recipe for broken thumbs on such otherwise fantastic figures. I’ve circumvented this by trimming a portion of the handles down on the M16’s for some of mine as you can see below.

The black major factory custom 1992 Steel Brigade gi joe hasbro mail away exclusive

This figure does a great thing in providing me all I need from the V2 Steel Brigade. It’s a niche and odd repaint, but I like it and it nicely compliments my 90‘s collection. This design is by no means worth the $300+ that a Hasbro figure can commend, but a similar looking remake for $15 to $20 is perfect.

TBM Steel Brigade and Steel Brigade V2 Links:

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2002 Dusty

Posted on February 18, 2019 by mwnekoman

2002 Dusty

I’ve gotten into a problem lately where sometimes, I just want a new GI Joe. And I go to eBay to find some oddity to settle my desire. Sometimes I’ll find a cool figure I’ve continually overlooked for no good reason, and other times I find weird figures no one talks about that even I forgot existed. The later is the case with 2002 Dusty.

So this Dusty is the driver for the Night Rhino, and he’s made using parts from 1986 Dialtone and 1991 Dusty, primarily in grey. For a vehicle driver, the figure looks a little unique and the parts combo isn’t very bad. Of course, I really don’t have anything that helps me identify him as Dusty. As well, the figure is just… extraordinarily bland. He doesn’t even look like a real character, I think he passes better as some kind of troop builder.

To describe him in a single word, he’s banal. While the recipe is unique to my knowledge, Dial Tone and ’91 Dusty repaints were abound through the early 2000‘s. As well, the figure is almost entirely monochrome. There’s no color, no pigment whatsoever present here besides a single US flag on his arm. To the figure’s credit, this look does appear fairly realistic, and if that’s your shtick this could be a cool candidate for army building as mentioned before. But that’s a pretty niche appeal.

A lot of this figure’s deco and overall quality strikes me as egregious. First, his head can’t move at all, worse than a lot of the 1997 releases with the tabs on their necks. Second, the details on his face are… soft. His eyes look too large and the black paint masks aren’t very good. I also just can’t dig the paint-wipes/black wash on this figure, but that falls more into a general complaint of this time period, which he also happens to be affected by. Lastly, he has gloves that are painted flesh-tone. Such an irritating move, but made even worse when this is one of the few paint apps present in the figure’s deco.

His filecard is a hodgepodge of the 1985 and ‘91 cards, but there’s a few weird additions here I felt like commenting on. First, his name has been changed to Jeffery Paquette. Who on earth is Jeffery Paquette? If I had to hazard a guess it’s probably some Steel Brigade Collector’s Club goon who helped with the file card, or some similar amount of Hasbro deep-state Illuminati BS that they were so prone to back then. Whoever he is, I’d also like to inquire about this line from his motto “If the enemy thinks they can hide in the desert, are they wrong!”. Doesn’t that last bit sound awkward? Not “Boy are they wrong!” or something? It just sounds really weird and random for a new line of text. This isn’t recycled from any other filecard I know of… Why was it added?

I ragged on him a lot, but really this figure isn’t that bad. He’s almost comically generic, and has quality issues for sure, but he was a vehicle pack-in from a time after the eighties, so what can I say. You could virtually use him as any sort of generic GI Joe trooper, and the albeit bland colors work in most settings. As a figure that often is worth less than $5, maybe you’ll find a use for him if you come across him while searching to make a hedonic GI Joe purchase.

2002 Dusty Links:

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Python Patrol Night Viper (Black Major Customs)

Posted on February 11, 2019 by mwnekoman

Python Patrol Night Viper

The 1989 Night Viper is a fantastic figure, probably one of the best in all of ARAH. Last year The Black Major got around to doing several runs out of the mold with the Alley Viper customs as well, so today I’ll have a look at the Python Patrol take on the mold.

Featuring the Night Viper in the Python Patrol seems oddly natural despite them both coming out in the same year. Almost like a what-if scenario that a second year of Python Patrol toys came out in 1990 and they featured some of the ‘89 Cobras in that subset. For that reason, this seems like a natural and very reasonable repaint.

Across the board, the quality of the Night Viper customs is quite good. They’re easily able to hold their guns, and the joints on mine have all been nice and tight. The paint masks are also very crisp and good looking.

The palette here seems largely based on the one used for Python Copperhead and the Python Troopers. Given, there’s a large focus here on the green and yellow pattern with a handful of details in black and red, in contrast to the others I mentioned featuring more black. I think this was a wise choice, as these are the most eye-catching colors of the sub-group, and they look good here.

Seemingly however, it’s incredibly hard for the factory custom producers to perfectly match the colors of the vintage Python Patrol, and that’s evident on this Night Viper. The yellow is fairly close, but the green is too bright. It’s the opposite of the TBM Python Troopers who had a near perfect green and a yellow that was too dull. With the way these figures are produced, I imagine it’s quite difficult getting exact color matches on so many colors, so this is understandable.

Python Patrol Night Viper Black Major Customs TBM bootleg gi joe Alley Viper ARAH vintage o-ring

For accessories, you get the standard Night Viper backpack and gun in black, while the visor and scope have been changed to a bright red. A gray gun might’ve been nicer, but overall I like the colors here a good bit. I think the black parts prevent the neons on the figure from looking overbearing, while the visor and scope break up the green and black around the head well.

Price wise, these run about the same $15 to $25 most customs go for. For that same price, there’s hordes of other custom Night Vipers to be had, so it’s really all just about how much appeal you find in the colors of any one example. I think the Python Patrol colors on this one were ambitious, and more visually interesting than some of the other variations out there. But others will be off-put by the lack of compatibility with the vintage Pythons, so it really all comes down to preference.

Python Patrol Night Viper Links:

Cobra Island

Diorama by Dreadnok Dread

1997 Stalker (Stars and Stripes Forever)

Posted on February 4, 2019 by mwnekoman

1997 Stalker

I’ve talked about a few of the Stars and Stripes Forever figures on this blog, but in favor of highlighting some of the more skipped over figures such as Short-Fuze, I’ve neglected looking at possibly the most popular figure from the set: Stalker.

1997 Stalker provides a lot that you could like him for. I really wanted a V1 Stalker when I first started collecting vintage figures, but as prices kept him out of my reach, I settled for an alternative. As one of the only full repaints of the original mold, I zeroed in on this release, which I found soon invalidated my need for any more Stalker figures.

Of the original 13 Joes, Stalker’s camo pattern made him one of the more distinct looking figures. One of the biggest charms of this figure however, is that his camouflage is essentially superior. The sharpness and detail of the lines is really something to behold, and there aren’t that many other figures in the entire line that feature camouflage of this quality.

Besides that, as I mentioned before this figure is the sole repaint of V1 Stalker. Your only other domestic alternatives are the horrendous Comic Pack Stalkers that have different legs and under-scaled heads. So this one represents the better tooling, in arguably the best colors.

For parts he includes the classic M-32 Pulverizer, and a Grunt backpack matched to his colors. I’ve always meant to hunt down that backpack as when I bought mine, it was missing that part and at the time I didn’t know he came with any parts that V1 Stalker didn’t. It’s pretty unusual for Hasbro to include an era appropriate backpack like that and not something like a random oversized pack from ‘86 or some such.

A complete 1997 Stalker should probably cost you around $10 to $15 for an auction, but these have become much more of a seldom find. Dealers appear to be getting around $25 for them on average, which seems like a bit much, but this has historically been the most desired figure from the Stars and Stripes set, so it makes some sense. It’s a figure worth looking out for, and if you feel like it, probably even worth that premium too.