2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors)

Posted on May 15, 2023 by Nekoman

2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors)

In terms of TBM figures, my favorite run was probably the 2017 Alley Vipers. They felt very new given the mold was never used before, and the original paint masks created for the second run of figures was very fresh and breathed a lot of life into the mold. Generally, I liked all of the recolors he did from this mold, but of them all the Dirty South exclusive one in reversed colors is tied for my favorite, with the Night Viper colored one.

A problem that the TBM Alley Vipers run into, is that the original Alley Viper was already an incredibly sharp and attractive figure. He’s bright, but orange and blue are colors that compliment each other really well. For people allergic to neon, the black variations immediately stand out and show what this mold could offer in darker colors. Still, it’s hard to actually make a figure that’s more attractive than the original when you put realism aside. The colors on this release are sharp, and maintain a lot of the original figure’s charm just by reversing the main color with the camouflage color, give or take a hue.

These colors are fun, and I find them easier to integrate into my Joe world. To me, these are apart of a special Detonator task force, who are both capable of operating the vehicle, and act as it’s security that protects it in the lead up to a missile launch. The tones on the figure aren’t a perfect match, but look close enough that I think they compliment the Detonator really well. Plus the idea of a vehicle being important enough to have it’s own, unique division to accompany it, was something I can’t un-think.

The quality was alright on these. I always have a little trouble judging this element of the “factory customs”, since there’s a lot of toys I see people call fragile or flimsy on the internet, that I personally have no problems with. Overall, I got very few Alley Vipers with significant flaws, and the new mold did a good job of recreating the sculpt without deforming it as far as I can tell. The Snow Serpents and Eels he did later were a bit better, but these were also a bit better than most of his older figures at the point they came out.

All of the original Alley Viper accessories were recreated for this release, which includes the mask, shield, backpack with grappling hook, and his distinct SMG. For a long time, I really couldn’t stand the way Alley Viper’s looked without their shield, so incomplete V1 Alley Vipers really drove me nuts for not having the parts. Since I acquired the TBM figures though, I got enough Alley Vipers at once that it made me curious about them with different kinds of gear. A flaw of the original is that these parts are very clunky, and truth be told, he can’t hold his shield very well, even if he looks incredibly bad-arse with it. To be honest though, it’s a fun figure to reaccessorize with less clunky gear, although the original shield and gun is still my favorite setup.

Although they were only sold at first at the 2017 Dirty South convention/meetup, they aren’t particularly more expensive or rare than most of the other ‘17 Alley Vipers. You don’t find them all the time, and they may run upwards of $40, but you might also get them a lot cheaper than that, as patience really helps when it comes to getting old bootlegs. I got mine at the original price, as a kind soul on Instagram hooked me up with an individual who bought too many and got in trouble with his wife. Personally though, I have a hard time paying a high premium for TBM figures, especially when there’s always the chance he’ll make new ones that are similar to what I want.

2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors) Links:

The Dragon Fortress

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2017, Alley Viper, Black Major Customs, bootlegs, TBM | 1 Comment

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs)

Posted on May 8, 2023 by Nekoman

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs)

In 2018, Red Laser Customs, a very similar entity to the Black Major, made a massive set of 19(?) figures. Among a plethora of Spy Troops characters and original creations, there were remakes of the famous “Argen7” figures with swivel-arm sculpts. The downside was that this set was a logistics nightmare, and is the reason why Red Laser Customs is no longer a thing, as I understand it.

International Joes are a weird thing to me, as on one hand, seeing the curious and unique way our favorite toy line emerged all over the world adds a lot of interest to collecting. On the other hand though, most of what makes them interesting is limited to that one novel aspect, and in some ways it’s questionable why you’d even want them. The original Manleh from Argentina is a cool figure, but costing around $1000, you really can’t do much besides look at the thing on a shelf. It’s too precious to handle, and even then, most of the appeal is just in how exotic the figure is. Once that’s taken away, the figure just becomes an oddball recolor.

I realized this earlier with the underwhelming feeling I got from Joecon figures that were often times international homages. “Remaking” things like the Funskool Dreadnoks in ‘04 or even the 25th-era repaints like the TNT homage they made, doesn’t really have the same appeal as owning something old and esoteric from a foreign country. And although RLC’s Manleh is a much better recreation than those figures, my initial reaction to owning this toy was “I own a Manleh!” followed by “What the hell do I do with Manleh?”. Really, I enjoy owning this figure much more than I would the real thing, but the experience seems to highlight to me how overrated foreign figures are at a certain point.

These gripes aside, Manleh really has an incredibly eye-catching color scheme. Blue and yellow are colors that compliment each other really well. The tones make him look unlike much of anything you’d have seen Hasbro make in the 80‘s, though the camouflage ties him back in with classic figures well enough to overcome that. The tone of the colors is darker, which appears to be a faithful recreation of a darker Manleh variant I’ve seen floating around, which is in contrast to a noticeably lighter colored figure. That, or those dark ones are just discolored, and this toy’s colors were based those discolored examples.

The quality is good on this figure. A major problem with the way these figures were sold is that you had to buy them in a large set. This was a terrible mistake, but also one that made the entire package seem a lot worse to me than it really was. Most of the figures have really solid joints and good tolerances that make them easier to pose than other bootlegs I’ve handled, but for a while I didn’t really notice that since I got a handful of figures with duplicate limbs and similar problems. When you buy so many figures at once, that sort of thing is bound to happen, but it still lowers the overall experience. Worst thing I can say about Manleh is that his gun fits really loosely in his hand, but that itself is a lot better than having a grip too tight to hold anything.

For accessories, he just included the M-32 Pulverizer, the same gun from V1 Stalker. The original Manleh included a Snake Eyes Uzi and a parachute, but I’m not too bothered by that, since there’s plenty of Uzis to go around, and parachutes suck. I will say though, while it looks decent with a few classics, the Pulverizer is probably one of my least favorite guns from the swivel-neck era.

Despite the fact that this figure honestly offers more than the Argentina figure it’s based on, it’s current worth is really around $40 more or less. I say that without much to go on, as you don’t find these for sale very often any more. The other RLC Argen7 remakes only go for about that much though, sometimes a little less, so it’s fair to say Manleh’s not worth more than that. Because it’s a bootleg, there’s a much lower price-cap on it since it’s not a “real” GI Joe, and thus has no value to a completionist.

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs) Links:

Attica Gazette

Forgotten Figures: Rarities – Plastirama 2nd Series Figures

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2018, Argentina, bootlegs, Manleh, Plastirama, Red Laser Army | 2 Comments

1985 Lady Jaye

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Nekoman

1985 Lady Jaye

Until 1988, the GI Joe line had a requisite female figure every year. While all of them are popular, sometimes even fan-favorite characters, I really only like two of them myself, with one being the Baroness and the other Lady Jaye. So for the Joes, Lady Jaye is my favorite female figure, and probably character on top of that.

Going with my foggy and odd memories of GI Joe as a kid, Lady Jaye was present thanks to the then recent ‘97 release. Usually, female figures were relegated to being some variety of spy or martyr girlfriend, so Chun-Li and Scarlet usually died promptly during play. Lady Jaye was different though, partly because she looked like someone that could be in the military more so than a cosplayer. Her camera accessory was also an important part that often saved her life, as Lady Jaye was usually photographing things from the sidelines, and was much more competent at this than the other two I mentioned.

I’m a little less keen on her media character, incidentally. She was was usually a pretty cool character in both Sunbow and the comics, but the couple angle with Flint is irksome to me. Of course, as a kid I usually would make female figures someone’s gal pal, though I guess Lady Jaye was the exception to this since she was too competent on her own to be someone’s girlfriend. Plus I didn’t like Eco Warriors Flint or Battle Corps Flint back then.

Lady Jaye’s sculpt is incredibly solid. A major flaw with the early female figures, is that most of them are horribly ugly. Lady Jaye is sharply sculpted with features that are distinctly feminine yet don’t do anything so overt as to make that overbearing, besides maybe her cleavage-bearing jump suit. Her head is nicely scaled, and the glued-on hat looks like something she’s actually wearing, likely a benefit of it being a separate piece. She really doesn’t have too much going on, but that’s a strong part of the appeal here, like with many of the 1985 sculpts, which were detailed but not over-designed.

Lady Jaye’s accessories are absolutely classic. Included is a spear-launcher, a camera, and a green backpack. The spear-launcher is a little on the wacky end, but it looks good and is as passable as a military weapon as SEALs who fight with harpoon guns. The camera really steals the show though. As an accessory, there’s not much to say about it besides that it has a strap and looks recognizably like a camera, but the later fact is what makes it so appealing. Figures that came with little parts like this were not just unique, but grew the value of a collection overall, as even if you don’t like Lady Jaye, the camera could go on to have a life with someone else (too bad it wasn’t in any accessory packs). Her backpack deserves some comment too, it’s a nice and sharp sculpt that has a very reasonable size to it. By ‘85, backpacks were starting to get big like with Flint and Dusty, but this one fits well with Lady Jaye’s smaller size and doesn’t make the figure too top-heavy.

Lady Jaye’s go for pretty consistent pricing, with mint complete examples routinely hitting between $19 and $23. Like with everything, they used to be a lot cheaper, but these days I don’t think that’s too much to pay for a prominent character. It’s also worth mentioning that there really isn’t a better repaint of Lady Jaye either: the ‘97 one is second best, and doesn’t have paint nearly as sharp as this one. The other color variants, like the ’03 convention figure, the ’06 comic-pack repaint and the Funkool variations all look worse and cost more. So in that way, V1 Lady Jaye is a near-perfect figure that never had a better repaint, I think that makes her a must-have.

1985 Lady Jaye Links:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1985, ARAH, Lady Jaye | 3 Comments

2009 Serpent Armor

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Nekoman

2009 Serpent Armor

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, was a botched toy line in more than a few ways. It did however give Hasbro the opportunity to make some lovably odd toys, like the Serpent Armor. The original SNAKE which this toy is based on, is not the most compelling item from the early line, but getting a new one in black was more than welcome by me.

So, the Serpent Armor is technically a new mold, though as far as I can tell the sculpt is identical to the original SNAKE. The original tooling went to Funskool in the 90‘s, where I assume it was used until it broke, since they opted to make a new mold. Originally, the SNAKE was going to be featured in the 25th Anniversary line, but the last wave of vehicle sets were canceled. If memory serves, we never saw much of these besides a WalMart computer listing and possibly a test-shot from China. Either way, it serves to explain why Hasbro produced new tooling like this for a line of Target exclusives, which also featured some even more questionable releases like a new Jet Pack.

The Serpent Armor is a pretty simple toy, it has four interchangeable arms, and the torso and legs open up, which allows you to either insert a figure or place the included black stand. I never stick figures in this thing since that feels like a waste, so for me it just bounces around with the stand. The hands include a machine-gun, a missile, a claw, and laser-gun. The claw and laser look pretty lousy, so for me these almost only use the other two parts. Other than that, there’s not much you do with it, but it’s a decent little vehicle for it’s size.

As a toy, I get the sense that the BAT was essentially just a more refined version of the SNAKE armor, since they’re both robots and have similar gimmicks. As a concept, I think the SNAKE seems a little less absurd and therefore, a little cooler than the BAT, but the BAT wins for it’s practicality. Again, it’s not very fun to put a figure inside the SNAKE, and there’s really not much it does besides stand there. If the goal was just giving Cobra a robot weapon with swappable arms, the BAT’s superior. Also, the BAT has a place to put it’s spare arms, which the SNAKE does not, and that sucks.

The black colors on the Serpent Armor were really nice, and broke from the trend of most post-’08 vehicles being reissues to some degree of an 80‘s item. It’s also pretty nice that the toy features a handful of silver paint applications on it, which you don’t see on other versions of the mold. For me, my favorite part of this toy is that matches really well with a lot of my early Cobra items; black puts it perfectly in line with HISS Tanks, FANGs, STUNs and everything else from the period where black was the main color for Cobra vehicles.

Serpent Armors often hit $30, but can easily be had for $20, boxed or loose. This price lines up roughly with what a Black Major SNAKE will cost you, as well as a decent ’83 example, so it makes sense. These were fun to grab at retail with an included figure for $10, but $20 isn’t an appalling price to me. I can’t say the SNAKE armor is my favorite toy, but it’s fun enough the have around.

2009 Serpent Armor Links:

Photo by Scarrviper

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2009, ROC, Serpent Armor, SNAKE, Target Exclusive, Vehicles | 3 Comments

2010 Plague (The Black Major)

Posted on April 17, 2023 by Nekoman

2010 Plague (The Black Major)

It’s hard for me to think that it’s been thirteen years since The Black Major did his first run of Snake Eyes figures… Or so I say, but then again, everything with GI Joe collecting was so much better in ‘10 that it does feel like a totally different world now. Either way, TBM did his first run of Snake Eyes figures (Cobra Invasor) back then, and I noticed it seems as though information on them has virtually vanished, so here’s a blog post to help fill the void.

The TBM Invasor/Snake Eyes figures were a very odd, but good run. The casting came out relatively close to the original Snake Eyes sculpt, and the quality on them was serviceable. The bootleg guys later wore out the V1 Snake Eyes likeness, but at the time the sculpt seemed rather exotic in a color besides black. Here’s an old photo of the lot from The Black Major himself, where you can also see the name of each figure from his description.

I don’t know if my imagination has dimmed a bit over the years, but when I look at this figure in particular, all I see is Snake Eyes. I think that’s partly because the figure isn’t that many shades apart from the color used for tan Grunt and Clutch. Of course, the good part of that is that Plague blends in remarkably well with Hasbro figures, which is not always the case for these figures. The most unique part of the figure is his insignia on his chest, a unique Cobra symbol with a gradient effect and some modifications that make it more of a plague symbol. I believe TBM invented this one himself, as it isn’t featured in my 1992 Department of Destruction Handbook (Cobra needs an update of that, a lot’s changed in the world since then.).

I never really knew if Plague is an individual guy or an army-builder, but I only bought one, so I went with the unique operator route by default. Imaging what he could be in the GI Joe world, he was probably a disposable Cobra agent from around ‘84 or so, who fought with GI Joe several times until he was killed by some other Cobra, probably Cobra Commander or maybe even Serpentor. But then it turned out he wasn’t dead, and he’s actually a ninja, and he used to hang out with Scarlet’s uncle, before he was drafted for Vietnam… I probably throw too much shade at the parts of the Marvel comics I like less. Jokes aside, I do see him as a less skilled, more disposable version of Firefly that was KIA in the mid-80’s.

This figure and the other figures from his run have the hallmarks you might associate with a lot of modern bootlegs. The shoulders are a little floppy, and the tension in the waist and legs is a bit off, but other than that, I think they’re okay. Most the ones I have feature solid castings with no odd dips or warped parts, which usually bugs me more than anything else with these. His backpack hole is similar to Hasbro ones, which I think makes this one of the first TBM figures to feature the standard hole (his first Troopers, Crimson Guards and BATs can’t use normal backpacks).

TBM really upped his accessories over time, with this figure all you got was a V1 Scarlet crossbow. The original Cobra Invasor came with normal Snake Eyes weapons, but the crossbow was given in reference to the Cobra Mortal’s gear. I assume he started upping the amount of accessories to increase the perceived value once these started getting more expensive, but when things started out, one weapon was all you got. I don’t have many of these crossbows, so some extras are an okay thing to have around.

These are very hard to find now, which is probably what you should expect for a 13-year-old bootleg that existed in very low quantities. It seems like the price-cap for TBM customs is a lot lower than normal Joes though, probably because the super-duper serious Major League Consumer types have no interest in them. I haven’t seen Plague here pop up for sale recently enough to know what he’s worth, but if I were to give a subjective opinion on that, I’d say one’s not worth more than $50.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2010, bootlegs, Plague, Snake Eyes, TBM | 1 Comment

1988 Tiger Force Flint

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Nekoman

1988 Tiger Force Flint

Certain figures I just associate with fun and good times, Tiger Force Flint is one of those figures. Well, I also associate a lot of Flint figures with good times, he’s a cool character and is easier to incorporate into adventures than Duke. As a young teen I was quick to add several versions of Flint into my collection, and that’s a move I definitely did not regret.

When I first got into collecting loose o-ring figures I was around 15 and had barely any money. Because of this, I chanced a really curious lot on eBay once, the photos were horrible, glary and of the figures in plastic bags. I could barely tell what was there, let alone what condition it was in, but is was something like $10 after shipping, so I took a chance and bought it, since I knew at least one of the figures would be in decent condition. When I finally received my figures, I realized I had actually done quite well, even at the time. Inside the box was Tiger Force Flint, a ‘97 Viper, ’97 Vypra, a decent Ripper, a Secto Viper (with helmet!), and a ‘93 Keel-haul, who even happened to be the logo variant that I didn’t already have. The figures were all relatively mint too, I miss the days when a broke teenager could get that much shit off eBay for $10…

I probably should have been the happiest with the Secto Viper, but really Tiger Force Flint was what I had the most fun with. I already had the Funskool version at that point, but the Tiger Force colors were more fun, and the paint-masks were much sharper on the Hasbro versions, so this figure really became my new default Flint. Despite that, I really didn’t take too many photos of him back then, especially without other Tiger Force figures. I’ve always been a little fussy about keeping sub-teams together, and he was my first Tiger Force figure, so that probably inhibited me from using him as much as I would’ve liked.

Flint has the best Tiger Force colors of the entire subset. I like the bright oranges and yellows on some of the figures (Roadblock, Tripwire), but Flint’s mixture of brown, green and olive looks fantastic. The original Flint colors are hard to beat, but these are a great alternative (and really, it’s the only decent Flint recolor, so that’s a big plus too). Despite the addition of the tiger pattern on his shirt, he still features some nice and fragile gold details, and a separate gray color for his boots and gloves. Objectively, there’s nothing that really makes the Tiger Force figure better or worse than the original, it’s just a matter of preference.

His parts were mostly the same as the Flint’s, just in a dark gray color. Flint’s backpack is a little bulky, but I think anything else looks like a poor substitute. His shotgun though, is his most fun part. Not really sure what model it is exactly, but currently I lean towards an Ithaca 37. It’s definitely a pump-action and it’s not too big, but shotguns all look kinda similar to me, so maybe it’s another one. This part is fun and easy for figures to hold, and the sculpt is sharp enough that it’s easy to tell what it is. For me, it’s hard to separate this gun from Flint, but some extras would probably make a nice side-arm for a variety of vehicle drivers. Hopefully someday someone will make some bootleg castings in black.

A mint complete Tiger Force Flint fetches a pretty steady $40. Ditch the parts and you can get one in nice condition for around $10, which frankly isn’t so bad an option when V1/Funskool Flint parts still match well with this figure. Tiger Force figures in general got really expensive between ‘17 and ‘21, but prices are cooling off a little, a trend I expect to continue as the economy melts. Even sitting that aside, we’ve probably passed peak value for a lot of GI Joe items, so I don’t think we will see too many more episodes where a bunch of weirdos pop online and suddenly inform everyone that previously common toys are rare and worth 2 to 3 times what you were paying a day ago.

1988 Tiger Force Flint Links:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1988, ARAH, Flint, Tiger Force | Leave a comment

2004 Dreadhead Joe-Bob

Posted on April 1, 2023 by Nekoman

2004 Dreadhead Joe-Bob

Of the o-ring Joecon sets that were made, it’s probably not too much of a shock statement to say the Dreadnok Rampage set was probably the worst. Little things tend to make all of the figures wrong, like putting classic Dreadnoks in mostly uniform camouflage, or using a UK-inspired Tiger Force scheme for the Joes, that still doesn’t match with those figures entirely. Still, the biggest stinker in the set is the Dreadheads, and maybe none of them more so than Dreadhead Joe-Bob!

The Joecon guys were really big on coming up with these strange and arbitrary rules for their convention sets. One of their seeming rules was that every set have an army builder, so what did they do for a Dreadnok set? They shoehorned in a Dreadnok army-builder! It’s such a moronic concept, and yet they managed to probably do it in the worst possible way at that. They could’ve repainted random Cobra troops in the colors of the Dreadnok Ground Assault, or even the camo pattern from this set and had something slightly more enjoyable… but no. They opted to make a crap-ton of inbred cousins who are all nearly identical clones of each other.

All of the Dreadheads were made from the body of Muskrat and the head of the Aero-Viper. Besides having bare arms, there’s nothing about Muskrat that really screams Dreadnok at me. The Aero-Viper head does work fairly well, but this should’ve been a one-off character, not someone you get six of. There might’ve not been so many other molds that could pass for new Dreadnoks, but if they had to do an army-builder, Tiger Force Green Shirts or Steel Brigade would’ve been much better.

Dreadhead Joe-Bob finds even more ways to disappoint, as unlike the other Dreadheads, Joe-Bob is nearly identical to the Torpedo figure that was released to retail in the same year. Given the fact that that Torpedo figure is pretty cool too, this virtually renders Joe-Bob completely invalid (To be fair, I think Torpedo simply recycled the Dreadhead paintmasks. Doesn’t change the fact that now he exists, meaning you have less reason to ever want Joe-Bob.). I will say though, I find the Dreadnok tampograph on his mask to look rather nice and it’s very sharp for a detail that’s about the size of a small ant. Also, he has a green beard, so maybe he’s a crazy fan of Hatsune Miku.

His accessories are bland new-sculpt era junk, which includes a gray G36 rifle, a gray pump-action shotgun, and a clear figure stand. There must have been a real obsession with Heckler and Koch during the 2000‘s, since most the GI Joe guns you saw nauseating amounts of were H&K. The little shotgun is okay though, the sculpt is easy enough even for old figures to hold, and it looks decent.

Dreadheads in general are now pretty hard to find, I’ve not seen a listing for this particular one in a while. At auction, the last Billy-Bob that popped up for sale only went for $20. There for a while, Chinese eBay sellers were selling overstock Dreadhead Joe-Bob’s for low-low prices. And by a while, I mean probably years; nobody wanted this thing even for a few dollars. Dealers will occasionally sell one for around $60, but if you’re that desperate for a Dreadhead, this April Fool’s joke is definitely on you!

2004 Dreadhead Joe-Bob Links:

Half the Battle

Generalsjoes

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2004, Dreadnoks, Joe-Bob, Joecon | 6 Comments

2004 Quick Strike

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Nekoman

2004 Quick Strike

New-Sculpt era vehicles often presented some interesting ideas, but fell flat on execution. That’s somewhat the case with the Valor vs. Venom Quick Strike, which is a nice looking and mildly fun vehicle, though flawed, in several aspects. Generally, these are flaws that could’ve been easily resolved with small design alterations that simply were not made, which makes me suppose the people designing these toys simply were not so invested.

In 2004, Hasbro cared about GI Joe enough to release more than a requisite AWE Striker and HISS Tank for a vehicle lineup. In fact, there were more than 20 vehicles released that year if I didn’t count wrong, which is fairly hard to imagine at this point. Unfortunately though, the 2000‘s were not the 80‘s, and what would’ve been a banging assortment in 1992 was muddled by standardized price-points, obtuse gimmicks and the lack of a creative play-pattern. With a little more wiggle-room, something like the Quick Strike could’ve been a nice successor to the Monster Blaster APC, but such is not the case.

The Quick Strike is a medium-size vehicle with a similar size and profile to the original HISS Tank. It has a maximum capacity of about 6 figures, which includes two in the front cabin, one in each turret, and one on each of the two foot-pegs on the rear of the vehicle (just magically standing there with nothing to feasibly hold onto). The anti-infantry gun pivots both left and right, and can be aimed up and down too. Meanwhile, the lift-up missile launcher is fixed in it’s position, and can’t be aimed at all. Two additional missiles for the launcher are stored at the very bottom of the vehicle in the back (which doesn’t seem very intuitive). It really doesn’t do that much of interest, but it’s also not a very big vehicle, so it’s a little forgivable.

The back of the box describes the Quick Strike as an “Armored Vehicle”, presumably because any designation more specific than that would impart a purpose this vehicle likely cannot achieve. Something I find odd about the vehicles from this era, are their often over-engineered gimmicks that serve questionable purposes, while somewhat failing at more basic things you’d want to do with a GI Joe vehicle. A missile launcher really could’ve been stuffed anywhere else on the vehicle, like hanging off the side or underneath the cockpit, but instead it’s smashed into the rear of the vehicle, where I really would’ve much rather had some extra seats or a computer station. Most of the vehicles from the period are like this, where mid-sized vehicles usually had some kind of towering cannon pop out to fire a missile in one direction, at the cost of virtually any other play feature.

A strong point of the Quick Strike is that it does look relatively good. The sculpt is decent in most places, and it has all the familiar tapestries of a classic GI Joe vehicle, including shovels, tow-rope, hammers, and various other tools strapped to the outside of the vehicle. Personally I think this vehicle is rather photogenic; it fills up the frame really well, and it looks decent to have figures posed around it. It’s simple look and camouflage paint job also help it look decent with older sculpts, in particular, I think it pairs up somewhat nicely with the DEF guys, who never really had a good ground vehicle.

Quick Strikes don’t appear to be as cheap or common as they should be, with complete examples floating between $40 and $50 when you find them. I got mine back in ‘19, and if I recall correctly I only paid around $20 for a MISB example, meaning prices have essentially doubled since then. It’s bizarre to me, since I really don’t think 2000‘s GI Joe has that much of a fan base, I certainly haven’t seen any large amount of individuals demanding iconic characters like Dr. Link Talbot be remade for Classified… So I really have no clue who’s behind the market for $50 Quick Strikes.

2004 Quick Strike Links:

Joe A Day

Generalsjoes

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2004, Quick Strike, Valor vs Venom, Vehicles | 1 Comment

1987 Nemesis Enforcer

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Nekoman

1987 Nemesis Enforcer

In some ways, I feel like you can’t have an opinion about Cobra-La that’s not an opinion about GI Joe: The Movie. Partly, I think that’s because these toys would have no reason to exist if not to be the movie’s new villains. So if you like the movie, you probably like Cobra-La. If you hate the movie, you probably hate Cobra-La and the Cobra-La Team 3-pack. For me, the movie is an absolute guilty pleasure, and I’m open Cobra-La because of that; the same thing is pretty much my opinion of Nemesis Enforcer.

As a design and concept, Nemesis Enforcer provided GI Joe with an interesting opportunity to do some very odd things. I feel like this something crucially missing from modern interpretations of the brand, as Nemesis Enforcer really has a lot more uniqueness and identity embedded in him than your run of the mill Ghost Clancy: Call of Honor-inspired commando toy. There’s a deeper imagination present here of the kind of enemies GI Joe might face, which in Nemesis Enforcer’s case, is an abominate and soulless creation of an ancient bio-mechanical society. It’s like something from a super market tabloid, and in it’s own way I find a great deal of interest in that.

Uniqueness aside, Nemesis Enforcer is not the most breathtaking figure I’ve laid eyes on. I like the Royal Guard a lot better, though Nemesis Enforcer is leaps and bounds better than Golobulus, if only for the fact that the lower half of the toy isn’t a green-turd. I feel like the figure suffers from the fact that the sculpting on his outfit is a little more vague, and at the same time, the details of his face don’t contrast very well. Speaking of his face, I think it’s neat they painted his eyes as a pair of eerie white dots as opposed to painting them normally, but again, it doesn’t show up very well.

Nemesis Enforcer takes the liberty of using some fairly unusual colors for a Cobra. 1987 was the year where purple became a Cobra color, but on Nemesis Enforcer, it’s more of a lavender shade, much lighter than the Techno Viper or the Hydro Viper from ‘88. It’s paired with red details and some tan/off-white, along with a few other colors for small details (silver on his arm spikes and white for his aforementioned beady-eyes). These colors accentuate him nicely, and give him the feeling of something a little bit older than his release year. The kitsch colors make me think of a comic-book villain from the 60‘s or early 70‘s (I guess Magneto fits that criteria).

His parts are very odd. He comes with no ordinary weapons, but instead a pair of backpacks representing the appendages he could spontaneously grow on his back, one that features a pair of bat wings, and another with a series of green tentacles. Both are made from a soft, rubbery plastic, which is pretty unique to this figure. It’s hard to justify a GI Joe with no real weapons, but as a kid I would’ve probably liked this a lot. I loved Guyver and characters that had blade-appendages on their arms, so he would’ve probably found some roles among the likes of Blanka. Likewise, these backpacks would’ve probably seen plenty of use with the Star Brigade. Makes me sort of sad the tentacles never saw a use again, using it as a parasitic growth on some random Cobra repaint would’ve been really cool.

A mint, complete Nemesis Enforcer is worth about $10, though ones with the filecard consistently hit $20. Relatively speaking that’s not too expensive, though as a maligned faction, Cobra-La has never been popular, which has shown through to the pricing of these figures for years. I find Cobra-La a lot of fun as some kind of novelty, and also because I liked the movie, so I’m glad figures like this one remain affordable when most Joes are not.

1987 Nemesis Enforcer Links:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1987, ARAH, Cobra-La, Cobra-La Team, Nemesis Enforcer | 4 Comments

1988 Storm Shadow

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Nekoman

1988 Storm Shadow

Storm Shadow as a GI Joe is a concept I’m not so sure about. At this point, it seems to be something that’s been mostly forgotten about, which I find weird since Tommy was a good guy for more of ARAH than he was bad, but I suppose it goes to reinforce the notion that GI Joe died after 1987. Regardless, this was a pretty fun toy, and it also completely changed the character of Storm Shadow from it’s release to the line’s cancellation in ‘94.

Despite being a year of toys I like a lot, 1988 has a lot of random guys, and not quite as many surefire winners like you had seen in years prior. From that end, you can see some of Hasbro’s motivations for bringing Storm Shadow back with a new figure, since from what I understand of the old stories, the original was one of the first ‘84 guys to sell out anywhere you could find Joes. Plus, your only other big-shots were probably Road Pig, Iron Grenadier Destro and Sgt. Slaughter, two of which were vehicle pack-ins. To a mild extent, it makes Strom Shadow the poster boy for 1988, which surprises me, as it’s not something I normally think about.

I don’t think this is my favorite Storm Shadow sculpt overall. The hooded design does a nice job of differentiating this figure from the original, while maintaining the look of a ninja, though I find the sculpt leaves something to be desired. It’s detailed, and the proportions are alright, though speaking of the later I tend to find that the way the figure goes from baggy sculpted pieces to thin sculpted pieces to be a little jarring. It’s not necessarily wrong, just awkward by sight and feel, like around his shin guards, or the bagginess of his perpetually lifted sleeves. On his own, it’s a fairly good ninja toy, but when compared to the standard set by the ‘84 Storm Shadow sculpt, I don’t think it’s quite as nice.

While plenty of details go without paint to show them, I think the deco is one of this figure’s stronger elements. You have the distinctive Tetris-block cammo that premiered in ‘88 and saw seldom use afterwards. We probably lost a few nice paint masks for the cammo, but I like it, and the figure seems a little more memorable for having it. You also have the Arashikage clan tattoo featured prominently on Storm Shadow’s right arm, which I think is probably the most substantial detail featured on the figure. Without that one detail, I think this would be a much more boring figure, but it’s presence is cool and eye-catching, especially since the rest of his colors are a fairly monotonous mixture of white and gray.

Storm Shadow includes a red backpack and sword, a black claw and compound bow. Like a lot of ‘88 figures in my collection, I have the misfortune of not having completed this guy years ago when prices were cheap. Fortunately in this figure’s case, his parts were reused quite a bit in the following years, so the claw and bow are parts I have several other copies of. The bow is a bit hard for figures to hold, so I don’t like it too much, but both parts look alright. The backpack is one of those with hooks for sliding his sword into; this was a common gimmick in ARAH, though one I’m also not so keen on. To me, it seems like the clips had too much of a tendency to stress the sword or break off, which limits them to just looking odd on the backpack. I think these parts being bright red looks a little weird too, but there again, this figure didn’t have a lot of color, so that’s probably the motivation for that.

After it’s use here in the US, the mold went to Brazil and later Funskool who used it for very similar releases. Then the mold was recalled by Hasbro who put it to use for a pair of repaints, a boring and uninspired green figure in the ’04 Ninja Cobra Strike Team set, and a Red Ninja Viper included in a comic-pack. Both of the later repaints are fairly mediocre, and I think their boring decos make the mold seem a lot worse. The lack of a satisfying repaint from this mold makes him one I’d be tempted to buy some extras of for customs, but that might require more energy than I’m willing to put in, given this release is already good enough.

Mint complete examples of ‘88 Storm Shadow go for around $20, though I notice the figure is both fairly common and also one that frequently goes well above that price, and slightly below it too. To me, that means the figure is probably worth less than $20, but there’s still some holdover pricing from the seller’s market of the past few years. While it’s not my favorite version of Storm Shadow, nor one I’ve even used in pictures until just the past year or so, it’s still a very solid toy, so I think the pricing is about right for it.

1988 Storm Shadow Links:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1988, ARAH, Storm Shadow | 5 Comments

The Viper Pit

2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors)

2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors)

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1985 Lady Jaye

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2010 Plague (The Black Major)

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1988 Tiger Force Flint

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2004 Dreadhead Joe-Bob

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1987 Nemesis Enforcer

1987 Nemesis Enforcer

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1988 Storm Shadow

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