1993 Cobra Commander

Posted on January 16, 2023 by mwnekoman

1993 Cobra Commander

Cobra Commander figures are something I have a ton of, and that’s not something I mind too much either. For all I care, the Joes can be led by Duke, Falcon, Sgt. Slaughter or Captain Gridiron, but the main gist of this conflict centers around Cobra Commander, which makes him less interchangeable. Still, because I have all of these Cobra Commanders, I’ve often times contemplated them as secretly being different people, like Fred VII, though really that’s just an odd way of trying to rationalize having so many toys of essentially the same guy. Anyways, the Battle Corps one is really cool, like half of the others.

So as I’ve mentioned before, most of the Joes I played with as a kid were ones I knew from my brother’s collection of ‘89 through ‘94 figures (although, I did have my own small collection of ‘93 and ‘94 guys). With that in mind, I was more dismissive of some of the crazier redesigns back then than I am now, as I didn’t really have much passion for neon toys that didn’t resemble anything I’d see in a Sunbow rerun. This Cobra Commander was different though, as not only did he look enough like a Sunbow Cobra Commander, the black and silver made him arguably look better. To this day, he holds up as a favorite, but I have a lot of favorite Cobra Commanders, so I haven’t used him all that much despite that.

As a repaint/retool of the Talking Battle Commanders mold, it’s a sculpt that works pretty well. It’s a much more regal design than the V1 sculpt, very similar to a Crimson Guard, which adds a bit of consistency I like. He’s a noticeably bulky figure, but it works well here to give him more presence. Generally, I find it somewhat odd how Cobra Commander went through a series of more drastic redesigns before going back to essentially his first look from the Marvel comics, but again, looking familiar is something I’ve always appreciated this figure for. I think the only thing that makes him look a little off is the head sculpt: the eye-holes of his mask are a little large, which I think makes it look a bit sillier than it really should.

Cobra Commander included a tree of silver parts, featuring the Rock Viper’s PSG1 rifle, Incinerator’s flamethrower, Voltar’s machine-gun, the Toxo-Viper’s gun and the requisite stand and missiles for his red missile launcher. These parts are okay individually, but really suck for the figure. The silver plastic looks decent, so there’s some novelty value in being able to appropriate these parts off to other figures, but I have a hard time imagining anything Cobra Commander would do with them. I guess if you were to pretend the flamethrower has a small fuel tank on it, you could have him execute someone with it like a jackass. Personally, I wish he had been given one of the trees with a knife or pistol on it, since that would seem a little more appropriate to me.

As far as I know, this mold with the fully sculpted back never appeared again. Of the several times this mold was repainted in the 2000‘s, Hasbro always used the flat back from the Talking Battle Commanders version, which was unfortunate. The other iterations of this sculpt are all pretty good too, even the comic-pack figure was a little better than average compared to it’s contemporaries. Still, this one was already almost perfect, so the lot of them seem superfluous to me.

Pricing breaks down pretty simple for this version of Cobra Commander, a complete example runs around $20, and one that’s less than complete will go for about half of that. Until just a few years ago, this figure was worth about 50% less, but that’s about how it is with everything in the current market. I suppose it’s also possible that the Transformers crossover sets might’ve renewed some interest in this version, since this was the design that appeared in #139 with the Transformers crossover in the Marvel comics… I doubt that’s much of a factor though.

1993 Cobra Commander Links:

1993 Cross Country (Battle Corps)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by mwnekoman

1993 Cross Country (Battle Corps)

It’s fair to say that ‘86 Cross Country is one of the worst figures in the line. His colors are awful, his head is both gigantic and ugly, and for a lot of people, the Confederate Flag seals the deal. Oddly, they brought him back in ‘93 as a part of Battle Corps, and honestly gave us one of the best updates you could hope for from ARAH. Oddly, he’s become somewhat of an overlooked gem, probably because of the flag thing, though Hasbro tying him to a vehicle that’s arguably worse than the HAVOC probably didn’t do him any favors, either.

Getting it over with right away, Cross Country’s defining characteristic is the Confederate Flag he wears on his jacket and belt buckle. Besides the obvious Dukes of Hazard homage, I always assumed this was done mainly to give the toy a more obvious, regional based personality. Still, it’s a little odd for a brand built on mostly patriotic notions to have a guy running around with Confederate Flags all over him, but back when this toy came out, people didn’t think so much about that. When my imagination runs wild though, I sometimes contemplate him working with Chuckles and Scoop to manufacture rage-porn for psy-ops. They could incite riots to help Destro move around the country more discretely when they’re helping him out… But that’s only in my version of the story where there’s a vaguely more traitorous cell within the GI Joe team.

That aside, this is a really nice toy. His head sculpt is very sharp, the jacket is sharp, nothing’s too busy, and he even has a neat little set of tools sculpted onto his leg. He has one of the more buff chest sculpts, but it’s not as bad as Mace’s, so it works for me. Another thing I really like is the use of marbled plastic to simulate denim for his blue jeans. This feature alone makes him really stand out among his contemporaries. The orange trim is a little obnoxious, but it doesn’t ruin the look of the figure, so I’m fine with it.

Cross Country’s filecard makes him the vehicle driver for both the Battle Wagon and the Mudbuster, both of which were sold separately. I like the Mudbuster well enough, but the Battle Wagon is a hard toy for me to get into. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from putting him in any vehicle you like, though there’s still something very boring about single-carded vehicle drivers. His only job is driving vehicles, so sometimes I have to wonder what he does with that assortment of weapons that he comes with.

Speaking of weapons, he has a really great set. Included is the same runner of parts from Snowstorm, ‘93 Roadblock and ‘94 Shipwreck. That set features Bullhorn’s Steyr AUG, Hit & Run’s rifle and knife, ‘88 Shockwave’s pistol, a stand and two missiles for his launcher, all in black. Included separately is a teal launcher only shared with Roadblock, and an orange version of ‘91 Dusty’s backpack. It’s a cool set of parts, and back then I’d have loved the extra chance to have a few more Steyr AUGs laying around. The inclusion of a backpack at all was also pretty good, especially since most ‘93 and ‘94 releases didn’t bother with those.

Surprisingly, a complete Cross Country fetches around $25, and even incomplete examples hit between $10 and $15. He’s common, so it still shocks me to see figures like this going for so much. At the same time, he’s vast improvement over the crappy 1986 release, so I imagine there’s a lot of people who would want this version as their only Cross Country figure. It also probably helps that his parts, although reused, are still certainly worth having.

1993 Cross Country (Battle Corps) Links:

1993 Clutch (Mega Marines)

Posted on September 19, 2022 by mwnekoman

1993 Clutch (Mega Marines)

It’s often portrayed as a fixture of modern toys that Hasbro hammers the same classic characters from ‘82 to ‘86 over and over without end, though interestingly you really started to see Hasbro fall back on the classic ARAH cast as far back as ‘89. If you were introduced to GI Joe in ‘91, you could have a new toy for 8 of the first 13 Joes by ‘93. Mega Marines Clutch is among those updates, and like many of them, he’s a lot different from the original.

I think it’s not unfair to say Clutch is one of the most popular members of the ‘82 Joe lineup. He’s got a fun, likable personality and a real presence in the comics even after the point his toy was gone from store shelves. Speaking of the comics, I find it curious he was brought back rather prominently for a story arc that introduced us to Rock&Roll in his ‘89 costume. Perhaps Clutch had been on the drawing board at one point too, but didnt’ materialize. Skidmark and Hot Seat seem like they could pass for a new Clutch with a different head, but maybe that’s just me.

A new Clutch wouldn’t show up again until ‘93 in the Mega Marines. One could suppose with how different he looks that the figure became Clutch just as a lazy way for Hasbro to retain a trademark, though it’s pretty well in line with other characters that got redesigned up to that point. The redesign probably also seems a little more exaggerated just for the fact that now Clutch is a totally unique toy, and not some guy made from a small and repetitive library of parts.

Still, it’s a lot to take in. Clutch has gone from a nondescript bearded soldier to a clean-shaven guy in neon orange sci-fi armor. I feel like if he hadn’t been a Mega Marine, he’d have a little more identity of his own, but sadly this is a fairly homogeneous group of toys, so Clutch doesn’t stand out too much. I like his colors and the look of his outfit, but it’s very hard for me to see this as Clutch.

Clutch comes with almost the exact same accessories as Mega-Marines Gung-Ho and several other figures, which includes Muskrat’s shotgun and machete, Tracker’s MP5K, ‘91 Grunt’s rifle, a missile launcher, two missiles, stand and moldable bio-armor (playdoh and a mold for it). As generic parts, it’s an okay runner especially for being in black, but also pretty lame since it was used so much. At the very least, most of these weapons are realistic, easy to hold and look good, so having a surplus of them was a pretty okay thing.

You can get a mint complete Clutch for around $15, and he isn’t too hard to find. Sacrifice the generic accessories and you can save a few bucks, though overall they don’t seem to add much to his value either. As an obscurity this Clutch is a kind of neat figure, but I’m also pretty sure he’s no one’s favorite Clutch. He’s very 90‘s and looks decent in his own way, but also has nothing especially fun or unique going for him. In other words: he’s mediocre.

1993 Clutch (Mega Marines) Links:

Clutch Prototype at Forgotten Figures

JoeADay

3D Joes

Half the Battle

1993 Night Creeper Leader

Posted on March 14, 2022 by mwnekoman

1993 Night Creeper Leader

I’ve been on a late-90‘s kick lately, which I think is supported by the fact that there’s simply so many figures from ‘93 and ‘94 to talk about. These are far from the best figures in the vintage line, but for me, they’re both nostalgic and interesting to take photos of, since even to this day, most of the figures are fairly underexposed. This Night Creeper Leader for example, has very few dio-photos.

When it comes to ninjas, I’m pretty picky. I tend to find that it’s easy for ninja plot lines in GI Joe to get out of hand, and when GI Joe gets away from being a military fantasy, that tends to kill my interest. For example, I got pretty bored with the comic issues that featured Jinx and Billy a lot, or issue 91, which stood out to me as being less interesting during a recent reading of the later Marvel issues.

Night Creepers however, really manage to blend things together and capture the cool and fantastic side of the GI Joe franchise. They’re ninjas, but they’re also modern looking assassins who are believably dangerous. It feels like to me they tie ninjas into the military fantasy of GI Joe somewhat better, rather than feeling so much like a martial arts fantasy spinoff of the brand, which is more of what you see with so many Arashikage ninjas.

The Night Creeper Leader reuses the lower half of the ‘90 Night Creeper, and has a new chest, head and arms. This tactic was pretty cheap of Hasbro, as at the point to where half of the toy was recycled as well as all of it’s parts, you weren’t getting very much that was new. At the same time, the designers did a good job with this limitation, and by reusing Night Creeper parts, the Night Creeper Leader has some nice and obvious continuity with his troops. The new parts of his sculpt look super muscular, and he has a pretty solid look for a ninja.

This figure came in orange with black details and tiger stripes, whereas the recolor from the next year used purple, yellow and gold. I’m usually surprised that the purple color scheme seems to be the more popular one, as this orange look is far more pleasing to my eyes. Of course, if you really hate 90‘s colors and want something fun to do, you can just swap the legs on this guy for a Night Creeper and then paint the torso details to match. I’ve thought about doing that, but then my Night Creeper Leader would lose some of his distinguishing features, and I think he needs them.

His accessories include the Night Creeper’s Crossbow, two ‘91 Snake Eyes swords, a Hydro Viper knife, Road Pig’s crossbow and shield, and lastly, the launcher from the ‘93 HEAT Viper, as well as it’s missile and a stand. What’s odd about this part runner, is that these parts were basically never reused, only reappearing for the ‘94 repaint as far as I can remember. I don’t really like the Road Pig parts very much, but it’s cool you can give them to Sonic Fighters Road Pig and they match perfectly. I also think it’s neat they brought back the Night Creeper crossbow, once again, for continuity, and they also gave him some nice swords you didn’t see to much (Not used in Ninja Force!). Interestingly, his crossbow has been retooled to feature a smaller grip.

The 1993 Night Creeper Leader is far from a rare or expensive figure, but like many 90‘s items, a tad bit of a pain to get complete. A 100% complete figure seems to go for about $20, and carded figures only fetch $25. Figures missing a part or two drop down to around $12. It’s a fun figure and even the current market’s failed to make him unaffordable, so I think these will be around for years to come.

1993 Night Creeper Leader Links:

Joe A Day

3D Joes

Half the Battle

1993 Gung-Ho (Mega Marines)

Posted on February 21, 2022 by mwnekoman

1993 Gung-Ho (Mega Marines)

The Mega Marines are a vexing subgoup within what was offered in the 90‘s GI Joe line. Given the fact they were dropped faster than both DEF and certainly Sonic Fighters, I’ll go ahead and assume they probably weren’t a hit, even when they were released. Still, taken for what they are, they’re a cool little group of figures, and I’d go as far as to say this is one of my favorite Gung-Ho figures.

It took me a long time to come around on the Mega Marines, and to be frank, probably too long. For most of my time collecting I’ve had a disdain for silly things and neon colors, both of which the Mega Marines are, heavily. Beyond that, it’s basically an un-licensed crossover with Aliens, and that too, didn’t really appeal to me. They come across as being somewhere in-between Star Brigade and Battle Corps in such a way that it doesn’t really feel like they have a strong niche or identity.

Despite that, this Gung-Ho looks pretty nice. There’s a lot of fluorescent yellow on his armor, but also features some nice dark greens and blacks on the base plastic underneath. If I’m not mistaken, I believe this was Hasbro’s first usage of marbled plastic, which gives the figures a somewhat interesting look. Does anyone know why there’s a sculpted number on every Mega Marine? Gung-Ho’s number 1, while Blast-Off, Clutch and Mirage are number 2, 3, and 4 respectively. It’s sort of distracting.

Oddly, this figure comes across to me as the most combat-ready looking Gung-Ho ever made. He’s packing body armor from head to toe and looks like he could take a few hits. At the same time, he doesn’t look very much like Gung-Ho, but I really don’t mind that, since I was never a big fan of Gung-Ho anyways. The futuristic look is a little hammy, though it fits nicely with the overall esthetic that was being built in ‘93 and ‘94.

The accessories for the Mega Marines are where things got a little more interesting. Included is the same shotgun, MP5K, laser rifle and machete runner seen with several other figures (Duke, Frostbite, Stalker, Ozone, ect) cast in black. Nice parts for filling your armory. He has a unique orange helmet; it’s sorta goofy looking. You also get the standard missile-launcher, missiles and a figure stand, in addition to another gimmick part: moldable bio-armor.

Moldable bio-armor was the core gimmick introduced with the Mega Marines. Included with each figure was a tub of play-doh, and a mold that fit around the figure’s chest and included missiles. While playing, you could tear and damage the figure’s armor, and when you’re done, tear it off and cast it again later. Part of me wants to say it seems kind of cool, but I also realize this really was just a lame and inexpensive way for Hasbro to bloat the price of this assortment. It’s slightly creative, but I won’t give it a pass on that alone. Also, good luck standing a figure up with a heavy-ass mound of play-doh on his chest: that’s too much even with a figure stand!

Dealers will sell complete figures, sometimes with the play-doh, for around $35. At auction though, figures will often go for around $20, though, it’s not so often you see these in a truly complete state. With that said, I think it’s safe to say the Mega Marines are least desirable figures to have complete. There’s really no point in buying the crunchy old play-doh tub, which like wise, renders the included mold useless too. Also, while his guns are nice, they’re also terribly generic. Meaning, the only thing you really need for this guy is his helmet. Pretty astounding, since not too many GI Joes come with parts that irrelevant to the figure.

1993 Gung-Ho (Mega Marines) Links:

Half the Battle

Joe A Day

3D Joes

1993 Dr Mindbender

Posted on February 15, 2022 by mwnekoman

1993 Dr Mindbender

Dr Mindbender amounts to Cobra’s resident mad scientist, and is one of the original crazy Cobra’s before 1987 came along and saturated the line with rejected Spider-man villains. For most of my life, I’ve preferred villains who were drab, boring and mostly devoid of personality, like Scrap Iron, but Mindbender’s different. I’ve always loved the character, and he’s been a central figure among my Cobras almost as much as Destro and Cobra Commander.

For a long time, this was my only Dr Mindbender. I say “mine” but it was another figure that was really my brother’s, I was just allowed to look at it any time I wanted, since as a kid and an adult, I never break stuff. A nice thing about Mindbender, is that he’s a distinct looking character who fills a somewhat obvious role, so even without access to his file card, it was easy to know who he was and what he did. I think there was a big focus on him too, since Cobra robots and Cobra’s monster Blanka, were a major focus of my childhood battles.

As was the trend in 1993, half of Mindbender is reused from an older figure, in this case, the ‘86 Viper. They released this mold in Brazil a few years later, where it was lost, hence why you never again got a whole Viper repaint. Putting that bit of trivia aside, it blends in alright, and the upper half of the figure’s sculpting looks fantastic. One thing I’ve never liked about V1 Dr Mindbender, is that the figure has one of those stereotypical oversized heads from his year, compared to this one, which is cool, tightly sculpted, and proportionate. Besides being slathered in nonsense-tech crap, it’s also nice that the figure looks pretty normal, and doesn’t have grenades popping out of every orifice of his body.

His colors are hideously bright, though I’ve never really minded that, even if I’ve been sensitive to it at times. In fact, I’d go as far to say these colors look pretty good, mixing that dark purple with a vibrant yellow. A few details are black, which balances things out, and the recycled Viper legs do well to tie him back to an existing Cobra uniform. The only thing that’s almost too ugly is the excessive use of yellow on his chest. You lose a lot of the sculpt’s detail in all of that.

His parts! His parts are so awful and wonderful at the same time. It’s an odd runner that as far as I know, was only shared with Lobotomaxx. Included is Dee-Jay’s gun, Voltar’s gun, ‘91 Sci-fi’s gun, ‘89 Snake Eye’s gun, an Iron Grenadier pistol, and the Hydro Viper’s knife, besides the obligatory launcher, missile and figure-stand that this blog usually doesn’t acknowledge. Six normal weapons is actually a bit extra compared to most figures from the time. Obviously, these parts aren’t very good, but I find them to be a guilty pleasure. As a kid, I generally equipped most figures with Voltar guns, though generally, most of these parts wound up getting used by a wide variety of figures. The knife especially became Armor Tech Destro’s trademark weapon, the lightning knife, which he could charge with high-voltage electricity from his fist. Also, I just like giving him Dee-Jay’s awful gun because I’m low-key tasteless.

1993 Dr Mindbender’s are very cheap, running around $9 for a fully complete figure with file card. It’s not too surprising when 1986 Mindbender’s are pretty cheap as well, though it’s still odd given the popularity of the character. If you like 90‘s neon, this is a fun version with a good sculpt. He has most of the problem’s you’ll find with any ‘93 or ‘94 figure, but he’s also the only alternative Mindbender figure, and he’s nice for that reason alone.

1993 Dr Mindbender Links:

1993 Mace

Posted on November 30, 2021 by mwnekoman

1993 Mace

The 1993 Joe line really isn’t for everyone. In fact, this is probably the point where overall, the line was going down in quality and cheaping out on things where possible (generic weapons, repaint figures). Still, there’s an esoteric appeal to many of the figures from this year, Mace is a pretty good example of that.

Because he’s such a seldom seen character, I tend to forget his specialty is as an undercover operative. Technically, that means he should be hanging out with Headhunters and Cobras most of the time, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen him used that way. My general tendency is to give him a gun and pose him standing near a cardboard building, but if I had paid more attention, I might have done some cooler things with him sooner. Too bad I’ll probably forget about him again as soon as I’m done writing this.

Mace is a pretty decent looking figure. He’s got a unique looking head and his design is overall, fairly subdued for a figure from ‘93. The most egregious thing about him is the size of his torso, which is huge. I’d go as far as to say he’s comparable in size to Road Pig, which sort of makes him look out of place, even among his contemporaries. Other than that, he’s a little boring for not having a lot going on, but there’s enough detail there to make him an okay background guy.

His parts are pretty terrible. Included is an EM-2 rifle from Ambush, a pistol from Updraft, an SMG from ‘92 Shockwave, and ‘91 Low-Light’s knife, along with the helmet and launcher combo from Muskrat, also released in 1993. The first thing that catches my attention here is that launcher… It’s a missile launcher he wears on his head! It’s silly enough to be humorous, but it’s still terrible. All of his weapons are cast in yellow plastic, which renders an okay selection of parts somewhat useless. It’s a pretty good match for BAT yellow though, so if you wanted, one or two of these guns might look okay with an ‘86 BAT.

: Image from an Etsy listing

: Image from an Etsy listing

It’s worth mentioning that Mace was originally to be a part of the DEF line, and there are rare carded examples to prove this. The figure was not changed at any point to my knowledge, just the packaging when Hasbro canned the DEF line. I had always guessed they’d have had different parts or something, but to my surprise, the figures were released as intended: just the packaging was changed.

A complete Mace runs around $15, which seems like a little much for him, but it is what it is. People are more willing in general to pay a premium now for complete 90‘s figures, and because he does come with several parts, complete figures will go for a little more in general. Of course, if you hate the yellow parts or just want one for a custom, individual figures can be had for around $5.

1993 Mace Links:

1993 Gristle

Posted on September 14, 2021 by mwnekoman

1993 Gristle

I’ve spoken before of how I’m a big fan of the Headhunters, so it probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that I like Gristle a lot. Overall he’s kind of a mediocre figure, but he has enough of a role, and presents enough quality that I’ve always found him to be useful. Given that I also don’t like the 1993 lineup much as a whole, he stands out to me as probably one of the best releases from that year.

The Headhunters are a small group, so they don’t have much in the way of named agents. In fact, Gristle is literally the only unique Headhunter besides Headman, who’s the group’s requisite leader. This alone makes him fairly important in my collection, and overall I’d rate him as actually being a bit more useful than Headman. Headman’s a background character, possibly more so than Cobra Commander; going out and getting directly into danger wouldn’t make much sense for him. Meanwhile, Gristle acts as the field-commander for the Headhunters, and would probably be often found in the middle of crack alleys that the Headhunters have turned into war zones.

Technically, Gristle is a Cobra, because the DEF line was canceled and his sculpt was shuffled off to the ‘93 Battle Corps line-up. I don’t think of him this way very much, as I prefer to think of the Headhunters as a separate and distinct threat from Cobra, though, one that might intermingle with them and their related organizations. Mind you, the whole War on Drugs angle of the DEF line was probably one of the most propagandistic moments for the brand, so it really wasn’t a travesty that they moved away from that. Still, I prefer having a diverse selection of bad-guys/terror groups to making Cobra any more bloated than it already was by ‘93.

Gristle has a pretty nice sculpt. While I like late-line 90‘s figures, I typically associate them with busy designs that often overcompensate on things like grenades. Gristle, for the most part, only wears a detailed bike-suit with nothing on it that looks too absurd. His head’s a little cheesy with that pony-tail, but I like it. It gives him some personality that he certainly needs. There’s also a really nicely sculpted skull-buckle on his waist, which is sharp and nicely done compared to other attempts at a similar detail.

The colors could be a weak spot on Gristle, despite the nice sculpt. I’ve personally gotten to where I care a lot less about fluorescent colors than I used to, though this particular combination of burgundy with green-yellow strikes me as being very ugly, besides being very neon. For a longtime, I really wanted to get the darker colored Joecon repaint of this figure, but I always prioritized different things over a drab repaint of a figure I already like, so I never ended up with one.

His parts are okay. Like most of his contemporaries, he comes with nothing unique, and instead a generic runner of parts also seen with the Headhunter Stormtrooper and the Star Brigade Astro Viper. That includes a Rock Viper PSG1 rifle, ‘92 Destro’s pistol, and a Shockwave knife, all rendered in a dark red color that matches the figure. As well, he also included a yellow missile launcher, missiles, and a figure stand. These are decent guns, so he’s not much worse off for including them, but generic parts always hurt the appeal of a figure, if only by a bit.

Like with many figures these days, the prices of ‘93 Gristles can be random. Still, you can occasionally get one complete for about $10, and even carded for $20 if you look for long enough. I don’t think Gristle has ever been very popular, and 1993 figures tend to be common too, so that’s likely why his price has remained low.

1993 Gristle Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

Joe a Day

1993 Balrog

Posted on August 23, 2021 by mwnekoman

1993 Balrog

In hindsight, the 90‘s Street Fighter II crossover was somewhat surreal. I say this, because GI Joe has very rarely done this sort crossover, and really hasn’t done anything like it ever since. Now, that doesn’t count the multitude of times GI Joes have been recycled into other toy lines, which you saw back in the 90‘s for Mortal Kombat, and even in recent years for The Hulk, and Jurassic Park most recently. Heck, even the comic-inspired Transformers Crossover sets were something that only existed as SDCC exclusives, and somewhat phoned-in ones at that.

One could look at the series as a desperate attempt to keep GI Joe relevant on Hasbro’s end, but I personally think it was well played. While none of these toys are spectacular, Hasbro pretty much picked the best 90‘s gaming franchise to tie into GI Joe. Of course, that’s not to say I wouldn’t have welcomed a Megaman X crossover, but I already had a Sigma via Armor Tech Destro, so I didn’t need that anyway.

Balrog is a real highlight among the Street Fighter figures. He’s entirely a repaint of Big Boa, with a new head. Frankly, I like this figure a lot better than Big Boa, and I feel he actually integrates into the Cobra design aesthetic better. The blue on his pants is more in line with Cobra blue, and the new head looks more reasonable than Big Boa’s. The Club used this head for Lt. Claymore, and that was a surprisingly good repaint on their part, though sometimes I still just prefer this Balrog to him.

In my mythos, Balrog is a Cobra strongly affiliated with the Dreadnoks, so while he’s not an official member of that group, he’s best-buddies with Torch and Ripper. In ways, I kind of imagine him being a hybrid of Burnout and Lt. Claymore, and using him this way gives him a little more versatility. Primarily, he functions as a Cobra drill sergeant, but he also doubles as a field commander and a liaison to the Dreadnoks, who are often difficult to negotiate with.

The parts were pretty cool with Balrog, though I’ve never personally acquired a complete example. He included virtually identical boxing gloves to the ones Big Boa had, just sans the Cobra symbols. Other than that, he included most of the same parts found with the Headhunter Storm Trooper and a few other figures, which were: ‘92 Destro’s pistol, the Rock Viper rifle, ‘88 Shockwave’s knife, and the launcher from the Headhunter Storm Trooper, with an extra hook-missile only shared with Blanka.

There’s a second Balrog that came out in the Street Fighter movie line, which is an even cooler repaint of Salvo, with this toy’s head. I’ve tried getting one on and off for years, but at this point I’ve settled on this version as that figure is much harder to find at a fair price. It also does not have the benefit of improving an older sculpt in the way that this ‘93 repaint salvages the Big Boa mold.

Street Fighter figures like Balrog used to fall into the category me and some others knew as “dolla-hollas”. Like with everything else now though, they tend to cost a bit more, and are a bit harder to find. Complete Balrog’s are pretty hard to come by, and seem to fetch about $45, though you can get an incomplete one around $15, which is a reasonable option since most of his parts are generic.

1993 Balrog Links:

3DJoes

Half the Battle

1993 Mudbuster

Posted on August 10, 2021 by mwnekoman

1993 Mudbuster

90‘s GI Joe figures are awesome; 90‘s GI Joe vehicles however, more often suck. I have some I really like, but it seems like in most cases, the good 90‘s vehicles are only “mostly okay”, while the bad vehicles are really bad, at least compared to the quality of the 80‘s line. The Mudbuster is one of the former, and is an overall, mostly okay party wagon.

The Mudbuster is essentially a pickup truck with a turret in the back, which I have to admit, feels pretty unimpressive for the world’s most daring anti-terror task force. Sometimes I rationalize GI Joe having more primitive equipment like this, by ignoring the code name and imagining a scenario where vehicles like the Mudbuster are pieced together on the job, from civilian vehicles found in third-world countries where a mission is taking place. At the very least, the Mudbuster gives my imagination something more to work with than the Battle Wagon, which is a similar thing but way worse.

As a basic truck-type toy, the Mudbuster is a lot of fun and a nice contemporary vehicle to a collection of 90‘s Joe items. As a kid, this was a go-to vehicle for me from my brother’s collection, with the only vehicles I really liked more being the Tiger Sting, the Lynx, and the Brawler. The Mudbuster is small, easy to play with, and can fit a generous number of Joes for what it is.

Overall, the Mudbuster feels pretty solid, at least when compared to something terrible like the Rat. However, 90‘s cheapness is apparent here, which is part of why I consider this vehicle less when compared to a similar 80‘s item. I very much dislike the emptiness of it’s interior, which does not feature a steering wheel like the VAMP. Despite this, the driver’s area is still somewhat cramped, especially for the beefy 90‘s sculpts that would be intended to sit in it.

The gimmicks feel pretty basic, there’s a battering-ram on the front bumper that works using a rubber-band and a button in the truck-bed. Personally I think it’s pretty lame, and the band won’t last too well either. Getting a figure to pose with the turret is a pain; it’s doable, but it also feels like a really good way to break a thumb or heel at this point. The launcher had some weird grappling-hook type thing that you could tie to the vehicle, and to be honest, I also think this is rather dumb looking, and a weak point to the vehicle overall. It looks better with the spare missiles that come with it, which is kind of neat: it includes three unique missiles that can all be stored in the back.

The Mudbuster’s colors are decent. Overall, the turquoise and blue is a good look and the vehicle isn’t as obnoxiously colored as something like the Badger. The only bad thing is that it’s still pretty incohesive, and the turquoise really breaks the feeling of this thing being a piece of military equipment. Then again, going back to my earlier narrative, it’s a little more believable if you contemplate it as a retrofitted civilian vehicle.

Mudbuster’s are super common, you can usually get a complete one for around $15 or less. I don’t have a particular obsession with trucks, but a lot of people, especially rural people, really love trucks in any capacity, and I imagine that translated into a strong-selling vehicle in ‘93. These days, the Mudbuster probably isn’t a must-have vehicle, but it’s a nice piece for display with it’s contemporary toys. If you compare it to the VAMP, it’s a much weaker toy, but without that comparison, the Mudbuster is good enough on it’s own.

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