Tag Archives: 1997

1997 Gung-Ho

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1997 Gung-Ho

I think I’ve mentioned before I’m not a huge Gung-Ho fan. I probably should be, as whatever complexes I have about shiftless hill billies aside, he’s a pretty perfect fit for GI Joe’s Vietnam War inspired visuals. Hasbro only repainted this mold once in full (though his skinny biceps cursed many others), which was with this 1997 release as a pack-in with the Slugger. Weird, since they had the Thunder mold, but I guess they wanted to get Gung-Ho out quicker.

Certain figures entered my collection at memorable times with a flood of sentiments behind them. Others, came in on a bit of whim so forgettable, I wouldn’t know when I got the figure if not for a dated photo from around the time. Although he’s very nice, this Gung-Ho is a bit of the later; I remember getting him in the early 2010‘s and that’s about it. I have the Slugger he came with, but I have no recollection if I bought them separate or together. The 2010‘s were a fairly miserable time in my life, so I think a lot of toy acquisitions were less memorable and more of a coping mechanism. Though, I’m glad now I coped by buying cool figures that have only gotten more expensive and harder to find.

Indeed, there’s nothing super special about this figure other than the fact that it’s one of the only alternate coloration out there for Gung-Ho. Action Force repainted him into Gaucho, and there’s some oddball Funskool variants that are all extremely rare. Those toys aren’t too practical to get a hold of though, so this version is your only real repaint of Gung-Ho. In the 2000‘s, Hasbro seemed to favor the Battle Corps mold over this one, and while that seems like a bit of a shame, I do think that toy is better than this one, as a sculpt.

The colors chosen here seem really tasteful and logical compared to a handful of other ‘97 releases. He’s mostly brown with camouflage, and has his details highlighted in a teal similar to the original toy’s color. Compared to the ‘83 version, I feel like the head sculpt comes across better and sharper looking, though I’m not entirely sure why. The paint masks are similar besides the whites of his eyes now being painted, yet the head just looks slightly less bulbous to me.

Like all 1997 releases, he’s plagued by the oversized rivets. So sometimes when you bend his shoulders, the arm runs the chance of crumbling around the rivet. Besides being big, the rivets are also unpainted, which looks super cheap and off compared to almost any other figure. I think this problem gets worse in the winter when the temperature is cold, though I’m not entirely sure.

His accessories are really nice, it’s the full classic kit of parts, but this time they even painted his backpack. So you get a black China Lake grenade launcher similar to the original, and a brown and teal backpack that perfectly matches the figure. Painted accessories are pretty rare with GI Joe, especially backpacks, so it’s just a bit of an odd choice that the straps were painted for this one. At the same time though, I also really appreciate it as something that makes this figure a tad more unique. You also get a figure stand, which we all know better than to use, but still, it was nice for a pack-in figure.

The cheapest a complete figure has sold for in the past six months was $50, which is pretty absurd given he used to be much cheaper than a mint V1 Gung-Ho. Of course, that’s a little exaggerated by the fact that no one does auctions any more, but even then $50 is a little nuts for this figure. Yet, that’s the modern state of GI Joe collecting, so it is what it is. For me, I’m a little hesitant to acquire 1997 Joes at their current prices just for the risk their shoulders could crumble at any given time, though I’m very glad to own this figure, which in my opinion is the superior Gung-Ho.

1997 gi joe gung-ho hasbro kenner vintage figure1997 gi joe gung-ho hasbro kenner vintage figure

1997 Gung-Ho Links:

Hlaf the Battle

1997 Destro

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1997 Destro

At one point in life, I had two Destro toys I found superior to most others: ‘92 Destro and ‘97 Destro. With these, I didn’t feel like I needed any other o-ring Destros, until I changed my mind and decided ‘83 was the best. For the most part, I still like the ‘83 figure more, but the V3 sculpt has it’s charms, and the ‘97 repaint is a great representation of it.

I often forget that this figure is the retail-release version of the infamous Pimp Daddy Destro. It’s funny really, that that figure gets so much press, either just for it’s sheer absurdity or for the fact that it’s rare, while this one remains an obscurity like virtually every other repaint from the ‘97 – ‘98 line. That’s a gimmicky part of collecting I’ve never seen the appeal of, but then again, I’m glad that not everyone likes everything as much as I do, or GI Joes would be more expensive than they already are.

Destro V3, which this figure is a repaint of, features a very bulky sculpt. At a glance it looks quite a lot like Destro’s original design, but it’s fairly different in a few ways. He’s picked up some shoulder-pads, some bulky shin-guards, some leggings more reminiscent of the Iron Grenadiers figure. Still, most of the important details like his little medallion remain the same (well, it’s a different necklace now, but it’s there), which is interesting given that not so many ARAH redesigns kept much from figure to figure.

I quit liking ‘92 Destro quite as much once I realized how poorly his proportions match up with anything. His tiny head in particular tends to bother me, though the massive muscle-guy-90‘s shoulders limit him a bit too. At one point this bothered me an awful lot, but I realize that most of these issues just seem more apparent because of the transition in sculpting styles. Next to ‘84 Cobra Commander, he looks silly and rather out of place; next to ‘94 Major Bludd, he looks pretty decent. It’s a very exaggerated looking figure, but he has a home among his contemporaries.

Of course, this post is about the ‘97 repaint. He came in the “Cobra Command Team” set with Baroness and a blue battle-armor Cobra Commander. As the story goes, originally him and Cobra Commander were going to be the V1 molds, but like with so many others from this point, the molds were gone. From what I can see of the prototype, the V1 Destro repaint they were planning was a lot more boring than this one, so I guess I’m glad it never happened in that way.

This is a nice set of colors for Destro and the V3 mold with it’s added details does really well with it. The heavy use of burgundy with black, red and silver for details is eye-catching, and also a fairly inventive new color-scheme that manages to look appropriate for the character while also seeming totally new. For an added bonus, they chromed his head, which I think makes him look a lot more interesting overall than if it were just silver paint.

Like ‘92 Destro, he comes with a big, bulky pistol, a disk-launcher (with three disks) and a stand. Some of those disk-launchers are black, some are pink. As a kid I really liked his pistol, just for the way it looked. As far as looks go, it is fairly decent, but it’s hard to ignore how badly scaled it is when considering the fact that it’s a handgun. Of course, I can’t place what kind of gun it is exactly, and while I think it’s probably an original design, some of those 90‘s Joe guns were based on some very obscure firearms, so maybe it’s better than I think. The disk launcher is alright for a missile launcher, it’s fairly fun since it’s a stationary item. Oddly there’s no spring in this one, I think that’s universal on this release, but I’ve never been sure since no one says much about it.

Most of the ‘97 Destro’s I see loose are missing the launcher, which I’d guess is because most of the adults that bought these probably tossed that aside while contemplating the real and present danger of the Y2K bug. Without it, you can get a nice example for around $7, which is nice. Carded Cobra Command Team sets seem like they’re coming down in price, so with a little waiting you might get one of those for around $35.

gi joe 1997 pimp daddy destro viper tru toys r us
gi joe 1997 pimp daddy destro viper tru toys r us

1997 Destro Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

1997 Baroness

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1997 Baroness

The Baroness is one of the best characters in the GI Joe franchise. If I could only have one female GI Joe character, it would be the Baroness, without hesitation (most other female GI Joes irritate me in some way). With that in mind, there’s been some good toys of the character, and more really bad toys. None compare as well to their contemporaries as the original sculpt, and in this case, it’s very strong repaint from the 1997 line.

The ‘84 Baroness sculpt is a good one. The biggest detractor to most female GI Joes, is that their toys are butt-ugly. The only exceptions to this were Baroness and Lady Jaye. Generally speaking, the sculpt and in particular the head both look very nice and serviceably feminine. I think the introduction of the two-part head piece, with her hair being a separate, glued on sculpt, improved the look and sharpness considerably over prior figures like Cover Girl and Scarlet.

This ‘97 repaint is also among the better Baroness recolors, and is probably the only blue one worth having. It looks pretty close to how she appeared in both DIC and a few other places, which makes the blue look pretty reasonable for Baroness. I also really like the Cobra symbol on her chest, which is unusually detailed. The only thing I don’t really like about the colors here, is that her skin-tone is very pale and sick looking.

Like all of the 1997 releases, the quality is the biggest detractor to this release. She has oversized rivets, which can cause the shoulders to crack apart. I would comment that the plastic also has a suspect feel to it, but 24 years later and these figures don’t seem to be breaking badly besides at the shoulders. Another irritating feature of the rivets is that they’re unpainted, which is very uncommon on Hasbro figures.

The entire Cobra Command set came with some pretty lackluster part options, and Baroness is no exception. All she has is her classic riffle and a figure stand, while the backpack from the ‘84 figure is MIA. It’s pretty strange too, considering that the old backpack shows up again with ARAHC’s Chameleon, but it’s probably just another indicator of the hectic production of the ‘97 line.

And now it’s time for the part of the post where I tell you about how stupidly expensive obscure and niche figures have become. Except, to my surprise, this Baroness still isn’t all that expensive. A lot of chumps will try to pass this figure off for $40+, which is absurd, and certainly not warranted for this toy. Auctions tend to only fetch between $10 and $15 however, which is a far more fair price. Usually you can save a few dollars if the figure is bundled with the Cobra Commander and Destro from their set, which is a decent option to consider given that both of those figures are solid repaints.

cobra trooper the baroness marvel gi joe hasbro vintage 1997cobra trooper the baroness marvel gi joe hasbro vintage 1997

1997 Baroness Links:

The Dragon Fortress

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

1997 Snake Eyes (Commando Team)

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1997 Snake Eyes (Commando Team)

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

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

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

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

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

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

1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch

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1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gi joe bronze bombers scorch 1997 motor viper olmec gi joe bronze bombers scorch 1997 motor viper olmec

1997 Bronze Bombers Scorch Links:

Forgotten Figures

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

1997 Duke

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1997 Duke

I’ve talked once before about 1997 Duke and cited him as one of the worst GI Joes in my collection. Big emphasis on the “my collection” part, but I’d still consider him a figure with significant issues. With that said, elements of the figure are of decent quality, and parts of his design are… interesting enough to be worth talking about.

Me and my brother collected the 1997 GI Joes, and they were the first “new” line of GI Joes I was able to collect as a kid. While they were controversial to collectors for their quality issues, I really have a special fondness for this year, 1998, and 1994 since those were more or less my introduction to the line. Despite this, my bias doesn’t apply to Duke, as somehow I didn’t know of his existence until I was an adult.

Duke’s first obvious problem is his colors. The 97‘s were prone to some experimental color schemes, that in some cases were excellent. In other cases, you had oddities like this figure. Brown hair, lime shirt, red boots? Looking at his colors makes me feel like the hue on my monitor is off, they’re just way too weird and random for a character like Duke.

But the biggest shame? His paint applications are actually pretty sweet. Check out the detail on his breast pocket, or the decoration just above it, multiple colors on the bandolier, camo on the pants, ect. The only thing he’s missing is some paint for the watch, which is oddly left a giant mass of flesh.

This was also the first Duke that was badly hurt by the original’s missing tooling. Duke’s old arms weren’t something that precious (The Hit&Run arms on the Tiger Force and Chinese variants were great), but these replacements were just terrible. As he uses arms from Gung-ho V1, his sleeves are essentially just painted on; the lack of any thickness or detail just looks unnatural. This was the parts combo the kept for all subsequent Dukes too, which really just adds insult to injury.

His parts are pretty decent, but not perfect. He keeps the gun and binoculars from 1984 Duke, while swapping the helmet for a generic one from ‘97 Grunt, as well as the generic black Hawk backpack that practically every figure from that year had. For some reason, they also decided to toss in a 1982 style visor for his helmet too, which is actually pretty cool. All in all, I really just wish he had a better backpack, but it looks like they kinda tried with this one. Kinda.

Sealed or with the Silver Mirage, 1997 Dukes go for around $30 to $40. Meanwhile the figure can go for about $8 loose and on it’s own. 97‘s go for some pretty random prices, but it certainly seems like Duke is on the less interesting end for the most part, with only figures from the Arctic Mission Team really underpricing him.

Note: I thought I had an alternate version of this picture without the filter, but it’s been lost while swapping computers over years. I’d have taken another to show him off better, but I can’t say the figure motivated me enough to do that!

1997 Duke Links:

Yo Joe

Modern Style Custom by Oreobuilder

1997 Stalker (Stars and Stripes Forever)

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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.

GI Joe hasbro ARAH MOBAT Stalker OG13 Short-Fuze Grunt 1982 1983 1997 Stars and Stripes Forever
GI Joe hasbro ARAH MOBAT Stalker OG13 Short-Fuze Grunt 1982 1983 1997 Stars and Stripes Forever

1997 Stalker Links:

Yo Joe

Forgotten Figures

Stalker by Scarrviper

Around the Flank by Creadea2

1997 Short-Fuze

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The 1997 Stars and Stripes Forever set is a little bit infamous. At the time of it’s release it wasn’t too popular, the figures were poor quality, and mold choices were… strange, to say the least. For those reasons among others, many of the figures from this set have gone overlooked for a long time. Possibly none more so than Short-Fuze.

As a simple repaint, there’s a number of things I find rather nice about this figure. The first thing I’d like to mention is that the entirety of the 1983 mold is present here, with no tooling swaps like we saw on other ‘83 figures that showed up later in the line, or even in this very set. Most of the original thirteen Joes were rarely repainted from their original molds without a couple of part swaps, so this is something fairly nice for this version of Short-Fuze.

The deco is also really good on this figure. It’s mainly green and almost similar to V1 Short-Fuze, but at the same time it’s more vibrant and detailed. His pants now feature an interesting airbrush like pattern on them that helps break up his colors more too. I really appreciate that since the 1982 guys could be a little bland sometimes, especially Short-Fuze. Oddly, he now features red hair and eyes too, which is a little strange but not uncommon for 1997 figures, and easily overlooked in this case.

The parts on this figure are also fantastic. He still features the mortar, backpack, helmet and visor from the original, but also includes a spare bazooka like Zap’s. A M16 or some other gun might’ve been better since it wouldn’t have stepped on Zap’s toes so much, but I still really like the inclusion of this part and it makes Short-Fuze more suitable for action roles.

I can be a bit of purist when it comes to GI Joe, but honestly I prefer this version of Short-Fuze to the 1983 figure. They’re very similar, but to me this one has better colors and better parts. It’s one of the few examples of something like this I can think of.

Similar to other 97‘s, this version of Short-Fuze isn’t the easiest to come by any more. At one point him and the other figures from the Star and Stripes Forever set were relatively cheap, bargain figures. But as the GI Joe market has shrunk, so have your options for the niche and obscure figures from the line. I see these go anywhere from $10 to $14 at the moment, which seems fair, but finding them is still somewhat difficult.

GI Joe Stars and Stripes Forever Hasbro 1997 Short-Fuze Zap Stalker MOBAT Heavy Metal

1997 Short-Fuze Links:

Yo Joe