Tag Archives: 2017

2017 Red Shadows Star Duster (TBM)

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2017 Red Shadows Star Duster (TBM)

Sometimes I feel like the staying-power of a TBM figure is dependent on how “needed” the given figure was. Over the years a lot of them have blended together and I can barely even remember when some came out. For others though, they seem a lot more remarkable if it was something there was a lot of pent up demand for, and such is the case with the Star Duster customs.

I don’t use most of them besides this Red Shadows Star Duster in photos a whole lot, though I’m tempted to say some of that comes from a subconscious notion that this Star Duster is the best one, so I always like tossing him around a little more than the others. Something about him really works as a Red Shadow for me, I think partly just because Action Force already has enough of a separate continuity from the American GI Joe media that it doesn’t feel so odd having Steeler’s evil twin wondering around. There’s a few more degrees of separation between them. Amusingly, the Red Shadows have a tendency to be the low-hanging fruit of the “factory customs”, since many of them tend to work so well. Palitoy seemed a little whimsical in their repurposing of molds, probably with Hunter being the best example of that.

The figure looking fantastic is another thing that makes him stand out as the best. The original Star Duster colors are pretty dandy, but the fluorescent red with black camouflage and details just pops. His red is not a perfect match for any particular Palitoy Red Shadow, though it does strike me as being very similar to the color some guns were cast in, which gives it some added novelty. The visor-helmet works pretty well for his look too, as V1 Hawk and Flash aren’t so iconic as to make the look sacred, and Scrap-Iron’s helmet wasn’t that much different either. I like that the opaque visor hides his face somewhat villainously while lacking so much overlap with all the Cobras that keep their mouths covered.

Overall the quality is solid on the figure too: Nice joints, solid construction, good paint-masks and sculpt looks fairly undistorted. I’m not to sensitive to TBM’s occasional quality defects, which I think partly comes from years of restoring junker figures with loose joints and other flaws. Despite that though, the Star Dusters felt better than average, especially the overall feel of the plastic; it’s much more Hasbro-like in tolerance compared to some of the other customs that strike me as a tad more brittle feeling.

Most of the TBM Star Duster’s also included and alternate torso casting, so you could chose between Duke’s torso and Recondo’s. The Recondo torso has that open shirt and looks a little more wild, so I like that better than Duke’s. Still, giving you the option is to switch to your preferred Star Duster configuration was pretty neat. There’s a very fickle audience for these sorts of figures, so this method is nice way of pleasing everyone.

Included is full set of Star Duster accessories in different colors, so a China Lake grenade launcher, a jet-pack, a helmet and visor all in solid red. The jet-pack’s pretty nifty, but also similar to the one with the Q-Force Deep Sea Defender, so it’s not too new. The helmet and visor completes his look and are integral accessories, but you’d also be fine to swap them for a few others. Lastly, the grenade launcher is still the classic part from Gung-Ho, and in my opinion, the best thing about Gung-Ho. A standard black or silver gun might look a tad better with him, but the red guns have their uses, and this makes a nice alternative for plenty of Cobras.

You can still find these floating around, if you look long enough. Almost all of the TBM Star Dusters, including this figure, go for a routine $30, which I don’t find that appalling. It’s still a fair bit of money to pay, but the nice thing is that he’s not an army-builder, so it’s not like he has diminished appeal for the lack of a squad. Plus, if you’re into Action Force, you don’t really have that much to collect to begin with, so in that context he’s a relatively inexpensive addition.

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2017 Red Shadows Star Duster (TBM) Links:

Attica Gazette

2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors)

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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.

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2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors) Links:

The Dragon Fortress

2017 RLA Odin

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2017 RLA Odin

In the late 2010‘s, we really had it good with factory customs (AKA: bootlegs), so much so that the endless repaints of similar sculpts began to be something collectors took for granted, at least a little bit. In hindsight, it would seem things are winding down, at least for the moment, as RLA no longer operates, Letal Customs ended after a single run, and now even the Black Major is transitioning his business to other avenues.

I really respected RLA’s efforts to make figures that were more akin to a continued GI Joe line, as to an endless barrage of army-builders. Odin’s a great example of that, where he’s a unique character that gives me something new to invent a story around. Of course, I don’t think it sold all that well, which probably has to do with the fact that people weren’t buying them by the dozens.

So far, my character for this guy is essentially Col. Courage redux, and I also use him as a bit of an expy for Hawk, since I prefer the ‘86 figure to represent him. So he’s taken on the role of a field commander for some early Joes. I could probably do something more interesting with him, like have him be the leader of a prototype GI Joe team or something like that, but my GI Joe-verse is usually in a state of flux, so the idea can change based on my needs.

Obsidian is a nice looking figure. For the most part, it’s a repaint of ‘82 Hawk, but with the legs from ‘83 Airborne. This is a decent little parts mix that helps break up the monotonous look of the early Joes. Plus, rendering the sculpt in all gray colors with an African-American skin tone, goes further to make him not look like Hawk.

The quality was okay on these. On my figure, the joints aren’t particularly tight, but they’re also not loose either, kinda like the condition you’ll usually find a decent vintage figure in. The paint applications are somewhat janky, as there’s a lot of brown overspray on one of his forearms. Comparing him to my V1 Short-Fuze, I’m also tempted to say his head isn’t a perfect copy of the sculpt , either. Overall, it feels like a reasonably decent toy in hand, but there’s examples of where the quality could be better.

The parts are pretty lackluster. As I recall you get a generic knife and pistol similar to many of the ones included with the Steel Brigades of the same era. I say “as I recall” since I squirreled away my parts somewhere in a bag with a bunch of other bootleg guns. Worse yet, finding online documentation on these is actually pretty hard to do, so that was a pretty clumsy mistake on my part. Back to the point, he certainly didn’t come with any nice ‘82 guns he can hold, or a helmet, which was a bummer. This guy looks okay without one, and a lot of the old Accessory Pack helmets work nicely for him too, so there’s that.

Years later, Odins are hard to find, and a little hard to price. One sold a while back for $40, which actually seems fair given the difficulty in locating one. Other RLA customs don’t sell for so much though, and many of the contemporaries of this figure barely fetch $20. Truthfully, I don’t think Odins are worth much more than that, but at this point, you might be hunting for a while before you can find one at a fair price.

gi joe custom rla tbm black major odin hawk

gi joe custom rla tbm black major odin hawk

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado

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Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado Links:

Forgotten Figures

Differences Between TBM Troopers at Attica Gazette