1993 Iceberg

Posted on February 28, 2025 by mwnekoman

Something that always struck me as odd about the 1993 Joe line, is the sheer amount of figures released. At a glance, I’m pretty sure there’s more figures released in this year than any other year of the Joe line. There’s so many figures Hasbro even had room to crank out 3 arctic themed Joes in the Battle Corps line, with Snow Storm, Frostbite and Iceberg. I never really saw these figures as a set until now, as it never really occurred to me they came out at essentially the same time.

V2 Iceberg is a competent update to the original 1986 Iceberg. He has a few warts I’ll get to in a bit, but as a design this isn’t a very extreme looking figure for a 90’s release; in fact, he’s pretty mundane. The biggest issue I could see for him is the choice to give him a bright yellow ski-mask. It’s perfectly realistic (save for the color), but still kind of an odd choice to completely obscure his face. In Brazil they even went as far as to sell Pântano as a Cobra, and it’s a role the figure works as. Some people are obsessed with the idea that covering your face makes you a terrorist. I’m fine with masks to an extent,but it has to suit the character. For Iceberg, it’s kind of odd he would suddenly cover his face up when both of his files explicitly state how much he likes the cold.

There’s some belts of bullets sculpted to him now, which would be a cool touch with his original LMG, if only he still had an LMG. Inconsistencies like this always made me wonder how many last minute swaps Hasbro made with accessories. A few are pretty obvious, like Sonic Fighters (AKA Eco Warriors) Major Bludd having the Air Devil’s gun in his card art. Iceberg has all these bullets, but no gun they would be compatible with.

Otherwise, the sculpt is strong and the colors are well within reason. I like this Iceberg a lot, though I rarely have motive to use him outside of going for something odd on the rare occasion it snows. In a few areas his sculpt is probably a little stronger and sharper than the original figure’s, yet somehow he’s still not really all that exciting. To a certain extent, I think arctic Joes fall into a trap of feeling more samey than others, since ultimately it’s always going to be a mostly white figure in bulky clothes. Even older figures like Sub-Zero and Blizzard feel like they cover old ground.

Speaking of that Brazilian repaint, it looks like he got released over there and then the mold disappeared forever. A shame, since the head on a real Cobra might’ve looked pretty cool. The jacket is vague enough too that I could see the whole figure repainted into darker woodland colors like Big Ben’s and making for a decent figure. This Iceberg’s colors are already decent enough, so it’s not much of a loss though.

Iceberg does include some TOTALLY RAD accessories, like a JET POWERED SNOW BOARD! Yeah, although most of the parts are recycled sculpts, they made sure to toss in a brand new snow board, I guess since extreme-sports were just that popular at the time. His other accessories include a pistol and long-barrel uzi pulled from Blizzard, a machete (Muskrat) and a knife (Hit & Run), as well as the requisite missile launcher. It’s a little flimsy, but by far my favorite part of the figure is the snow board. When I was kid the snow Joes flew around everywhere on that thing, it was like the JUMP, just more radical.

A carded figure is worth about $30 and a loose complete V2 Iceberg will fetch about $13. Fairly standard pricing for a ’93 Battle Corps figure at this point, so it sounds about right. This Iceberg really isn’t a figure essential to a collection, but he’s well done and nice to have around. Though, he also doesn’t feel like he has a life much outside of background fodder in a photo.

1993 Iceberg Links:

Half the Battle

3D Joes

Joe A Day

1993 Beach-Head

Posted on June 19, 2024 by mwnekoman

1993 Beach-Head

I’ve always seen a lot of folks react pretty harshly to Beah-Head V2, and to be honest, I really don’t know why. 90‘s Joe had a lot of drastic redesigns, many of which I’m yet to have fully come around on. So having some disdain for the more outlandish V2 Firefly or Mega Marines Clutch makes some sense, but Beach-Head just seems like the kind of figure that still doesn’t get a fair shake.

The biggest thing the figure has going against it, is that he somehow looks a lot like Beachhead while at the same time, looking nothing that much like Beachhead. I have to use the dreaded i-word, but indeed, 1986 Beach Head is very iconic. There’s something about the masked Joes that seems a bit easier to get behind, perhaps their anonymity makes them a bit easier to identify with. Battle Corps Beach-Head doesn’t really change his look that significantly, but the popularity of his original design leaves people sensitive to change I think.

The figure looks really cool, he has what would’ve been a fairly modern helmet design, which combined with the bulkiness of his chest still resembles a fairly modern military operator. Of course, the lower half of the figure is just pulled from V1 Shockwave, but his legs were already great looking, so that does nothing to hold back this figure. The only thing I don’t like too much is the part of his chest under his vest: it’s really smooth and vague looking, and I was never really sure what the sculptors were going for with it. It’s a shame this sculpt never got any repaints, as I think this figure would look really, really good in some modern camo patterns.

In Brazil, they made the colors more saturated and released him with V2 Alley Viper weapons as Armadilha. This character was a Cobra, so with a little imagination you could feasibly pretend the American one’s a Cobra too. I see him as Beachhead, but if The Black Major made some rainbow colored repaints with Cobra markings all over them, I certainly wouldn’t mind that.

For some odd trivia, his legs are all miss-assembled; the left and right feet are swapped. For a long time, I thought this might’ve been an intentional creative choice to make the figure look a little different, but the card art shows his knife is supposed to be on his inner left leg, not his outer right leg. It’s weird, because the yellow-vest version and Armadilha both keep the assembly error. Then again, there’s a knife in the same spot on ‘86 Beach Head too, so maybe it was intentional and the card-art is wrong? No one probably knows anymore.

His accessories are fairly bland. You get a modified version of the Spearhead & Max rifle, a V1 Shockwave pistol, Recoil’s pistol contraption, a knife, a missile launcher and some missiles, plus a stand. Incredibly, the knife appears to be brand new for the 1993 part trees, though it wasn’t unique to this figure. It’s alright for what it is, though rest of the parts aren’t anything to write home about, especially not in bright yellow. The Spearhead rifle wasn’t reused to my memory outside of this, and completely removes the sling.

You can get a complete V2 Beach-Head for around $11, so by modern standards he’s pretty dang cheap. I usually see pricing as a partial reflection of a figure’s popularity, so I think it’s safe to say this Beach-Head isn’t too popular, though most of the non-repaint 1993 figures are kind of cheap like that. I think he’s an overlooked gem, but perhaps you guys can enlighten me on his flaws.

1993 Beach-Head Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

3D Joes

1993 Detonator

Posted on April 29, 2024 by mwnekoman

1993 Detonator

90‘s vehicles are a weird lot, because you guys probably know by now that I don’t have the best opinion of things made after 1990. ‘91 was probably the bottom of the barrel as far as vehicles go, though the quality seemed to be recovering somewhat in the line’s twilight years, big emphasis on “somewhat”. The Detonator is a pretty good example of what I mean, as it’s a cool and unique vehicle with a lot going on for it, but also fails pretty hard on execution.

The Detonator is basically a huge-ass Cobra ICBM-launcher, equipped with what looks like some nasty biological warheads judging by the stickers. It’s really the perfect vehicle for Cobra’s identity, as the threat of getting poisoned or incinerated by a missile at any given time seems like the epitome of Cold War fears (and modern ones too). From the perspective of a military fantasy, it seems really weird they never made another vehicle like this, especially given the popularity of some similar ideas tried by Chap Mei and some other no name companies years later.

Of course, the thing most are quick to notice and deride is that the ICBM’s are made of foam, so you can launch them from the giant plunger in the back. Hasbro was trying to work in more gimmicks with vehicles like this, and I can’t blame them for that given I always wanted to launch a nuke at the Joes as a kid. Which I never did because of this thing’s biggest problem: it doesn’t work! The missiles fit way too tight on the launcher to ever fly off, and the pump doesn’t really push air through it at all either. From an objective point of view, it’s pretty hard to overlook a gimmick-oriented vehicle where the gimmick doesn’t really work at all.

Spare missiles are held in place by some silver clips. Unfortunately those clips are really fragile now, so don’t be surprised if they shatter from the slightest touch. They have a slight sparkle to them, so I assume these parts suffer from something akin to GPS. Unfortunately, they work by pinching the missiles a little bit, so the plastic parts are always under a little stress as long as the missiles are attached.

It’s second biggest problem is that this vehicle is fudgin’ huge, despite that it doesn’t really do that much. This isn’t too bad because the size is admittedly part of it’s appeal, it’s just frustrating that the back half of the vehicle is entirely occupied with the pump and launcher mechanism. As a kid the Detonator was almost more of a Cobra playset, where whole battles would center around stopping the missile launch. As an adult, I still like how well it does to fill up the frame of a photo, but it should be said the thing takes up a lot of space (it’s roughly the same size as the Night Raven).

Detonator crew gi joe It has seats for five guys up front, one for the rear gun, and foot-pegs for a guy on each side and a few on the front and rear bumpers. It’s a reasonable crew for what it is, as this vehicle really shouldn’t need that many crew members. With that said though, another minor gripe is that the seats are awkwardly arranged. I mildly dislike how the two guys riding in the back have rear-facing seats, I can’t really see the point of what they do back there.

Oddly I really don’t feel like I have much good to say about the Detonator at all, which is weird to me. I say that because in a general sense it’s a favorite vehicle of mine and I have tons of good memories of playing with it. To this day, I daydream enough events that it’s been involved with to say it’s a major part of my Cobra armory. Partly, I think some of that is just because the appeal of Cobra’s big missile is enough to outweigh the vehicle’s failings. Despite that the failings are rather severe and the things it’s good at aren’t so much… So looking at it objectively, I can’t say I think it’s the best toy.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot there’s a Funskool Detonator. It’s a little different, as the orange has been swapped for slightly more reddish plastic, and the missiles are now short, green ones with a totally different design. It’s an interesting novelty, but good luck finding one now.

Detonators have gotten tougher to find. Mind you, they are not so rare or precious, as examples with enough parts to count as a starter barely go for a few bucks, less than the price of shipping. A complete one with the foam missiles is really tough to find though, way harder to find loose than ones that are still MISB. Though, you can get a sealed one on the low-end for around $100, which isn’t much when you consider that you’re getting the Nitro-Viper with it too.

1993 Detonator

Forgotten Figures

A Random HISS Tank Thread

3D Joes

1994 Alley Viper

Posted on April 15, 2024 by mwnekoman

1994 Alley Viper

I turn 30 this year, which doesn’t mean much to me. Though it did get me to thinking I should round off a few more posts on the Joes that turn 30 this year, which proves to be more and more difficult of a task as I’ve already made posts on a bunch, and there aren’t that many to choose from. So, I’ll finally write about the 1994 Alley Viper I have access to, since that one’s fairly interesting in a kind of meta-sense.

Doing things out of order a bit, I’ll start with the figure’s pricing. 1994 Alley Vipers are somewhat rare (I could say less common, because anything you can find a couple examples of on eBay at any given time probably isn’t truly “rare”) and absolutely insane-expensive. Last auction for a complete striped variant (made in China) hit $136, the more common stripe-less variant (made in Indonesia) still hits around $40 as long as it has the face mask. Of domestic, mass-retail single cards, that makes this version of the Alley Viper one of the most expensive figures in the entire line, probably out-priced by the red Ozone (who is genuinely rare), and roughly tied with Predacon by my best guess.

So is this R@RE GI Joe worth it? Nah, not really. This is another figure that’s still owned by my brother, not me, and although Alley Vipers have always been popular with both of us, I always saw this as a subpar remake of the ‘89 figure. As a kid it was kind of fun to pair them together, as he looked similar enough to the original that it could work. Later in life any money I had for Alley Vipers went off to the 2000’s repaints or to the V1 figure, as this guy was just a little too bland to garner much interest from me.

The colors are similar to the original, but if you compare them in-hand, they’re definitely not the same. The orange and blue colors are both slightly brighter, so even the orange is a slightly more eye-searing tone than the comfy shades seen on the original. Obviously one’s not more realistic than the other, but the ‘89 figure just looks better, especially for the blue color complimenting the orange. I will say I find the gold details on the torso pretty nifty, though it’s not a very strong contrast.

The accessories are similar to the 1993 figure, but you don’t get an Alley Viper backpack because Hasbro loves cutting corners. So included here is a mask, Dial-Tone SMG, Version 2 Alley Viper gun (thick foregrip), a shield and a figure stand in super bright orange, along with a missile launcher in bright blue. I don’t mind some neon weapons, but I do dislike it when they match the figure’s primary color. In this figure’s case, it makes him look like a solid orange blob, when blue or gold would’ve been a lot better.

Oh yeah, I kind of touched on it at the beginning, but I’ll highlight the two variants of the figure again. V3 Alley Vipers were made in both China and in Indonesia, with the Chinese ones featuring an extra paint-application on the legs compared to the Indonesian ones that lack it. It’s similar to other variants from the same year like with Stalker and Dial-Tone and a few others, where seemingly one factory wouldn’t have access to the same paint-masks as the other. It’s actually pretty boring, but nerds are thirsty for anything that could be considered a novel and rare colectibible.

Figures like this that just sort of became expensive suddenly are something I find baffling. It’s very hard to understand and seems to be occurring in more niches than just vintage GI Joe, so it appears to be a bit of a broader social phenomena as opposed to something more inherent to our collecting. Lock-down noobs seem to have mostly blown off in most spaces, particularly last year. Inflation really shouldn’t make old toys more expensive either, though it should be making things harder for all but the upper-class (meaning prices should go down). The only other interesting social anecdote I can think of, is that a lot of guys are dropping out of marriage. It stuck in my head when I read this, because hags and kids tend to eat up a lot of money, that now probably goes to male-dominated hobbies like this one instead. Guys not getting their routine divorces from some gold-digging trophy wife probably also plays an effect, since it seemed like every other eBay auction I won in the 2000‘s would be described along the lines of “Getting divorced and have to sell everything.”. That’s probably not entirely it either, though society finding itself in a bizarre and increasingly dysfunctional state could have some role in it.

1994 alley viper gi joe intel exchange gi joe

1994 Alley Viper Links:

1992 Roadblock

Posted on December 11, 2023 by mwnekoman

1992 Roadblock

Also known as the recall Roadblock, this one’s famous for it’s missile launcher deemed too powerful to be left in the hands of children. What it should be famous for, however, is being the best looking Roadblock toy ever made. For a guy who’s competing to have the most toys released in the vintage line, Roadblock did pretty well with almost every toy of him being a good one.

Roadblock V4 is serious business. The design is very down-to-earth and even somewhat more similar to the modern “operator” look more in the vein of Classified or an FPS game. He looks to be wearing a ribbed sweater vest over a black shirt, which looks a little nerdy, but I’ll let it pass just for the nice texturing provided on the sculpt. The brightest color featured here is the blue on his pants, which really isn’t a weird color for commando slacks (though, it would’ve been slick if they were marbled plastic like Cross Country). For years this was my favorite Roadblock toy, and honestly it might still be despite my love for the ‘84 and ‘86 figures.

The sharpness of the sculpt here is peak ARAH perfection. Everything is rendered with crisp detailing you didn’t see just a few years earlier, and really didn’t see again until roughly 2010 or so. I do like 2000‘s GI Joes, but the Nu-Sculpt era and 25th Anniversary figures still tended to look pretty doughy until the POC line for the most part. It’s something I feel the ‘91 through ‘94 line really doesn’t get enough credit for, as the overall quality here was probably the best Joe would be for at least the next 15 years.

So there’s two sets of accessories for this Roadblock: the original recalled ones, and a new set that came with ones on a Battle Corps card in 1993. For the recall set, you got an extremely large LMG with what looks like a night-scope, a rotor-launching missile launcher and a new knife. For the Battle Corps release, you just got a ho-hum repack of the Cross Country/Snow Storm (and later Shipwreck) parts, which included V1 Hit&Run’s carbine and knife, V1 Shockwave’s pistol, Bullhorn’s Steyr AUG, two missiles and a stand all in black, along with a blue launcher, exactly like Cross Country.

The recall accessories show back up in a few odd places, but not as many or as nice as one would hope. Funskool Roadblock, Blaster and Red Dog have the LMG in black. The knife later would show up with 1993 Guile in black, neon red with Long Arm and in neon yellow-green with LAW. So some options are out there to get the knife. Also be aware that Guile’s knife looks very similar to the recall one, but is shinier.

This mold was brought back for a couple of nice repaints too. There’s a recolor of the figure that came out later in ‘93 in more typical colors, followed by a Funskool release that mimicked the original ‘92 figure. Hasbro seemingly got the mold back around ‘04, and then put out two more in the TRU sets, one in the Anti-Venom Task Force, and a similar one in the Heavy Assault Squad. I feel like there was some untapped potential in this sculpt for a new Crankcase, since the sweater-shirt combo looks kinda similar. Some brighter winter colors might’ve been nice too, since oddly this mold was almost only featured in dark colors.

Roadblock’s with the Battle Corps accessories tend to hit between $15 to $20, while Roadblock’s with the recall accessories trend towards $400! Ultimately, this toy was released to mass retail and shouldn’t really be that rare. Alas, you attach the word “recall” to something and some nerd will wet himself over the idea of having a special Roadblock that’s better-er than someone else’s. If the LMG and knife never showed up again, I could understand the novelty of wanting the see the rare parts, but similar ones were released with common figures. Anyways, paying $400 for a common toy is dumb, but this Roadblock rules so he deserves having a big number next to him.

1992 Roadblock Links:

Forgotten Figures

Forgotten Figures (Rarities Post)

Half the Battle

3D Joes

1993 Outback (Version 4)

Posted on July 17, 2023 by mwnekoman

1993 Outback

V1 Outback is one of my favorite GI Joe figures. He looks cool, he has great accessories, a great character, and in general, fits the part of the kind of moive-like action hero who can sometimes fight big battles all on his own, if your imagination works that way. All of that together makes for a character we should see more often than we do, but his fourth (kinda third) toy from Battle Corps left a lot to be desired.

So originally Outback V3 would’ve been apart of the Eco Warriors, but that sub line was canceled similar to DEF, and it’s releases were moved over to the Battle Corps lineup of ‘93. The colors on this release are extremely bright, which is fairly similar to the tones you typically saw from Eco Warriors. The figure was then promptly repainted into some new colors more similar to the Battle Corps toys, and that’s where you wind up with version 4.

This Outback has a curious look to him, to say the least. For some reason he’s wearing a hardhat now, which makes him look more like a random lumberjack or construction worker. His shirt and pants are also much more on the plain end, and he doesn’t seem to be wearing anything that would protect him from the dangerous chemicals the Eco Warriors would typically encounter. To make him even better, he’s primarily green and khaki, with bright blue and orange details all over, in addition to some little bits of gold and black. I really can’t think of a figure that had more random colors than this one.

Gotta be honest, I find almost nothing redeeming or fun about this figure. A lot of the ‘93 redesigns were on the controversial end, like with Dr. Mindbender or Law, but those toys at least have some interesting visual elements going on with them. This Outback however, just looks really boring. The design is bland and doesn’t really seem to serve a clear purpose. Even the infamous Fishn’ Trip Bazooka from that year looks a lot more appealing than this figure does. In decent colors this mold might be salvageable, but there’s not much potential that was wasted here.

For accessories you get a tree of bright red parts, featuring Hit&Run’s carbine, Big Ben’s LMG, Ambush’s EM2 rifle, two missiles and a figure stand (as well as a blue missile launcher). It’s weird how almost every other Joe included some kind of knife or machete, but the survivalist just comes with random guns. At the very least, they are good guns, so if you’re another individual who’s developed a fondness for bright parts, you could probably find some uses for them. They don’t really make this Outback a good toy though.

Almost every Battle Corps Outback you will find is MOSC. Carded, he’s worth about $14, and loose he’s worth about $9. It’s really funny how heavily certain ‘93 and ‘94 Joes were hoarded by speculators who expected to get rich off of these; the fact that almost every example of this Outback that you find is carded makes me wonder how many kids ever even played with this guy.

1993 Outback Links:

1993 Law

Posted on June 13, 2023 by mwnekoman

1993 Law

As it turns out, government propaganda isn’t a popular thing. Doubling a toy’s price to include a missile launcher with a light was also not such a popular thing. Because of this, the DEF line wound up getting canceled, and all of it’s 1993 releases incorporated into the Battle Corps. I tend to find that all of these ‘93 DEF guys are odd, but most of them are good none the less, which is the case with Law.

Law is a figure I’ve not paid attention to for the longest time. When I started collecting, I did not have much tolerance for figures in the colors you often found from ‘93. The drastic redesign on this figure was off putting, and it was even more so when I had Sonic Fighters Law to compare him to. Even back then I had a lot of interest in the DEF and Headhunters, but Law was too much to ever really consider. At some point a few years ago though, neon became a fascination of mine, so this Law has some new life in my eyes. He’s especially helped by the fact that I ignored him for so long that now he feels kind of new.

The new design is a drastic change from his ‘87 look, but if you pay attention he actually looks really good. If he were in dark and drab colors this figure really wouldn’t be too far off from the geardo/dark and gritty esthetic that’s been popular since the 2010‘s. He’s wearing a mask with chemical filters on it, which I imagine protects him from both friendly usage of teargas and also exposure to drugs and other chemicals, since some might get aerosolized during a fight. It’s a really cool detail, although I have to admit the idea doesn’t really translate well onto the figure’s sculpt, compared to his card-art (similar to DEF Shockwave and his helmet). He’s fully decked out in body-armor too, which is unique looking and makes for a pretty cool figure, Law might be able to survive a few blasts from a Headhunter’s shotgun.

I think where this figure really falls flat is the coloring. Bright-blue, light-gray and neon-yellow make for a figure with colors that are both bright and not too compelling. If there was ever a year of figures that was neon, it was 1993; despite that, many of his contemporaries had color schemes I felt were a tad more interesting. The Night Creeper Leader with his tiger pants is a fine example. Roadblock, Gung-Ho and a few others also make really good use of colors that contrast better with the neon. Law here mostly features colors at a similarly bright shade, which just makes him look more boring than he should.

You may have noticed that Law’s dog, Order, is no longer present. This was a veiled commentary on America’s decent into becoming a police state, as now you have Law but no Order… Just kidding. Law includes ‘91 Sci-fi’s gun, ‘91 Grunt’s gun, ‘92 Roadblock’s knife, missiles, stand, and a shield for his missile launcher, all in bright yellow plastic. The shield that fits over his missile-launcher was a pretty cool little gimmick. His guns are pretty terrible choices and he doesn’t look swell with either of them. At the very least the Roadblock knife was a cool inclusion seeing as to how it’s a nice and also seldom seen sculpt.

V3 Law’s are still purty cheap, with complete figures weighing in at around $12 and carded figures only going up to $20. Finding carded figures is still pretty easy, since he’s from the point where speculators began hording figures knowing that one day random 90’s GI Joes would make them rich. He’s not a must-have figure for any reason, but if you have a fascination with imagining inner city America as a war-zone brimming with neon-clad commandos, which I do, then he’s pretty cool to have around.

1993 Law Links:

1993 Mutt & Junkyard

Posted on February 14, 2023 by mwnekoman

1993 Mutt & Junkyard

I’ve really come to be fascinated by the 1993 lineup of figures. It’s weird, because I really don’t think this is a very strong year quality-wise, and I’d even go further to say it might even be the worst year of the 90‘s. Garish colors, generic accessories, a deluge of low-quality repaints, those are just some of the problems that reach their peak in this year, while the ‘94 figures seemed to make a return to better quality overall. Still, the ‘93 figures feel interesting to me, I think if nothing else for just how odd so many of them are.

‘93 Mutt & Junkyard is one of those repaint oddities that makes me scratch my head in some ways, but I really like the figure. Mutt doen’t have a bad figure of his four releases in ARAH, though speaking of which, the first thing I find odd is that Mutt (& Junkyard) got four releases! He seems like such an odd character to dedicate two molds and two repaints to for back then, but I suppose dogs are popular, so that’s probably a selling point that warranted his occasional return.

The colors are so-so on this version of the sculpt. The orange doesn’t really bother me, and browns and greens are exactly the same as the DEF release. Still, the orange and blue are just so saturated, it throws off the look of the other parts. Oddly, I think the bright colors look nicer for night-shots with cool and dark colors, as it makes him a little easier to see. It’s a niche reasoning, but for me it matters a lot, since photos are one of the ways I still get to enjoy playing with my toys.

He’s a very bulky sculpt, though it’s not as odd or inhibiting to him as it is for others (Like Mace). According to his filecard, he’s wearing a life vest flak jacket, which I find neat and mildly justifies the aforementioned orange color. It also gives him some added life for your boat and naval crews, which is nice (and likely meant to tie-in with the Shark 9000). He’s also really decked out with shin-guards and elbow-pads, which makes him a few shades of black away from being a POC or Classified figure. Other than that, it’s a modest and simple sculpt that I like a lot.

gi joe mutt & junkyard 1993 vintage toy hasbro battle corps DEF

Note that the G11 here appears to be a bad casting. It’s perfectly smooth on all of the parts where details are missing. I also just realized that one of the childhood G11’s I have is shiny and one is dull, so they are not exactly the same as most sites indicate. If you know which one is Headman’s and which one is Mutt’s, I”d love to hear it.

The pistol connoisseur in me is very glad that DEF Mutt’s pistol made a return for this release, with the addition of Headman’s gear, only with an opaque launcher and no light. Included is his pistol, Junkyard, Headman’s G11, missile launcher and a stand. The pistol is a really nice sculpt worthy of having multiples off. To that end, I think it’s really sad that a nice accessory like this wasn’t used more in favor of something awful like V1 Shockwave’s pistol. The Headman gear is really weird: a drug-kingpin having a tacky, gold G11 made some sense, but why Mutt? It just seems so odd for him to be toting around an experimental prototype gun (With costly, proprietary ammo!), and one that’s in gold no less. Might’ve been cool if we had gotten this sculpt in black, but for now it remains another addition to Saddam Hussein’s armory. Oh, and Junkyard is the same toy dog he was in ‘84, which interestingly makes him quite an old accessory to still be in use by this point.

It’s hard to peg down exactly what a ‘93 Mutt and Junkyard are worth right now. At the very least, you can get a complete one for $20 and a carded one for $30, so he’s not worth too much. Of course many examples are missing his pistol, but even that part is not too hard to come by on it’s own. With a little luck, I think a complete one should really only be worth around $15, since most of his parts are not unique and appear to be fairly common.

1993 Mutt & Junkyard Links:

Half the Battle

3D Joes

Joe a Day

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.

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Tag Archives: Battle Corps

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1993 Cobra Commander

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1993 Cross Country (Battle Corps)

1993 Cross Country (Battle Corps)

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