Tag Archives: Black Major Customs

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.

hasbro vintage arah comandos em acao tbm customs the black major hasbro vintage arah comandos em acao tbm customs the black major

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado Links:

Forgotten Figures

Differences Between TBM Troopers at Attica Gazette

2020 TBM Eels (Copperhead Colors)

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2020 TBM Eels (Copperhead Colors)

So after a good amount of hype, The Black Major’s latest project has finally arrived, and this time it’s the 1985 Eel mold. There’s quite a few interesting color schemes floating around, though a popular one and the one I liked best was this color scheme based on ‘84 Copperhead.

GI Joe TBM The Black Major eels copperhead vintage arah

In general, I’m not someone who was overly excited for Eel repaints, and that’s for a handful of reasons. The Eel was a good figure that serves it’s purpose, and similar to the Snow Serpent, there’s not much need for a repaint of a character so specialized. Because of this, I think a lot of the repaints went in a more novel direction, which doesn’t work for me with this mold. I also just don’t like this mold as much as other people though, so there’s that too.

This color scheme is very good however, and very useful to my collection. As a personal choice, I don’t like imagining that they have much relation to Copperhead (he’s a rogue agent), but rather are just an Eel division in swamp-centric colors. This to me, makes them a little more unique and gives them a more distinct role in my collection. This way it provides some new opportunities, like giving them the Dreadnok Swampfire, or having someone for Muskrat to fight.

The quality of these figures is very good, maybe the best I’ve encountered from factory customs. In general I don’t judge these figures too harshly for quality, as with their third-party origins and small production runs, it’s usually going to be the case that a figure won’t be perfect. With that said, these are simply excellent. The paint, joints, and even the numerous parts have a solid feel to them, which surprised me, as I was expecting the flippers or mouthpiece at least to have some problems. Instead, everything’s very snug and almost on par with vintage quality.

You get the original Eel’s full assortment of gear, including the two-piece backpack, speargun, mouthpiece and flippers. All of the parts are cast in a winter green color, which looks pretty good. Personally I think black parts might’ve contrasted better with the figure itself, but I really like these oddly colored 80‘s accessories, so I’d rather have them like this than be perfectly attuned to my esthetic sense.

It seems like with factory customs, you get about a year or so of seeing the figures float around plentifully before things start to dry up. These particular Eels are the cream of the crop from this set, so I didn’t chose to wait around on them. However, I’m pretty sure a handful of these will be available into next year, at which point I’ll probably dip my hands into a few more color schemes. I expect you’ll see these particular Eels for at least the rest of the year at their normal $15 to $18, which they’re well worth.

2010 TBM Black Cobra Trooper

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2010 TBM Black Cobra Trooper

It seemed like not so long ago that a bunch of mysterious, bootleg Cobra Troopers popped up on eBay and no one really knew what they were or what they’d be like. While the “factory custom” scene has changed a little in the years since then, it’s interesting to take a look back at some of the very first figures. This black Cobra Trooper was the first one I acquired.

When these figures surfaced, I was dead-broke, so I couldn’t get too much of what was available. Because of that, I singled out figures I thought might be more well suited for use in small numbers apart from bigger squads. Given that this guy is mostly just a single black color, I thought he could make decent for a sniper. I believe I stole the idea of using an all-black Cobra as a sniper from the Sideshow Cobra Sniper that came out a little before that, which struck me as an interesting concept.

At the time, for a bootleg that nobody knew much about, the quality of this release was quite impressive. A series of similar Trooper bootlegs had come out roughly a year prior, which were much flimsier by comparison. Since then, I think the subsequent Black Major releases have made this figure seem less nice. It has a few interesting quirks not seen on later releases, namely the backpack hole. On the original run of TBM Troopers, all of the figures had smaller screw-holes/backpack holes. This was done deliberately to further distinguish these figures from their vintage counterparts, but it also means they can’t use a backpack.

For the most part, the figure is solid black with some light gray painted details and a silver Cobra sigil. It’s a simple look that fulfills it’s role in my collection nicely, and also looks good with basically any other early Cobra. The paint is sharp and clean, although interestingly there’s a good amount of excess paint above the belt on the waist. The later Troopers from TBM don’t have this problem, but on all of the 2010 Troopers, everything above the belt is painted, which is a bit quirky.

For accessories, you get only the classic Dragunov sniper riffle like with the original figure. It’s a faithful recreation and at the time, this part was precious and hard to come by. Of course, it’s the only part you get and later releases improved by including the Officer’s AK-47 and a Viper backpack. Still, at the time just getting the black Dragunov was great, and I certainly enjoy having no shortage of them years later.

Pricing Black Major customs can be difficult, as this figure’s gotten much harder to find, as you might expect. Of course, most of the customs including ones from around the same time tend to cap their value around $20 to $30, so it’s fair to say this guy’s probably in the same ballpark. I think Black Major’s second run of Cobra Troopers was better than the first, but this is still a really a cool figure I’m glad to have in my collection.

TBM the black major custom Cobra Trooper black 2010 gi joe vintage hasbro
TBM the black major custom Cobra Trooper black 2010 gi joe vintage hasbro
TBM the black major custom Cobra Trooper black 2010 gi joe vintage hasbro

2010 TBM Black Cobra Trooper Links:

Collection of all 2010 TBM Cobra Troopers

Pre-Black Major Cobra Trooper customs

Later TBM Cobra Troopers

2019 TBM Cobra Ghost Mortal (1985 Snake Eyes V2)

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2019 TBM Cobra Ghost Mortal (1985 Snake Eyes V2)

Earlier in 2019, The Black Major produced a brief run of Snake Eyes figures based on the V2 Snake Eyes mold. The figures had an eclectic mix of color schemes and were interesting, to say the very least. Every now and then, TBM strays from the standard army-builders and instead produces figures that are more novel in style, such as these. The result is a figure that feels as fresh as a brand-new Joe release could be, but the downside is the tooling gets repetitive sooner.

Until I acquired these figures, I’d never owned the V2 Snake Eyes mold. It was never repainted after the 1985 release (Judging by the canned ‘97 boxsets, the mold was lost early on.), and the vintage figure just outpriced my interest in the character. So getting these was very interesting, as for me they were completely new molds. Besides this Mortal, TBM used the mold for some very high-quality color schemes including a standard silver and red Mortal, Python Patrol, Slaughter’s Marauders and more. Given the quality of these repaints and this mold’s lack of exposure, I’d say they’re some of his most interesting work to date.

With that said, I’m not a huge fan of this mold. It’s surprising given the quality of 1985 sculpts, but the mold just lacks the same amount of details other figures had. Likely, this is because the mold is meant to be represented in black, but even the proportions feel off to me. His legs are kind of skinny, the head looks weird, doesn’t have much going on in a lot of spaces… Overall, I’d say it wasn’t the best sculpt from 1985.

The build quality of this run feels pretty solid. Normally, I’m quite easygoing when it comes to these things, but compared to the typical problems you find in factory customs, I’d say the V2 Snake Eyes repaints have relatively few. Mine all had good paint, joints, and no casting abnormalities or anything of the like. Additionally, they can hold their parts well and don’t have gripping issues like the Steel Brigades from a few years back.

As for this Cobra Ghost Mortal color scheme, it’s a pretty nifty repaint. By using the 1985 Snake Eyes mold, it gives me a unique design to represent this character which I like a lot. The original Snake Eyes V1 mold is surprisingly well suited for generic repaints, but I don’t associate the visor look with SE much either, so I like having a different sculpt to represent the Cobra Mortal apart from say, the Invasor. As this is the Ghost Mortal, it swaps the standard red details for extra silver on the visor and sigil, which doesn’t contrast as well, but still looks pretty nice.

The parts really interest me on these figures. It’s funny too, since normally with a 90‘s figure, you’d complain about guns and parts in bright neon colors, but with this guy, it actually enhances his value. This Cobra Mortal included the original sword, backpack, uzi and wolf all in translucent green. It’s crazy, but recolored parts like this feel new and interesting. Standard black parts would have been okay, but in bright colors like these, you can find new uses for the parts with other figures. Clear green is a tough one, but the bright red parts from another Snake Eyes repaint quickly found their way into the hands of Battle Corps Major Bludd.

This mortal seems a little harder to find than the other ‘85 Snake Eyes customs, but overall these figures are still pretty easy to get. Most variations are still available for their original prices, though for how long that lasts, who knows. In general, there’s still more thirst for classic army-builder sculpts than unique ones, and that seems to be reflected in how the factory customs are valued.

snake eyes tbm the black major bootleg custom 1985 arah V2 Hasbro GI Joe
snake eyes tbm the black major bootleg custom 1985 arah V2 Hasbro GI Joe

2019 TBM Cobra Ghost Mortal (1985 Snake Eyes V2) Links:

Joe A Day

Surveillance Port

TBM Snake Eyes Recap post at Surveillance Port

Forgotten Figures – Purple Haze Cobra Invasor

Forgotten Figures – Slaughter’s Marauder’s Snake Eyes

Attica Gazette – Red and Silver Mortal

2019 TMB Snow Serpents Ghost Squad (Sunbow Colors)

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2019 TMB Snow Serpents Ghost Squad

So the newest wave of factory customs for 2019 is here, and it’s Snow Serpents. The V1 Snow Serpent is a classic mold and one of the highest quality sculpts from the vintage line, but finding things to do with it that are very interesting will be a challenge. So far of the early repaints, I’m pretty big into the Ghost Squad, which is a figure based on the Snow Serpent’s appearance in the cartoon.

The figure is primarily a stark white and not the off-white of the vintage figure. This is pretty nice, in the way that the white now matches with more figures that used a standard white color like the 1991 Snow Serpent or the Ice Viper. Other than that, the web-gear is painted a gray color, while the eye holes in the mask are painted black; there’s some blue for the goggles, and silver for the buckles. The paint applications and color scheme in general is pretty basic, but it conveys a Sunbow accurate Snow Serpent while maintaining enough detail to be interesting, so for that I quite like it.

I’ve yet to figure out exactly what I see these as in my collection, but the colors are interesting enough they could work for a fair bit. As they’re cast in a more standard white, they actually look more natural with most of my arctic Cobras than the V1‘s do. I’m not too big on making new sub-divisions within my standard Cobra ranks, but it is interesting that their colors match almost perfectly with the 1998 Cobra Polar Force set, so maybe the Ghost Squad is a small group of elites who worked with Firefly once. Sound good to me.

In terms of quality, the figures are overall pretty great. On mine, they pose well and the joints are acceptably tight. There’s few blemishes in the paint, and no casting irregularities I could find. All three that I bought seem to have trouble holding a snowshoe on one foot, but that’s easily rectified with some acrylic gloss in the foot hole.

gi joe snow serpent the black major 2019 factory custom bootleg hasbro vintage arah

For parts, you get the full load out of classic Snow Serpent parts including the folding stock AK47, snowshoes, backpack, mortar, and parachute. I was impressed with the quality of the parachute pack in particular, which so far feels durable and works without issue. To match the colors of the figure, all of the parts come in white, which isn’t too bad. My only problem is that the mortar doesn’t stand out very well like this, but there’s plenty of alternatives for that part alone.

These are much less available then past customs, which has some collectors reasonably frustrated. Each color scheme seems to be produced in smaller numbers and some of them are priced closer to the $20 range, unless you buy early or in lots. I figure a lot of it has to do with just how niche many of these Snow Serpent color schemes come across, so the production numbers were probably lowered with lower expected demand. In most cases I’ve not been able to justify the prices for what’s come out so far. Still, it’s an excellent figure and the quality is good, so when you see a color scheme that catches your fancy, I wouldn’t wait around.

gi joe snow serpent the black major 2019 factory custom bootleg hasbro vintage arah

2019 TMB Snow Serpents Links:

Python Patrol Snow Serpent at Forgotten Figures

Factory Custom News Thread at ARAH Gallery

Black Major Desert Scorpion Trooper

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Black Major Desert Scorpion Trooper

For almost an entire decade now, collectors have been bombarded by an entourage of third-party GI Joe figures, mainly produced by the Black Major. After getting more Cobra Troopers than you can shake a stick at, Night Vipers, Alley Vipers, and an endless amount of other creations, keeping up with all of them is getting hard. A few of the oldest customs go mostly forgotten, which brings me to the Desert Scorpion Trooper from the Black Major.

Essentially, this figure is from his earliest production runs around 2010. It’s made from a different mold than all of the Troopers that came after 2014 or so, and it’s reflected somewhat in the quality of the figure. Don’t get me wrong, the quality’s pretty great, especially for what one would’ve expected back then. Though it’s certainly not as nice as later runs of figures. In general, loose arms tended to be a bit more common with these than the later mold. As well, I found that mine had a slight issue with their hips not wanting to sit straight, a problem the later mold also lacked.

The colors and design, to my knowledge are based on an older bootleg made in small numbers by other individuals. TBM’s figure is a much more saturated tan color, compared to the lighter tan of the older figure. The usage of the Desert Scorpion sigil is similar between the two figures. Personally I think TBM’s version of the design is the better appearance, but it can be argued the old figure was closer in color to Hasbro plastic, so there’s room for debate.

I think when these were new, they were largely overshadowed by the camouflage Troopers that came out at the same time. The added realism of the camouflage, coupled with the amount of detail that it provided on the vintage Cobra Trooper mold made for a figure most collectors couldn’t afford to ignore. This guy on the other hand comes off as more of a standard Trooper with a switched up pallete; yet for me this is one of the figure’s main appeals. While the camouflage figures always looked impressive, they don’t blend in well with most of the vintage ARAH figures. The Scorpion Trooper doesn’t look that out of place comparatively.

Like the V1 Cobra Trooper, this figure only included a Dragunov sniper riffle. Newer Trooper customs have gone to add in a Viper backpack and AK47 from the Cobra Officer, but these were more true to the original. I definitely prefer the AK to the Dragunov, but it’s quite a blessing to be able to hoard up tons of spare AKs and Dragunovs when these were so hard to get with vintage Troopers prior. Even if this figure didn’t have the nice extras, I was plenty happy just getting more Dragunovs.

They show up pretty rarely now, so it’s hard to figure out what the Scorpion Troopers go for on average. Most custom Cobra Troopers don’t go for more than $30, and certain figures will still only run around $15. So although it’s a wide estimate, given their rarity I think it’s fair to say you might see them go for anything in between those two numbers.

TBM customs cobra trooper bootleg the black major factory custom gi joe arah desert scorpion
TBM customs cobra trooper bootleg the black major factory custom gi joe arah desert scorpion

Black Major Desert Scorpion Trooper Links:

Early Factory Custom Desert Trooper at Attica Gazette

Display of Black Major Custom Troopers by 00zxcvb

TBM Steel Brigade (1992 Mail Away Remake)

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TBM Steel Brigade (1992 Mail Away Remake)

As a kid, mail away toys were a constant item of my desires as they were for my brother as well. Unfortunately, I had the kind of no-fun parents who thought that any toy you paid postage for was a scam. So when I started collecting as an adult, you can imagine my embitterment upon discovering the aftermarket prices on V2 Steel Brigades… Little to say, this Black Major Reproduction became an immediate item of my interest.

So around late 2017, The Black Major produced a run of custom Steel Brigades in assorted color varieties. Of them, he made a reproduction run of V1 and V2 Steel Brigades, with some obvious and tasteful differences so that anyone can tell them apart form one of Hasbro’s. The V2 Steel Brigade remake was of great interest to me, even though I’m not the type to shy away from paying for a decent collectible.

The thing is, the 1992 Steel Brigade is a figure that simply out prices what it’s current value should be today. You see them plenty in comparison to other rarities, but that doesn’t stop these from fetching anywhere from $300 to $500. That’s simply too much for a domestic release. But, the colors are interesting and it does well to compliment my 90‘s collection, which is why this custom serves my needs perfectly.

The figure is quite similar to the Hasbro version with a few obvious differences. First, all of the colors are much brighter. This may be off putting to some, but I think they match very well with some of the other brightly colored items from Battle Corps and such. Second, the arm patch is now silver instead of white. Third, the belt is now solid gold, and does not have the black details of the Hasbro version.

The Black Major Steel Brigades were overall some pretty good figures quality wise, but the run had one general problem in the way that they had a lot of difficulty holding their guns. Their grips were too tight while their guns had handles too thick: certainly a recipe for broken thumbs on such otherwise fantastic figures. I’ve circumvented this by trimming a portion of the handles down on the M16’s for some of mine as you can see below.

The black major factory custom 1992 Steel Brigade gi joe hasbro mail away exclusive

This figure does a great thing in providing me all I need from the V2 Steel Brigade. It’s a niche and odd repaint, but I like it and it nicely compliments my 90‘s collection. This design is by no means worth the $300+ that a Hasbro figure can commend, but a similar looking remake for $15 to $20 is perfect.

The black major factory custom 1992 Steel Brigade gi joe hasbro mail away exclusive

TBM Steel Brigade and Steel Brigade V2 Links:

Forgotten Figures

Cobra Island

Yo Joe

Python Patrol Night Viper (Black Major Customs)

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Python Patrol Night Viper

The 1989 Night Viper is a fantastic figure, probably one of the best in all of ARAH. Last year The Black Major got around to doing several runs out of the mold with the Alley Viper customs as well, so today I’ll have a look at the Python Patrol take on the mold.

Featuring the Night Viper in the Python Patrol seems oddly natural despite them both coming out in the same year. Almost like a what-if scenario that a second year of Python Patrol toys came out in 1990 and they featured some of the ‘89 Cobras in that subset. For that reason, this seems like a natural and very reasonable repaint.

Across the board, the quality of the Night Viper customs is quite good. They’re easily able to hold their guns, and the joints on mine have all been nice and tight. The paint masks are also very crisp and good looking.

The palette here seems largely based on the one used for Python Copperhead and the Python Troopers. Given, there’s a large focus here on the green and yellow pattern with a handful of details in black and red, in contrast to the others I mentioned featuring more black. I think this was a wise choice, as these are the most eye-catching colors of the sub-group, and they look good here.

Seemingly however, it’s incredibly hard for the factory custom producers to perfectly match the colors of the vintage Python Patrol, and that’s evident on this Night Viper. The yellow is fairly close, but the green is too bright. It’s the opposite of the TBM Python Troopers who had a near perfect green and a yellow that was too dull. With the way these figures are produced, I imagine it’s quite difficult getting exact color matches on so many colors, so this is understandable.

Python Patrol Night Viper Black Major Customs TBM bootleg gi joe Alley Viper ARAH vintage o-ring

For accessories, you get the standard Night Viper backpack and gun in black, while the visor and scope have been changed to a bright red. A gray gun might’ve been nicer, but overall I like the colors here a good bit. I think the black parts prevent the neons on the figure from looking overbearing, while the visor and scope break up the green and black around the head well.

Price wise, these run about the same $15 to $25 most customs go for. For that same price, there’s hordes of other custom Night Vipers to be had, so it’s really all just about how much appeal you find in the colors of any one example. I think the Python Patrol colors on this one were ambitious, and more visually interesting than some of the other variations out there. But others will be off-put by the lack of compatibility with the vintage Pythons, so it really all comes down to preference.

Python Patrol Night Viper Black Major Customs TBM bootleg gi joe Alley Viper ARAH vintage o-ring

Python Patrol Night Viper Links:

Cobra Island

Diorama by Dreadnok Dread

Black Major Custom Python Troopers

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Black Major Custom Python Troopers

The world of custom/bootleg GI Joes has been pretty amazing in the past couple of years. The Black Major, in particular, produced some amazing work and even brought back the classic Cobra Trooper mold for a few new designs. I was really impressed by all of the new Black Major Cobra Troopers, but as Python Patrol is my favorite Cobra sub-team, I chose these to look at first.

I’m a huge Python Patrol fan. Sure, a few of the vintage figures were a little on the strange side (The Python Guard), but making a new sub-team out of all of the classic Cobra army builders and giving them jungle themed colors was one of Hasbro’s better repaint ideas for the time. On their own, a few of them can be a tad gaudy, but they function well when teamed with each other. Cobras from different eras could sometimes look a little awkward together, but the uniform colors of these help them avoid that.

In terms of quality, these are probably some of the best and most solid feeling Black Major figures to date. The plastic feels really close to the vintage plastic, and the joints on all of mine are very solid too. Generally I’m not too picky when it comes to the quality on custom figures, but these are extremely well made feeling.

The color pattern used on these Black Major custom Python Troopers is familiar and unique all at the same time. Overall, they’re most similar to Python Copperhead, but they have a lot less black on them. There’s quite a focus here on the green shades of the figure, and it finds a nice blend between somewhat realistic jungle colors and the Python Patrol’s neon tones. I do notice the yellow seems a little dull on these, and while I’m not sure as to if that was or wasn’t intentional, it goes along well with giving them that vintage charm, minus a bit of the neon.

Another thing I like a lot about the most recent TBM Troopers is the accessories. While anyone who’s collected a few of these should have plenty of dragunovs by now, at some point he started including AK47‘s and Viper backpacks too, giving the trooper a more well rounded selection of accessories. I’m hugely appreciative to have a pile of the Cobra Officer’s AK47 lying around, as it’s a fantastic looking accessory that’s unfortunately hard to find.

The after market prices on these were somewhat interesting to see, now that the supply of them has mostly dried up. From what I can tell, they go for around $12 to $15 at the moment, like most other recent custom Cobras. The thing is, they don’t really show up for sale all that often, since these aren’t produced in great numbers as you might expect. I think the saturation of figures is keeping the prices lower for now, as there’s so much to chose from I think certain figures just get missed.

Gi Joe action figures Cobra vintage V1 Python PatrolGi Joe action figures Cobra vintage V1 Python Patrol Bootleg Custom