Tag Archives: bootlegs

2012 Inferno BAT (The Black Major)

Posted on by
4

2012 Inferno BAT (The Black Major)

Another week of “just not feelin’ it”, so another random Cobra recolor. Here’s The Black Major’s Inferno BAT, a figure I like an awful lot, but never did as much with that I once dreamed possible. With that said, I think this is the most memorable BAT custom he made, partly because it’s just a lot of fun to see a figure like the BAT decked out in solid orange. Also, I think he’s the Inferno BAT, but I’m going off my often hazy memory, so that may have not been the original name.

As a part of the early waves of Black Major figures, this wave of BATs all feature some mold oddities newer renditions lack. Namely, old TBM figures were designed to be incompatible with other vintage Joes, so the backpack pegs are twice as big and the extra hands for the BAT aren’t compatible with V1 BATs. I always hated this about these older figures, as it seems like something that was done in the vein hopes of pacifying the hobby-mafia, and as that didn’t work it was later phased out. Personally though, I always hate taking a loss just to appease people that hate me having fun in the first place.

The orange color is nice and deep. It’s very close to the reddish-orange of the V1 Alley Viper, which even a lot of Hasbro figures have failed to perfectly emulate. Other than that, it’s a very simple, no-thrills kind of recolor, keeping most of the 1986 BAT’s basic paint masks and not adding anything to it. The only thing I really dislike about the deco is the silver paint, which covers the orange plastic very poorly compared to other colors like blue. I always thought it was weird he skipped over doing a crimson BAT, but I think orange ones are a lot more useful than a robot in elite ceremony colors.

For accessories, you get the standard kit of ‘86 BAT parts, just modified in ways to make them unique as mentioned before. So that includes the backpack, and four removable appendages (a flamethrower, a claw, a gun, and a hand) The BAT hands have a tendency to fit too tight or too loose in the backpack, so a few copies broke right away, while others remained just fine. Nothing a pin vice and some rods can’t fix, but who knows if I’ll ever feel like doing that.

I think I mentioned in an older post that the quality on these were okay. I mostly stand by that, but these orange BATs do remind me that the lot wasn’t great either – “mid”, to use some modern jargon. Ill-fitting pegs make the arms break easy, and of course they have some stance/tolerance issues with their o-rings. There’s enough there to be worth griping about, but then I remember how much cheaper these older bootlegs were: a whole lot of 5 BATs only ran something like $25. The world’s a much different place almost twelve years later, so you can’t make cheap toys like that any more. Still, it was so much more fun and easy to overlook fairly serious flaws just for how cheap this stuff used to be. 1 o-ring figure in 2023, from either Hasbro or anyone else, costs me as much as 5 did back in 2012.

If you’re in the market for one of these, good luck, because I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen one for sale. At the very least I don’t see many TBM BATs running high premiums, so it shouldn’t cost a lot when you find one, it’s just that you’ll have to hunt for a while. A lot of these old customs tend to disappear like that, especially as they enter crypts like my personal dwelling, where I buy a lot, but never sell. Of course, there’s a newer 23‘ BAT in Alley Viper colors with the camo, but the orange isn’t as orange and purty as my figure here, you should be jealous.

tbm bat cobra gi joe arah custom 2012tbm bat cobra gi joe arah custom 2012

 

2016 Cobra Trooper (Techno Viper Colors) (The Black Major)

Posted on by
4

2016 Cobra Trooper (Techno Viper colors)

I’m feeling pretty burnt-out on Joe this week, and I think my solution for that going forward is that I’ll just write about one of the many color variations that The Black Major has put out over time. Will it solve my burnout? Probably not, but while I’m in a frump, it gives me a chance just to cover some of these repaints in detail. I can’t make an interesting blog post about the Cobra Trooper or the Night Viper seven or eight times over again, but I think it’s worthwhile to dump some content on these for the sake of posterity.

The 2016 run of TBM Cobra Troopers was really a good lot. His first wave of figures from around ‘09 put a bigger focus on realistic, environmentally themed colors; the 2016 figures instead go for some punchy colors inspired by various facets of the brand. It’s flavored a bit by contemporary trends, but each set of figures did a good job of exploring the various kinds of Cobra Trooper repaints we needed, that Hasbro never gave us. In this figure’s case, his colors are lifted off the ‘87 Techno Viper.

Seeing the original Cobra rendered in the “Cobra Purple” that’s synonymous with the line’s later years seems bizarre yet oddly enjoyable. Mind you, it’s just a tad more pink than the Techno Viper’s purple, but it looks pretty close when they aren’t side by side. You could use him as a Techno Viper in training, or even use him to represent an ordinary trooper from the later years of the organization. Maybe Cobra adopted purple as their color after the end of the Cobra Civil War, to represent a new identity. Or not, my Department of Destruction Cobra Handbook didn’t elaborate on the meaning of purple uniforms.

When this figure came out I thought I’d never get tired of Cobra Trooper repaints. To a mild extent, I have. After this set of Cobras TBM really explored every avenue he could with the sculpt, and while a few useful looking repaints came out later down the line, a lot of the ones he did last year just didn’t resonate with me. They aren’t bad, but at current pricing I’d rather just bolster my existing collection with a few more troops here and there, rather than get another one-off recolor. Of course I get that there’s always demand for more troopers, so I don’t fault the later ones for existing; I just personally got my fill.

Another oddity of the 2016 TBM figures is that most of them include painted weapons. I think this was mostly just because of the mold layouts, but thanks to it you do get some particularly exotic pieces. This figure includes the classic Dargunov and the Officer’s AK-47, as well as a V1 Viper backpack and figure stand all in bright silver, the same tone used for the figure’s face-mask and knee pads. The silver AK is incredibly cool. The details of the sculpt pop with the metallic paint, plus it makes a great compliment for so many other figures. Lampreys, of course Techno Vipers, and Ripper all look pretty natural with it.

You can still get these for somewhere between $20 to $25, which isn’t bad for some obscure bootlegs that are around 7 years old now. Some of the “factory customs” have gotten a little pricey over time, especially when they’re not too weird like this figure. When they were new these repaints sat around for a while at something like $7 a piece, but those days are long gone now, just like the spending power of the dollar.

2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors)

Posted on by
1

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.

black major customs gi joe alley viper dirty south bootleg black major customs gi joe alley viper dirty south bootleg

2017 TBM Alley Viper (Reverse Colors) Links:

The Dragon Fortress

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs)

Posted on by
2

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs)

In 2018, Red Laser Customs, a very similar entity to the Black Major, made a massive set of 19(?) figures. Among a plethora of Spy Troops characters and original creations, there were remakes of the famous “Argen7” figures with swivel-arm sculpts. The downside was that this set was a logistics nightmare, and is the reason why Red Laser Customs is no longer a thing, as I understand it.

International Joes are a weird thing to me, as on one hand, seeing the curious and unique way our favorite toy line emerged all over the world adds a lot of interest to collecting. On the other hand though, most of what makes them interesting is limited to that one novel aspect, and in some ways it’s questionable why you’d even want them. The original Manleh from Argentina is a cool figure, but costing around $1000, you really can’t do much besides look at the thing on a shelf. It’s too precious to handle, and even then, most of the appeal is just in how exotic the figure is. Once that’s taken away, the figure just becomes an oddball recolor.

I realized this earlier with the underwhelming feeling I got from Joecon figures that were often times international homages. “Remaking” things like the Funskool Dreadnoks in ‘04 or even the 25th-era repaints like the TNT homage they made, doesn’t really have the same appeal as owning something old and esoteric from a foreign country. And although RLC’s Manleh is a much better recreation than those figures, my initial reaction to owning this toy was “I own a Manleh!” followed by “What the hell do I do with Manleh?”. Really, I enjoy owning this figure much more than I would the real thing, but the experience seems to highlight to me how overrated foreign figures are at a certain point.

These gripes aside, Manleh really has an incredibly eye-catching color scheme. Blue and yellow are colors that compliment each other really well. The tones make him look unlike much of anything you’d have seen Hasbro make in the 80‘s, though the camouflage ties him back in with classic figures well enough to overcome that. The tone of the colors is darker, which appears to be a faithful recreation of a darker Manleh variant I’ve seen floating around, which is in contrast to a noticeably lighter colored figure. That, or those dark ones are just discolored, and this toy’s colors were based those discolored examples.

The quality is good on this figure. A major problem with the way these figures were sold is that you had to buy them in a large set. This was a terrible mistake, but also one that made the entire package seem a lot worse to me than it really was. Most of the figures have really solid joints and good tolerances that make them easier to pose than other bootlegs I’ve handled, but for a while I didn’t really notice that since I got a handful of figures with duplicate limbs and similar problems. When you buy so many figures at once, that sort of thing is bound to happen, but it still lowers the overall experience. Worst thing I can say about Manleh is that his gun fits really loosely in his hand, but that itself is a lot better than having a grip too tight to hold anything.

For accessories, he just included the M-32 Pulverizer, the same gun from V1 Stalker. The original Manleh included a Snake Eyes Uzi and a parachute, but I’m not too bothered by that, since there’s plenty of Uzis to go around, and parachutes suck. I will say though, while it looks decent with a few classics, the Pulverizer is probably one of my least favorite guns from the swivel-neck era.

Despite the fact that this figure honestly offers more than the Argentina figure it’s based on, it’s current worth is really around $40 more or less. I say that without much to go on, as you don’t find these for sale very often any more. The other RLC Argen7 remakes only go for about that much though, sometimes a little less, so it’s fair to say Manleh’s not worth more than that. Because it’s a bootleg, there’s a much lower price-cap on it since it’s not a “real” GI Joe, and thus has no value to a completionist.

gi joe Argentina argen7 manleh funskool toy skydiver gi joe Argentina argen7 manleh funskool toy skydiver

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs) Links:

Attica Gazette

Forgotten Figures: Rarities – Plastirama 2nd Series Figures

2010 Plague (The Black Major)

Posted on by
1

2010 Plague (The Black Major)

It’s hard for me to think that it’s been thirteen years since The Black Major did his first run of Snake Eyes figures… Or so I say, but then again, everything with GI Joe collecting was so much better in ‘10 that it does feel like a totally different world now. Either way, TBM did his first run of Snake Eyes figures (Cobra Invasor) back then, and I noticed it seems as though information on them has virtually vanished, so here’s a blog post to help fill the void.

The TBM Invasor/Snake Eyes figures were a very odd, but good run. The casting came out relatively close to the original Snake Eyes sculpt, and the quality on them was serviceable. The bootleg guys later wore out the V1 Snake Eyes likeness, but at the time the sculpt seemed rather exotic in a color besides black. Here’s an old photo of the lot from The Black Major himself, where you can also see the name of each figure from his description.

Plague TBM Black Major Snake Eyes Cobra Invasor Bootleg Factory Custom

I don’t know if my imagination has dimmed a bit over the years, but when I look at this figure in particular, all I see is Snake Eyes. I think that’s partly because the figure isn’t that many shades apart from the color used for tan Grunt and Clutch. Of course, the good part of that is that Plague blends in remarkably well with Hasbro figures, which is not always the case for these figures. The most unique part of the figure is his insignia on his chest, a unique Cobra symbol with a gradient effect and some modifications that make it more of a plague symbol. I believe TBM invented this one himself, as it isn’t featured in my 1992 Department of Destruction Handbook (Cobra needs an update of that, a lot’s changed in the world since then.).

I never really knew if Plague is an individual guy or an army-builder, but I only bought one, so I went with the unique operator route by default. Imaging what he could be in the GI Joe world, he was probably a disposable Cobra agent from around ‘84 or so, who fought with GI Joe several times until he was killed by some other Cobra, probably Cobra Commander or maybe even Serpentor. But then it turned out he wasn’t dead, and he’s actually a ninja, and he used to hang out with Scarlet’s uncle, before he was drafted for Vietnam… I probably throw too much shade at the parts of the Marvel comics I like less. Jokes aside, I do see him as a less skilled, more disposable version of Firefly that was KIA in the mid-80’s.

This figure and the other figures from his run have the hallmarks you might associate with a lot of modern bootlegs. The shoulders are a little floppy, and the tension in the waist and legs is a bit off, but other than that, I think they’re okay. Most the ones I have feature solid castings with no odd dips or warped parts, which usually bugs me more than anything else with these. His backpack hole is similar to Hasbro ones, which I think makes this one of the first TBM figures to feature the standard hole (his first Troopers, Crimson Guards and BATs can’t use normal backpacks).

TBM really upped his accessories over time, with this figure all you got was a V1 Scarlet crossbow. The original Cobra Invasor came with normal Snake Eyes weapons, but the crossbow was given in reference to the Cobra Mortal’s gear. I assume he started upping the amount of accessories to increase the perceived value once these started getting more expensive, but when things started out, one weapon was all you got. I don’t have many of these crossbows, so some extras are an okay thing to have around.

These are very hard to find now, which is probably what you should expect for a 13-year-old bootleg that existed in very low quantities. It seems like the price-cap for TBM customs is a lot lower than normal Joes though, probably because the super-duper serious Major League Consumer types have no interest in them. I haven’t seen Plague here pop up for sale recently enough to know what he’s worth, but if I were to give a subjective opinion on that, I’d say one’s not worth more than $50.

Plague TBM Black Major Snake Eyes Cobra Invasor Bootleg Factory Custom Plague TBM Black Major Snake Eyes Cobra Invasor Bootleg Factory Custom

2017 RLA Odin

Posted on by
3

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

2021 Red Shadow Agent X (TBM Cobra Officer)

Posted on by
4

2021 Red Shadow Agent X (TBM Cobra Officer)

For one of his 2021 projects, The Black Major took a different route from his more typical repaints of popular army builders, and instead made sets of new army builders, from a more original recipe dubbed Agent X. Each figure came in four variations, with the main changes being the head, torso and accessories. Essentially, there’s two versions of Snake Eyes, a Firefly and then then a Cobra Officer.

It’s a different approach even if I think most of the figures that resulted from this aren’t too interesting. For me, the main draw to this series of figures are the Cobra Officers, while I honestly have enough Firefly and Snake Eyes repaints not to bother too much with those. With that said, a few of the color schemes are strong enough to warrant the extra variations, likewise, they do nice to supplement collections of odd groups like the Red Shadows. With that said, I think he missed a big opportunity by not doing SAS Force from this mold.

The part choices are fairly interesting too. In the case of the Cobra Officer, he’s made from the ‘83 Officer’s head and torso, ‘83 Snake Eyes arms and legs, and the waist from ‘86 Roadblock. Gotta admit, I’m not a big fan of either the Snake Eyes legs or the Roadblock waist, especially not when paired together. At the same time, they don’t look horrible, and I appreciate having the figure changed up in small ways that make me not feel so insane for buying copious amounts of the same toy in different colors.

This Red Shadow Officer is really well done and looks much more on point than some of the early Red Shadow customs. The red color is bright and a good match for the tones you saw on Palitoy’s releases. It doesn’t take too many creative liberties and mostly stays in line with the paint masks for the other Agent X figures, which in this case seems like a good thing.

The accessories are actually what inspired me to stock up on a few variations of this figure, although that might sound odd to some. Included is an M4 (Marauders Gun Runners sculpt), a 25th Snake Eyes knife, and ‘87 Chuckles’s pistol. I really liked getting the extra Chuckles pistols! That’s a really nice part and it’s not the easiest to get a few of, let alone in large amounts. The other parts work and are okay. I really enjoy collecting odd colored bootlegged ARAH parts from TBM, so it bums me out a little when he does MGR accessories. The 25th SE knife is a weird choice too, but it has a thin handle, which means it’s useful to old-sculpts at the very least.

The quality of this release seems alright, and about middle of the road as far as factory customs go. The joints seem okay, most of mine are pretty tight. Paint applications are tight and look very good consistently. Out of a little more than a dozen, I’ve yet to acquire any with any weird casting defects or anything like that.

At the moment, you can get these for about $15 retail, but he knocks off a few dollars when you buy a few at a time. I’m really curious to see how these will change in value over time. On the one hand, they’re fairly odd figures and I’m not sure how popular this set’s been compared to past releases. Then again, he’s also making a lot fewer figures than he used to, and Cobra Officers are popular. Personally, I speculate this figure will be more demanded later on, while the oddball SE’s and Firefly’s will probably languish a tad more, especially given that people might feel fine only acquiring one each of those.

gi joe bootleg black major officer red shadowgi joe bootleg black major officer red shadow

2020 Sightline Snake Eyes (TBM Custom)

Posted on by
3

2020 Sightline Snake Eyes (TBM Custom)

gi joe bootleg the black major 2020

2020 brought us another wave of ‘85 Snake Eyes repaints from the Black Major before he officially retired the mold, and of them he made some intricate and highly interesting repaints. One that stood out to me the most was this Snake Eyes in Sightline colors, which looked especially nice for being a new Snake Eyes, and not a random Cobra.

The ‘85 Snake Eyes customs are something I’m glad TBM decided to do, because while army-builders are nice, I still have a desire for new and interesting unique characters. From this Snake Eyes mold, we’ve gotten a number of unique and interesting color schemes that add more to various segments of my collection than you could ever expect from a typical Snake Eyes figure. Adding to that, because they’re all repaints of a virtually unexplored mold, each figure feels new and fresh to me.

This color scheme is particularly striking and nice to me. I’m personally a big fan of digital camo patterns and I love the way it looks when applied to military items, fictional or otherwise. The downside is that it doesn’t blend in well with most of my vintage collection, as there’s basically no o-ring figures that have a camo pattern like this. At the same time, it’s also something I like about the figure, as there again it’s very fresh and new feeling. Preventing the figure from being too drab, he has red details painted all over him just like the 50th Anniversary figures that sported this color scheme, which finishes this figure’s deco off quite nicely.

bootleg snake eyes parts

For parts, you get the full ‘85 Snake Eyes kit, plus Timber, as you might expect. This time, the parts are rendered in light gray, which is a reasonable looking color. Like with many of the TBM Snake Eyes figures, the parts don’t contrast very well against the figure, I think black or green parts would’ve looked better here. Of course, there’s a plethora of other figures these gray parts would still pair nicely with, so they’re not without their uses. They just don’t look very good with this figure.

The quality seems only okay, at least on my figure. While the figures that came in the same wave as the Ghost Mortal were pretty solid, this figure has rather floppy arms and a molding defect on one of his lower legs. It’s certainly not something that ruins the figure, but at least from this one example, the quality seems like a downgrade from the first wave of ‘85 Snake Eyes repaints.

As of right now, this Snake Eyes is still available and somewhat easy to come across for it’s initial price of $18. For that much money, I’ll definitely pass on some of the sillier repaints. For an interesting and high quality color scheme like this however, I think the price is fair. I’d speculate there will be more demand for this figure when supplies dry up compared to his contemporaries, but that’s based on the assumption my opinions on this color scheme are fairly mainstream.

gi joe bootleg the black major 2020

2020 Sightline Snake Eyes (TBM Custom)

Photo by DreadnokDread

Forgotten Figures Review of Bonecrusher (His wave-mate)

2018 Red Laser’s Army Blackout

Posted on by
5

2018 Red Laser’s Army Blackout

The Spy Troops line from 2003 is remembered for it’s terrible sculpts, goofy gimmicks and relatively brightly colored toys. In many ways, the line was poorly done, but in others, it’s still worth remembering. If you look past Spy Troops and it’s follow-up Valor vs Venom, it was probably the closest we ever got the GI Joe’s glory days in the 80‘s. Detractors of this era might find that a dubious statement, but think about it: Spy Troops was the last time GI Joe had a major push with mostly new products and a fair amount of new characters, with everything that came afterwards being an unending deluge of adult-targeted remakes and nostalgia driven impulse buys. Even the new 6-inch Joe line, is mostly just stale remakes of the same old ideas and characters.

Blackout came as a part of Red Laser Army’s controversial set of customs in 2018. He’s been largely overshadowed by the other customs in the set, which include remakes of the Argen 7, as well as new characters with incredibly well done skull masks. Compared to that, Blackout doesn’t have much going for him, but it’s safe to say he’s a fun little remake of a popular Spy Troops character, and his limitations certainly don’t make him any worse than what he’s based upon.

The figure’s made from a variety of ‘83 tooling, like Short-Fuze’s torso, Grunt’s head, Snake Eye’s legs and Clutch’s arms. I’ve found that these parts are starting to get pretty boring as far as third party stuff goes, but here, it kind of works for a few reasons. First, as his character portrays a reject from the GI Joe team, it’s seems pretty appropriate he’d be done up in a similar uniform to the original thirteen Joes. There’s also not been that many figures that were done in black and silver like this from that era, so it works, even if it’s a little stale compared to other RLA offerings.

The only real problem I just can’t get past is the head; Grunt’s head simply does not work for me here. It’s butt-ugly and doesn’t look much like Blackout from Spy Troops. I guess RLA didn’t want to commission a new head just for this guy, but this could’ve been so much better with a Caucasian casting of Doc’s head, with the glasses painted up like his original goggles. Heck, I like that idea enough I might just do it myself.

For parts, you get Gnawgahyde’s sniper rifle and bi-pod. I’m not sure what to think of this choice, especially as his only accessory, but it works. In my mind, this gun is permanently associated with Gnawgahyde, so seeing it with anyone else feels weird. Then again, he can hold it a couple of ways, and at the very least it’s a vintage sniper rifle that’s not been done to death.

gi joe custom red lasers army 2018 factory custom

Not many of these were made, so finding them at all takes some work. It’s very hard to price these because of that, but among 3rd party items, these are rare and you won’t see them very often. Of course, I don’t think this was a highly demanded item in the same vein as some other 3rd party releases, so I wouldn’t assume them to have a value beyond $40~, which is where most figures like this top off in value. I preordered the set he was in and got this guy at a highly discounted price, though I’m not sure I’d bother hunting for him now if I didn’t already have him.

Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado

Posted on by
3

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