Among the many Joecon sets that came and went, one of the most memorably lackluster was the 2004 set. Among the many figures FunPub could have made, they opted instead for some Dreadnok repaints that were at best, novelties. This Buzzer figure is a perfect example.
To preface this, I suppose I’m developing a habit of hating Joecon exclusives on this blog. I really don’t, at least not generally. But, most of the Joecon exclusives that inspire my comments are ones that I view as being somewhat flawed. This Convention Buzzer figure is flawed, but also represents one of the worst Joecon sets ever made.
The figure himself looks fine enough. It’s Buzzer, with the contemporary 2000‘s ARAH flesh color. He now is in mostly red, and has some camouflage on his pants. A modest, and different look for Buzzer. The problem that arises is that outside of looking different and being mildly limited in production, that’s all this figure has to offer: colors. Just colors. These colors aren’t based on some niche appearance he once had, or an old prototype, or even some bizarre foreign release. They are simply new colors applied to an old action figure to make a new, novelty collectible. The lack of any creativity here and forced nature of figures like this were something I had a great disdain for with FunPub’s Joe and Transformers exclusives.
With that said, Buzzer is still an excellent classic sculpt and I even find the colors to be attractive in a few ways. The flesh tone on this figure somehow seems more appropriate than his pastier vintage tone. As an Australian biker currently hanging out in the Florida Everglades, it seems right that his skin would be a bit darker. The red color coupled with the camouflage has a good urban appearance too, I think he’d look alright with the Alley Viper V6 to name one example.
With all that said, I can’t be the only one indifferent to this figure. I acquired my example sans accessories for a whopping $3. A weird example, but you rarely encounter anything from a convention that cheap. Even as of this writing, complete examples of this figure are easy to find under $20, if you hunt I’m sure you could even get this figure for less than $15. If you really want a Joecon exclusive, he’s not a bad option for that novelty. Beyond that, it’s a really shallow figure for a convention exclusive.
The Viper Pit 