1993 Colonel Courage
GI Joe in the 90‘s is commonly associated with bright colors, busy sculpts, guys who wear too many grenades, and a lot of other EXTREME visual features. Colonel Courage is almost none of those things, and he might even be a bit boring.
Colonel Courage’s primary specialty is Administrative Strategist, or in other words he’s another member of GI Joe’s top brass. I guess by 1993 it was reasonable to put out another character in that role, but it seemed kind of redundant when there’s so many other strategists and generals on the team. As toys, it’s hard to find that much usage for General Hawk and Flagg already, then you get Courage and it just feels like overkill.
He’s characterized as being clean-cut, conscientious, and pretty much everything a Dreadnok wouldn’t be. You see that reflected in the sculpt’s more formal attire, though a sculpted dress hat might’ve been better than the helmet they opted for. There’s nothing really wrong with the character, but he isn’t needed in a way beyond using him for the sake of it.
Speaking of his sculpted on helmet, that’s something else I find limiting and frustrating about the figure. Really feels like there was no need for his helmet to be permanently attached, though interestingly it seemed much of the 93‘s were moving away from removable helmets. Besides a handful of sculpts (Including Muskrat and Mace who share the same helmet), most of the figures released in 1993 didn’t have removable helmets. No clue if that was cost-cutting or some attempt to keep kids from losing them as much, but it was a trend that sort of sucked.
Also like a lot of 93‘s, only Colonel Courage’s upper half is new; his waist and legs were pulled from Recoil. Another cost-cutting move that plagued this year, but in Courage’s case the part usage isn’t too noticeable. In particular I find it hard to recognize Recoil’s legs without their camo, so at least it works.
Colonel Courage is good about avoiding overbearing neons in his color scheme, ignoring a few of his green belts, but for his accessories Hasbro chose to match their colors to those neon green belts. Hard to care too much since he’s just a desk guy for the most part anyway, but these don’t really add anything of value to the package. The assortment of weapons included are the riffle from Airborne V2, Tunnel Rat’s LMG, the horrid Blaster gun, Shockwave’s pistol, Hit&Run’s knife, and Muskrat’s machete. A few of those parts are pretty cool, like V2 Airbourne’s riffle, but the rest fall firmly into the junk category. Oh, and a gold version of Barricade’s missile launcher for whatever that’s worth.
Colonel Courage’s who are complete often go around $5 and even carded figures go for around $13. It’s less often you see them for auction with more than one bid, so it’s safe to say he’s both common and unpopular. With that said, I do like this figure and would even go as far as to recommend him for a low price, should you be wanting to expand your upper ranks a bit. He’s not a bad looking figure at all, but he’s just not obviously useful or interesting, and feels a lot more like something that would’ve been packed with a vehicle in years prior.
The Viper Pit 