2003 Agent Faces

Posted on June 12, 2024 by mwnekoman

2003 Agent Faces

I don’t really understand the fascination collectoys used to have with mail-away figures. To my understanding, the Agent Faces mail-away was well done and met with a great amount of collector enthusiasm. I wouldn’t really know since I was 9 when it happened, but there seemed to be this residual sentiment by GI Joe fans when I started browsing the forums later of “DO A MAIL-IN JUST LIKE IN THE 80‘S!!!”, followed by the 25th Doc mail-in, which proved a disaster. Who likes jumping through more hoops just to get crap? I don’t, but apparently Agent Feces was the last good one, so here’s some sentences strung together about him, along with two old pictures as always.

2003 in some ways was the last best year for GI Joe. Say what you will about them, the Spy Troops toy line had a robust selection of characters, figures that were good enough, visual variety, fun gimmicks, and even fun little side-shows like Agent Faces to encourage more and more Joe purchases. It was a toy line that was still for kids, but after Valor vs Venom and Sigma 6 shit the bed, GI Joe has been strictly reduced to a line supported by the often fickle, nostalgic longings of old men. I could rant about the miserable progression from then till now, but the point is that Agent Faces feels like something that’s as far gone now as those beautiful aisles of an eighties TRU lined with GI Joe from front to back.

We tend to make these funny little mental barriers splitting up Joes by their construction, and often even release year. It makes this figure funny to me, since you could say that he’s meant to be interchangeable with the New Sculpt Agent Faces, even though this figure is made up of classic tooling. More over, he’s made up from both 1985 sculpting (Crimson Guard), 1992 sculpting (Duke and DEF Shockwave), and the newly sculpted helmet from 2003. The parts look mildly mismatched, but as someone who invents weird rules for my photos and collecting, I find a lot of amusement in the stuff that completely turns that on it’s head.

Do the 2000‘s Crimson Guards really get a fair shake from most of us Joe aficionados these days? Seems like “Black Major did them better.” and “V1 is still the best.” is the general notion I see, typically with this figure being used as a case study for why removable helmets don’t really work out so well. I say that because I tend to think all of those things, but Agent Faces does good to remind me of the childlike value of a gimmick. Sure it looks worse, but isn’t it more fun? I find room to forgive the odd looks of the helmet just for enhancing the play value. The Duke biceps that limit his articulation less so, but at least this version has a slightly better head than the normal Segies.

His paint job is decent. There’s no arm patches like the original had, which cheapens the look of the figure. Though, I do think the dark gold trim and buttons nicely differentiate this figure from the original, without looking bad. The main thing I don’t like is the orange Cobra patch on his chest. They did this color with the Infantry Forces too, and it doesn’t look too good. A metallic emblem looks much better, like with the Crimson Guard Force set, but orange was something they were trying out… for some reason.

Besides his helmet, Agent Faces comes with a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun. Why? I have no clue. Hasbro seemed to have decided that this shotgun was the standard arms of the Crimson Guard, as the Operation Crimson Sabotage guys all came with one too. The later TRU set swapped it for a generic M4. Never really was sure what to think about that, but the M4 is probably a better replacement for their classic carbines as opposed to these somewhat random shotguns. Oh, and as for the helmet: it’s really big and doesn’t fit on the reused Duke head too well.

Mail-Away Agent Faces don’t show up for auction that much, but you can get the complete figure, usually still in his original bag for around $14. In 2024 money, that’s cheap entertainment, though it still feels like a lot to pay for a repaint-era figure. Though, I think Agent Faces is especially worth having, as he has the added novelty of being a new character, as opposed to doofy take on the Crimson Guard that doesn’t look as good as the original.

2003 CAT II gi joe

2003 agent faces gi joe

2003 Agent Faces Links:

Forgotten Figures

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Generals Joes

2003 Crimson Guard Immortal

Posted on August 14, 2023 by mwnekoman

2003 Crimson Guard Immortal

If you just went by names and themes that seem popular with collectors, it’s hard to imagine that the 2003 CAT II and it’s driver, the Crimson Guard Immortal, have spent most of their lives languishing as undesired clearance items. Personally I chalk that up to poor execution, but I don’t really have too much of a personal investment in this Crimson Guard Immortal either, and he’s without a doubt, more popular than the vehicle he came with.

A big deal in the 2000‘s was that Funskool had many of the popular vintage molds that fans wanted Hasbro to make new figures from. So about a dozen and a half of these molds were recalled by Hasbro and put to use for a handful of repaints before disappearing forever. Ultimately, I think it’s better to have a few more new toys to collect than a few more thousand Funskool figures that are off somewhere where I’ll never see them. Of course, the big disappointment was that Hasbro (and the Club) didn’t really do anything with these molds, and only used them for a short window at that.

The Crimson Guard Immortal is an interesting character. By his file card, he seems almost just like a new version of the standard Crimson Guard as opposed to a new rank in Cobra, but I suppose there’s a little fun in being able to interpret him as either one (‘91 catalog just refers to him as “Crimson Guard”, so he’s really a V2). Another interesting thing I never noticed, is that he’s apparently always been a vehicle driver with the original being “Licensed to operate: All Cobra land and air vehicles, including Hammerhead and Hurricane.”. The Spy Troops release modifies this text to “Licensed to operate: All COBRA land and air vehicles, including Cobra Cat-2”. Reducing a CGI to being a generic vehicle driver doesn’t really strike a chord with me, but at least there’s precedent for it!

This figure goes the route of the Python Guard, with the crimson he’s named for represented by a few details rather than his main color. So this Crimson Guard Immortal is mostly a dark gray with some red on his mask. I think it’s a little weird that a Crimson Guard Immortal who drives a big red Crimson Attack Tank is for some reason mostly grey, especially when black with a little more red would’ve been a nice reference to the original CAT’s colors, but it looks nice enough, so whatever. The tone of the grey coupled with his red mask makes me think of Interrogator, but I’m not sure I’d have them be related in any way (in my own fiction, of course).

This figure comes with no accessories, which makes him seem a little more bland than he already is. Of course, the original Crimson Guard Immortal’s accessories aren’t a set I find essential to the figure, despite that he has a leg peg that’s specifically designed for those parts. The wacky guns-akimbo set up was barely okay for Rock&Roll V2, but doesn’t really seem so natural for a lawyer/tank driver.

So the steadiest price I can currently discern for the 2003 Crimson Guard Immortal is around $40. This figure used to never go for half of that, but the Coof-Collectors pushed prices up above where they currently are, so $40 seems fair now. Personally, I’d much rather stock up on two or three of the ‘91 CGI, or frankly any other version of the Crimson Guard than this one. This figure isn’t bad, but he also is rather lacking in any substance to make him worth that much. Another thing, you might notice he’s made from the cursed 2000‘s plastic that spontaneously yellows for no reason, so keep that in mind too.

Crimson Guard Immortal V2 Links:

Forgotten Figures

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2004 Crimson Guard

Posted on January 25, 2022 by mwnekoman

2004 Crimson Guard

There’s a lot of bad you can say now about 2000‘s GI Joe toys. Namely, the sculpts are weird, the plastics are degrading, and many other design choices were flawed, to put it lightly. Still, there was something highly appealing about having GI Joe figures at easy access, and even a wonky figure like the 2004 Crimson Guard was pretty cool, if only for being a Crimson Guard that was cheap and kind of easy to get.

Something that’s characterized my collecting habits over the years, is that I’ve never had a lot of money to spend on figures. Mind you, this is partly because I never really “grew out” of toys, in the way that most teens do, so much of my early years collecting vintage was done with jobless teenager money. This relates to my view on a lot of 2000‘s GI Joes, where figures like this Crimson Guard had long gone out of fashion with mainstream collectors, and provided a nice, cheap alternative to the pricey ‘85 figure. One of the nice things about the GI Joe fandom being dominated by flavor-of-the-week trend chasers, is that you can get some fun toys cheaply once they’re not cool anymore, as long as you’re a little open.

It goes without saying that this version pales in comparison to the 1985 Crimson Guard, though, it’s still fun in it’s own right. The removable helmet gimmick is poorly done, and features two main issues: the head cannot look left or right and the helmet is awkwardly large. The former issue is hard to forgive, but the later isn’t so bad, as they look fine around a lot of ‘86 Cobras who had similarly huge noggins. The head sculpt is also quite nice, and I’m tempted to call it one of the best 2000‘s heads.

Another huge issue with this figure, is the usage of ‘92 Duke biceps, with ‘92 Shockwave lower arms. It looks completely out of place, and limits the figure’s articulation by a solid amount. What’s even more frustrating, is the amount of alternatives that might’ve been preferable to these overly thick arms. Call me crazy, but I’d go as far as to say ‘83 Gung-Ho arms would’ve been nicer than what they went with. Painted-on gloves might be weird, but the toy would be more functional, and it wouldn’t have been as bad as painted-on sleeves like most Duke’s of the time had.

There’s basically three releases of this figure from around the same time, which you’ll see get used interchangeably in the photos on this post. The first is Agent Faces, who has an orange sigil and a Duke head; the 2004 Crimson Sabotage release, which features a different marking on the arm, and the new head; followed by the focus of this profile, the 2004 release in the TRU Crimson Guard Force set. For the most part, the releases all look the same, with the exception of this figure’s gold Cobra sigil.

For parts, you got a generic 2000‘s customized M4, a ‘91 Dusty backpack, and a helmet. Pretty scant, and a terrible stand-in for the fantastic parts from the original figure. I suppose the Dusty backpack makes them look a little more combat oriented, but it doesn’t suit them well at all. Pretty sure the M4 was just a lazy toss-in too, but if you wanted to give them the benefit of a doubt, maybe it was a reference to how the original Crimson Guard’s gun reused a portion of the sculpt from Airborne’s gun, which was also an M4? It’s lame either way.

Sadly, the days of easily buying these for small amounts of change seems to have long come and gone. They’re still only worth around $13, but you don’t see them so often, not priced like that anyways. Used to, you could easily get this figure for $5, maybe $8 at most, and they were very common. At a higher price though, I feel their flaws are too pronounced compared to a V1 Crimson Guard or a Black Major one.

2004 Crimson Guard Links:

Forgotten Figures

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2005 Crimson Shadow Guard

Posted on January 28, 2019 by mwnekoman

2005 Crimson Shadow Guard

I’ve mentioned before on this blog, but I missed out on all of the TRU exclusive 6-packs from 2004 and 2005. At the time, I only casually paid attention to GI Joe items that were coming out, and the only 6-packs I ever saw were the Green Shirts and Imperial Procession set. At the time I thought those looked pretty decent, but they didn’t entice me enough to collect them. Had I known about sets like the Cobra Infantry Forces and the Shadow Guard set, I’d have likely started collecting seriously much sooner.

The Shadow Guard was one of the cooler ideas Hasbro came out with in the mid-2000‘s. It was cool enough they even revisited it for the 50th Anniversary line, which is not something you can say for the other 90% of 2000‘s GI Joe ideas that were tossed to the wayside. The filecards are a little vague as to what exactly they do, but essentially they are the Night Force of the Crimson Guards, and a good excuse to do a black repaint of the iconic army builder.

Since I acquired these, they’ve become somewhat replaced in usefulness by the various Black Major Customs Crimson Guards in black, but these still have their value. Cutting to the chase, these lack proper parts and have inferior arms cobbled together from 1992 Duke and 1992 Shockwave. The arms are the real killer, as the bulbous shoulders from Duke limit some movement, and look strange on them.

Other than that though, they feature the newly sculpted masked head from the 2004 Crimson Guard, and the same removable helmet. Personally, think the vintage head/helmet looks better, but these have something unique going for them with that gimmick. The only thing against them is simply that a removable helmet never has the tightness of a sculpted helmet. However, all these years later and now that we have the alternative TBM customs, I like that these provide something unique apart from the vintage mold. Neither one is explicitly better, they’re just different.

Nothing too crazy is going on with their deco. Essentially the figure is solid black with a few silver details such as those on their wrists, as well as some gold for their shoulder tassel and Cobra sigil. They kept it simple and the figures look good for it, something that can’t be said for the Night Force set from the same time.

This set used to really get put down for the parts, and I have to say they weren’t the most well executed. The idea of course being that the Shadow Guard uses mostly silent, stealth weapons for their various activities, a fun sounding premise. But instead of say, a few silenced Uzis from a Snake Eyes figure, or maybe one of the Low-Light V1 or V3 guns, they just gave us a generic assortment of Ninja Force era weapons. That includes a three-sectioned staff, claw, two different swords, crossbow, and a bow and arrow.

Now, you know if they had included ordinary guns, odds are I’d still be here complaining about the parts just based on the other releases from that era. And, a few of these aren’t that bad, in fact I do quite like using the V1 Scarlet crossbow they included. I think an extra one of these and maybe some of the suppressed guns I had mentioned would’ve gone a long way to improving this area of the set.

Lose Crimson Shadow Guards float around $8, while sealed sets seem to go between $30 and $40. Compared to the other TRU exclusives from the time, these aren’t nearly as hard to find, or as costly. For the quality they provide and given the relative rarity of the similar custom figures, that’s not a bad price at all. These are still something that’s worth looking out for if you haven’t acquired them by now.