Tag Archives: DTC

2005 Major Barrage

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2005 Major Barrage

The “New Sculpt” era of Joes is not remembered by a whole lot of people. I attribute that mostly to botched marketing, which also led to them not really reaching kids all that much. It’s sad that I preface most posts on these figures like this, but the 2000‘s were a lamentable time, especially for GI Joe. Now for a shock statement: Major Barrage is the best sculpt from this era, and if 1/18 scale Joe ever comes back, they should be based on this figure’s design.

As you may or may not know, Major Barrage is not constructed like a normal figure from the time. While most New Sculpt figures roughly copy the design of the post-‘85 ARAH figures, Major Barrage experiments with construction changes more similar to the 25th Anniversary figures that would debut two years later. Notably, he has a ball-jointed head that connects at the top of the neck rather than inside the torso, swivel wrists, and his elbow-joints are on swivel-disks, the same as the 25th figures.

The thing about this is that he really hits the best of both worlds with this design, being a small figure that’s fun (and easy) to play with, while also featuring some modernizations that make him a little more pleasing aesthetically. 25th (“Modern Era”) figures looked nice once they hit their stride around Rise of Cobra, but always suffered from being gangly and fiddly, not really fun to play with. Likewise, the New Sculpt figures were more play friendly thanks to them just parroting ARAH construction, but they also adapted that construction is often weird ways. Once the 1/12 fad flies over, I hope Joe goes to being something like this, maybe just with the waist-joint used on the Marauder’s Gun Runners figures.

So the figure is really nice and well made in my opinion, easily the best from his era, but Major Barrage himself doesn’t really click with me that much. Overall, his character design is really, really boring, just being some ratty lookin’ dude in camo pants and a tanktop. He has the same energy as some low-tier vehicle driver like Wild-Card, only with the added blandness of being a tough guy nerd’s self-insert character (for clarity, I don’t know that he is, but he looks like one). He has a file card that describes how how he’s the baddest dude since Big Brawler, but honestly, I can’t really care about his character just for the fact that GI Joe hasn’t had a good piece of media since Double Trouble in 1991.

For accessories you get a vest and two, pump-action shotguns. Yeah that’s right, Major Barrage is so badass he rocks two PUMP-ACTION shotguns akimbo, doing some John Woo movie stuff! I guess this dude’s so cool he racks the slide with his teeth. A shotgun could make sense if he’s in a vehicle, since he’s supposed to be an Artillery Commander. Jokes aside, the figure makes good use of the shotguns thanks to his swivel-wrists. I just find guns akimbo to be very dated and corny now, but we like corn here, so that’s alright.

Major Barrage doesn’t show up for auction so much, but BiN’s on eBay have sold between $20 for a complete figure and $30 for a carded figure. Likely, he probably just goes for that much since the figure isn’t the easiest to find anymore, and because the DTC packaging looks pretty good for carded collectors. I don’t think this figure should cost that much, but it’s worth noting that he is probably the best figure from his era, so maybe it’s not too crazy.

Major Barrage DTC GIJOE Hasbro 2005 Valor vs Venom Spy Troops Major Barrage DTC GIJOE Hasbro 2005 Valor vs Venom Spy Troops

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2005 Zarana

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2005 Zarana

I didn’t plan on writing about a Zarana figure again anytime soon, after all, I just wrote about ‘86 Zarana not all that long ago, and that post still reflects my feelings really well, both on the character and her sculpt. This Zarana however, is a comic-pack figure, and those are melting so fast, I wanted to take at least of few extra photos of mine while she still looks okay.

V1 Zarana has always been relatively cheap and common, and this figure’s updated head sculpt arguably looks worse than the original’s. Relative to your other options, I don’t mind it very much, but it doesn’t look great. In the 3-pack, the main appeal was Cobra Commander and Zartan, while Zarana was just kind of a toss-in. Still, this wasn’t a terrible comic-pack, in fact, it was a pretty good one overall. Besides the ugly head, Zarana’s main flaw is just that she wasn’t really as needed as a new Zartan and Battle Armor Cobra Commander. Despite that, this sculpt still seems a lot more fresh than most of what they put out with the comic-packs.

Overall, the colors are a lot more desaturated and toned-down compared to early comic-packs. Zarana’s pink shirt and bluejeans look really dull now, but that’s not horrible, just different. Bright colors seem more suited to Zarana since she’s really a terrorist punk, but not a commando, so dulling her down is mildly counterintuitive. The duller colors used on these Dreadnoks would’ve translated better onto some of the prior comic-pack releases such as the First 13 guys, but like with many lines of GI Joe toys, Hasbro learned about a year too late.

Fortunately for me my figure seems to be aging well, though I know for others she’s discoloring badly. I recently audited my comic-pack figures and found myself to be lucky that not so many of my figures are discoloring or developing torso-cracks. Of course, it’s probably just a matter of time before she turns; my Thrasher looked okay until maybe just a year or two ago, but now he’s quickly joined the ranks of Scrap Iron and the JvC Alley Vipers.

Something I do find to hate about this Zarana though, is her loose grip in her right hand. She’s packaged holding her cutter by it’s stock, so virtually every copy of this figure has a really loose grip on her right hand. I tried fixing it a little with hot water, but that’s fiddly and it didn’t improve much after my first attempt. I find myself endlessly irritated that the figure was negatively impacted by packaging I immediately threw away.

She comes with both of ‘86 Zarana’s parts, a backpack and her cutter, so that’s really nice. Both parts are also rendered in nice black plastic, which I like a lot. Not because black is the best color, but because Zarana has a fairly nice and seldom seen backpack. In red, it doesn’t look swell with too many other figures, but this black one could go well with quite a few. Also, it’s nice they brought her cutter back, but it still sucks and I never use it.

A mint complete ‘05 Zarana seems to run around $20. Sealed in her 3-pack, you can get one around $60. Back when the whole set barely ran $15, there really wasn’t a lot to lose, but for that much money these figures are a waste of time. Looking around, I don’t see too many Zarana’s discoloring badly, but they have the possibility of doing so at any time. She was okay as a pack-in, especially if you normally didn’t feel inclined to bother with a V1 Zarana and her crappy glued torso. For $20, there’s a lot of better figures you could get, especially ones that aren’t made of sus plastic.

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gi joe comic pack 2005 dreadnok marvel comics zarana 2005 DTC

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2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper

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2005 Cobra Night Watch Trooper

Uncharacteristically for a 2000‘s GI Joe item, the entire Cobra Night Watch set is an example of a good idea with mostly good execution. In a time pretty long before TBM, Hasbro put out a set of Cobra Troopers and Officers in unique colors to represent a niche role. It’s something collectors wanted enough to make the aforementioned bootlegs extremely viable, though for whatever reason, Hasbro really only every touched the idea with this set.

Seventeen years later, I feel these are still holding up very well, even with so many excellent TBM Troopers floating around. That could always change, as the biceps on mine are a slightly different hue from the forearms. At the moment, that doesn’t bother me too much, though I’d absolutely hate for these to suddenly join the ranks of spontaneously discolored 2000‘s figures. Other than that bit of paranoia, they’re still a set of figures with great decos that maintain most of the classic Trooper sculpt, which is enough for me to like ‘em a lot.

In their original six-pack, you got four troopers and two different Squad Leaders, AKA: Cobra Officers. Of the Troopers, most were the same although one switches the normal Caucasian skin-tone for African, just like the other army-builder sets before this. Because I acquired my set piecemeal, I never got the black one since someone routinely bid-sniped me on every single auction I’ve ever tried for. I figured one day my patience would pay off and I’d complete my set, but instead everyone randomly became a toy collector and prices doubled.

Overall, the figures have a nice paint scheme. There’s camo on the pants and helmet, extra color on parts of the webgear, additional Cobra and Night Watch markings on their helmets and biceps. They did a good job of bringing out the little details on the sculpt, and it’s right at the perfect amount of paint before they’d start to look busy. If anything, the markings on the sides of the helmet might have been a bit too much, but it always feels a little unfair to fault a toy for having too much paint.

Like many of the Cobras from their time period, they feature V1 Roadblock’s arms and waist in lieu of the ‘83 Cobra’s. It makes them look a little chunky, but I don’t mind it much. The original lower arms were apparently still floating around, since Hasbro used them for the comic-pack Trooper, though this guy replaced them for Roadblock’s entire arm. Looking back, I sort of find it weird Hasbro switched the arms around for every Cobra Trooper they released back then (the Infantry Forces used Thunder’s arms), you’d think they would have settled on one replacement like they did with all the Viper repaints from back then.

Their accessories aren’t great, but they work. Included is the super generic ‘03 Overkill knife and Sand Viper’s G36 rifle, which was also the gun for nearly every other Joe and Cobra released between ‘03 and ‘05. Thanks to the pliable thumbs, the figures can at least use this gear, but it really does not do them justice. Then again, I suppose I should just give them credit for including guns at all, as Hasbro could’ve tossed in a bunch of ninja weapons like they did with the Shadow Guard.

Night Watch Troopers go between $10 and $20, with the accessories not playing a huge factor in that value. Even if you buy them in lots or the complete set, they tend to always average around $20 each, so when you occasionally get them for less, you’re doing good. These have always been pretty popular, so that’s not really surprising. $20 still feels like a lot for an ‘05 figure to me, but that’s in line with what a bootleg Cobra will cost you, so it makes sense.

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2005 Range Viper

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2005 Range Viper

It’s probably a fair statement to say that relatively few people miss the “New Sculpt” era and construction from 2002 to ‘06, but that doesn’t mean some genuinely good toys weren’t made during the period. Hasbro’s Direct to Consumer line did a great job of showing what the style was capable of, and the Range Viper is fine example of that.

The DTC Range Viper changes up the original design in a pretty nice and significant way. Lots of folks used to have a harsher view on the vintage figure’s sculpt, and while I’m probably a bigger fan of that design, this one’s good too. By reusing most of the Valor vs Venom Swamp Rat’s body, the new Range Viper wears what’s more of a wet-suit than the original. It’s different enough that I don’t think the figure really has to be better than the original to maintain a unique appeal.

The helmet is one of the figure’s main attractions. Removable helmets for Cobras haven’t always worked out for Hasbro, like the mail-away Agent Faces helmet that looked large and a little goofy with the figures it was included with. Perhaps one could say the Range Viper’s head is a little small as a consequence of the helmet, but overall the proportions are pretty decent on both the head and the mask. I like a lot of the new helmet design, and overall I think the skull face looks a lot more intimidating on this figure than the original.

While his parts are just recycled bits from the New Sculpt era, I like what they chose for him pretty well. You get a pair of knives to fill the holsters that are a leftover from the Swamp Rat, an MP5K, and a Dragunov SVU. While none of these parts are new, I’m a big fan of the Dragunov SVU and really liked it’s inclusion here. The cool thing about the SVU is that it’s a more modern, bullpup configuration variant of the classic Dragunov. It was originally used by Russia in 1994, so there’s a few figures that could be smartly equipped with it, if you like gun-nerd type stuff.

Thinking about the era this figure was from and my relationship with it really is telling about some of Hasbro’s missteps. When most of the early New Sculpt lines came out, I was still in Hasbro’s primary demographic, but I didn’t buy many of the figures then. Most of my collection of figures like this guy were bought on clearance years after their original releases. I had interest, but Hasbro’s lack of a coherent media push and ideas like Sigma 6 kept me from really engaging the line with anymore than passing glances. It’s a topic I could make an entire rant about on it’s own, but as for what’s prevalent to this Range Viper: I personally think if this figure had been apart of the Robot Rebellion line, and that had an anime/cartoon airing somewhere like Toonami, the brand would be vastly in a better position today.

DTC Range Vipers were popular in their heyday, and it shows with how common they remain in the current market. You find them carded more often than not, and they range from as low as $6 to $9 in that condition. It’s a great army builder and cool interpretation of the Range Viper, so for anyone interested in the style it’s still a worthy addition.

gi joe dtc direct to consumer range viper cobra Hasbro 2005 TRU toys r us
gi joe dtc direct to consumer range viper cobra Hasbro 2005 TRU toys r us
gi joe dtc direct to consumer range viper cobra Hasbro 2005 TRU toys r us

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2005 Zartan (DTC Comic Pack)

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2005 Zartan

In 2005, GI Joe was low on my collecting radar and Toys R’ Us was a seldom stop for me. So most of the comic pack figures came and went without my knowledge. My collecting interests changed a lot as the 2000‘s came to a close, and with a bigger interest in oddball 2000‘s items like these, I picked up most of the good comic pack figures around 2010 and ‘11. The overstock was so bad on these they were available for years after release at retail price and even below that, which provided me with a good avenue for some unfamiliar sculpts. One such sculpt that I had never owned, was Zartan.

I think Zartan could be argued as one of the most important villains in the GI Joe storyline, but unfortunately, he doesn’t have a great history of action figures. After the classic V1 figure, you have a strange but decent Ninja Force release, a terrible ARAHC figure, some novel Joecon items, and a pair of sub-par New Sculpt era figures. As someone who wasn’t even born in the 80’s, it was always frustrating to have to few options for such a cool character.

For a comic-pack release, this Zartan is really nice. The colors are nicely different from the V1 figure, but aren’t so much of a departure that they look wrong. Of course, he no longer changes colors like the V1 figure, but some collectors might appreciate that gimmick being lost. Save for the head, the sculpt is entirely recycled from the V1 figure and marks the only other time it saw a retail release. If there had been a handful more of good or even decent repaints of this figure, this release might not have been as worthwhile, but such was not the case.

Speaking of that head, I have mixed feelings on it. Like a lot of figures from the time, it’s a little small. The face sculpt is pretty good, although I think the shape of the cowl looks a little exaggerated. The face paint is also strange looking, with black going all the way up his forehead.Has he ever looked like this? The sculpt looks a lot worse without that trademark diamond pattern on his face.

I never liked Zartan’s removable chest and leg pads. Like with the HEAT Viper, it seems they serve no purpose beyond getting lost. This figure loses Zartan’s iconic pistol and disguise and replaces it with a bow, arrow and quiver. The convention figure didn’t have it either, so I assume it was lost in the transition between Funskool and Hasbro. These parts were a huge appeal with the original and it’s a shame they were lost. At the very least, the new bow and arrow set’s nice in it’s own right, and is an appropriate part for the character.

V1 Zartan’s aren’t cheap or easy to get, and the later figures are all either novelties or are crappy. So if you want an alternative for a decent Zartan figure, your choices are this one and the Funskool figure. They certainly aren’t as easy to find as they used to be (what is), but the sealed set with a nifty Fred Cobra Commander, Zarana and a reprint of #74 barely tops $20, so that’s not a bad option.

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2006 SAW Viper, DTC

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2006 SAW Viper, DTC

I’m a big fan of the DTC (Direct to Consumer) GI Joe line. The handful of times I spotted them at a TRU in 2005/06, they really caught my attention with the excellent character selection and retro styled packaging the line featured; in a way that the prior GI Joe lines had failed to do. Alas, I wouldn’t acquire any figures from the line at that time as I was already fully preoccupied collecting Gundam figures and Transformers.

A year or two after that I finally went down the rabbit hole of GI Joe collecting and picked up some of the DTC figures from years prior I had missed. Luckily for me, the lot of these figures were a simple task to acquire for small change online, giving me a healthy selection of modern styled SAW Vipers, Range Vipers, Snow Serpents and a few other figures to add to my newly growing collection of Cobras.

Apparently, the “New Sculpt” figures were at one time much the collector fad in the same vein as the Modern Era GI Joe figures. Like the early 25th Anniversary line, many of the sculpts did not age well, and once this format fell from favor, collectors were quick to dump their collections favoring only the vintage classics or the new modern figures.

I’m a really big fan of late 80‘s and 90‘s Cobras, but the 1990 SAW Viper is a figure I’ve never found it in me to love. Strange design, questionable colors, scrawny sculpt, terrible weapon… By far I think he’s my least favorite ARAH army builder. So for a figure to redesign in the DTC line, the new SAW Viper doesn’t have to do much to improve over the original.

The proportions and scale of the sculpt on this figure looks very reasonable. The worst I can say is that his head seems a bit tiny, but with his helmet on it looks passable. The chest and legs have a fairly bulky look that suits the figure well, and are a major improvement over the original figure.

The colors focus much more on black accentuated with maroon. I feel a little like this moves too far away from the figure’s original color scheme and actually makes this figure a little too realistic. Most wouldn’t view this as an issue, but perhaps keeping the purple instead of the maroon would’ve tied the figure back to the original a little more and given him some more of that 90‘s Cobra charm.

For parts, he includes his removable helmet and the original SAW Viper’s backpack, as well as a M249 LMG. Given that under the helmet all of the SAW Vipers end up looking like clones, I find this accessory somewhat redundant, but it acts as a play feature and I respect it for that. The backpack was a pretty decent choice in this case, as although I don’t like this part much, there again it ties him back to the vintage figure, which is needed here. Lastly, the M249 is a really nice sculpt and I dig the removable box magazine it features. I’ve come to associate this gun with the SAW Viper more than it’s original weapon, but that’s mainly just because the original was such a monstrosity.

If you don’t mind the construction, this figure provides a lot and acts as a nice alternative to the V1 SAW Viper. Like with many figures these days, finding them is not as easy as it used to be, but when they do show up, they remain dirt cheap. A carded figure can be acquired for as little as $7, and a loose figure or one in a lot may have the price drop to around $5. For that much, it’s definitely a figure worth looking out for.

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2006 Viper (Cobra Viper Pit 6-Pack)

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2006 Viper (Cobra Viper Pit 6-Pack)

I’ve thought about discussing this set for awhile, and being that my blog shares a name with this set, it seems right to talk about the Cobra Viper Pit at some point. The amusing thing is, I really just liked the name and thought it seemed unique for a Joe blog, but I’m not the biggest fan of the set. That isn’t to say I dislike the figures by any means, however.

The Cobra Viper Pit set and it’s Vipers are somewhat infamous in the GI Joe collecting community at this point. Namely, the reason for that is due to how incredibly fragile the figures are, and how poorly they’ve aged in comparison to other delicate feeling figures no one thought would last long.

The main problem with this Viper is that the crotch, sans modification, will almost be guaranteed to break. This is because the thighs are newly recast Viper thighs, while the waist is the same one from the BAT that Hasbro used on all Viper repaints from ‘97 onward. As it turns out, these parts are not a great fit, and the t-bar puts enough pressure on the crotch that sooner or later, it breaks.

The problem is compounded if you leave the factory o-rings in this figure, though twelve years to the release of the set and it’s mildly hard to find any still intact. Hasbro used undersized o-rings in these and they should be immediately replaced upon acquisition of the figure.

To correct the crotch issue, one can use a nail-file and grind down a portion of the inside of the figure’s crotch. This alleviates the pressure issue and seems to help the range of motion in the figure’s legs. I’ve owned four of these Vipers for about four or five years now with no problems thanks to this, though it’s a serious shame a figure needs modifications just to prevent it from breaking.

It should be mentioned as well, that these Vipers inherit the neck bar from the 1997 line, a modification intended to limit the head movement down to left and right like all of the pre-1985 figures. It’s dumb, and has been an annoyance on all of the Vipers released since then, and it’s present here too.

These glaring quality issues are a huge damper on what could’ve otherwise been one of the best GI Joe items of it’s era. A set of 6 Vipers, all in classic colors with decent parts and great painted details, it’s a premise that’s hard to screw-up, yet Hasbro somehow found a way to do just that.

The painted details of this figure is where they really shine in my opinion. The colors are very similar to the V1 Viper’s, but a lot of details are highlighted on this version that were easily overlooked on the original Viper. The goggle lenses, gloves, vest buckles, grenades, they’ve all been swapped out from large swathes of red and black for additional colors. I think it looks so good, I’d dare to say they’re an upgrade to the V1 Viper, visually.

The parts really aren’t bad either. 2000‘s GI Joes are known for coming with random, tired and terrible parts (good example: The Cobra Infantry Forces), but these guys come with a little variety of new and old guns in appropriate colors. Four of the Vipers in the set have Ambush’s bullpup in light gray, while the other two each got a black LMG from the DTC SAW Viper, and a light gray MP5 like the one from the DTC Range Viper. As well, the set included four backpacks from ‘92 Gung-Ho.

With all that said, these should be great figures. But, requiring modifications just to work as intended makes them a failure of a product. Still, I really like these Vipers and enjoy using them in photos from time to time. With current Joe market pricing, I see full sets of these, carded or loose, running between $30 to $50. Like all of the other mid-2000‘s GI Joe sets, the supply of these have really dried up, and prices have gone up accordingly. Personally, I think you’d be well advised to spend your collecting dollars elsewhere, as at the moment these just have too many problems and cost way too much.

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2005 Cobra Trooper

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GI Joe Direct to Consumer Cobra Soldier action figure new sculpt VvV Hasbro vintageNew Sculpt era figures aren’t held very dear in the Joe community, especially nowadays. I’m a bit of a fan of the era, as some of the figures are truly excellent, especially the one’s from the Direct to Consumer Line. The Cobra Trooper from that line is one in particular I’m fond of, despite how it does display a few problems figures of the era were prone to.

With GI Joe collecting, it’s easy to grow tired of the endless barrage of Dukes, Snake Eyes’s, Fireflys, Cobra Commanders and the constant stream of better versions of those characters. When you look back through the many different versions of a single character, I’m always drawn to versions that bring something different to the table, with unique sculpts and character designs. In the case of the DTC Cobra Trooper, you pretty much have just that. A figure that may not be as good and modern as say the newer POC/30th Cobra Trooper, but offers an alternative design instead that gives the figure more merit. Put simply, I like this figure because it looks different.

The Cobra Trooper is made mostly of reused tooling, sharing parts with Ghost Bear from Valor vs Venom. His head was shared with the DTC Range Viper who came out about the same time, and his helmet and bazooka are both new. This provides a rather unique look for a Cobra Trooper, with a more tight fitting outfit, unique looking gloves and boots, and other little details. It’s nice how he wears a bandolier instead of the same web-gear, the helmet deviates nicely from the classic bucket as well. I think the only downside is that the figure looks a bit scrawny, but compared to other figures from the time the proportions aren’t too bad.

I find this design really striking. If I had a “Joe-verse”, I’d see Cobra as an organization that has lingered for a long time causing problems of different severity, and I think overtime they’d change their gear and equipment quite a bit. As such, this is the 2000‘s Trooper, and the guy I imagine all of the 2000‘s Joes fought on a regular basis. It’s a niche idea, but it shows how the figure is at least interesting enough to represent something.