1988 Duke (Tiger Force)

Posted on January 15, 2024 by mwnekoman

1988 Duke (Tiger Force)

Tiger Force Duke is two things I like, being that I like Duke and I like Tiger Force. Yet, strangely enough I don’t know if I feel that much of a connection to the figure besides it being the tiger-pajamas Duke who mostly only comes out once a summer to play with his other tiger-print friends I like more. Which has it’s appeals, given that the original Tiger Force is a very strong set of figures, so just having a Duke to match them isn’t a bad thing.

Objectively, I think there’s a case that can be made that Duke is the third weakest figure of the set. The worst figure is probably Frostbite, just because he’s the one that makes the least sense, and second would be Bazooka, since keeping the football jersey and losing the colors doesn’t really hold much appeal. Duke loses a lot for the scant paint on his head, with V1 Duke making the head work with his painted teeth and a separate color for his hair. Tiger Force Duke changes his hair color to brown, presumably to save on money since it matches with the color on his belts and bandolier. He also has these weird peachy-tan pants that are a shade that doesn’t really match with any of the other Tiger Force Figures. Most of the other figures share a color or two between them that works nicely towards making the Tiger Force look like a cohesive team, but Duke’s pants don’t match with anything. It could look worse, but I’ve always felt he looks a tad bit inferior when you sit him next to Flint.

It’s a good looking figure despite all that though, and I’m probably the odd one for not holding him in such a high regard. The olive green shirt is a nice shade that still perfectly fits with the heavy use of green from early in the line. The brown details and peachy pants also do nicely to make him look less monotonous and show more detail than the original figure, which is a big plus. If he had more orange or yellow on him, he’d probably be a lot less popular, and I don’t know if I’d really like that either. The worst thing he probably has going for him though, is that I always compare him to Flint, and while this is a good figure, that one’s a great figure.

The Duke mold went through a lot of changes up to the Tiger Force release. I’m going to assume something must’ve go awry with the arms early on, since late-release Dukes from Hasbro and Takara both swapped over to V1 Grunt arms (Probably when they sent the Doc mold to Plastirama?). Tiger Force Duke (and later, Chinese Duke) has Hit & Run arms, which works pretty well as a substitute, though I’m not sure I’ve seen a shirt like that with elastic cuffs before. The Tiger Force release also benefits from only using the sharper Duke head, compared to the original which had both this version of the sculpt and a doughy, soft looking version early on.

For parts, you get the same kit of fun gear from V1 Duke: a tan helmet, a green backpack, an M-32 Pulverizer and a pair of binoculars in dark grey. The green backpack is really nice and because it’s a common color, it also pairs decently with a few other figures. The helmet’s the same color as his pants, so it’s also unique to him and not easily mistaken for any other version of the casting.

Tiger Force Duke’s run around $25 for a mint complete figure. You’ll find some examples that swap the gun and binoculars for similar black versions though, so that’s something to look out for (mine’s usually pictured with alternate parts, since my only copy of his gun has a broken barrel). It’s a lot for a figure, but just a year or so ago Tiger Force anything would be hitting north of $70, so it doesn’t seem to bad to me now.

1988 Duke (Tiger Force) Links:

Attica Gazette

Half the Battle

3D Joes

1992 Duke

Posted on August 3, 2021 by mwnekoman

1992 Duke

I have no shortage of Duke figures, so when it comes to Duke, I can be picky. A lot of Duke figures are pretty good, but because I have so many others, their flaws render them less useful in my collection. A good example of a figure I never use, is 1992 Duke.

In my collection, this figure is mostly invalidated by both 1994 Duke, and Desert Patrol Stalker who uses the same sculpt in similar colors. That’s not really a knock against this figure, because this toy is good in it’s own right. However, I slightly prefer the sculpt and design of ‘94 Duke, and likewise, Stalker is a slightly more interesting use of the sculpt. With that, this becomes another Duke among many who doesn’t have much to do in my collection.

This figure is fairly memorable though, as the go-to design for a 90‘s Duke. You saw it pop up with some regularity in the contemporary media, which is more than I can say for Tiger Force Duke. I always associate this Duke mostly with the DIC cartoon, which for the most part, should be a bad thing, but it’s something at the very least.

The details of the sculpt are nice, and I like the design overall. However, the biggest issue is that the chest is overly buff. This is irritating, because the arms can’t even sit flush with the waist. Usually 90‘s buff sculpts aren’t so much of a problem, but he has a thick chest paired with thick arms, which unfortunately makes the figure look silly more often than not. Other than that, it’s a nice looking design. The vest has a nicely futuristic look to me, which I think matches nicely with the aesthetics we saw in the past from several figures. A lot of fans are also quick to make fun of V1 Duke’s smug, grinning expression, which is in contrast to the more stern, serious sculpt we see here.

The colors are perfect on this figure, at least to my sense of aesthetics. The beige and tans are a great tone, and the contrast of the red camouflage livens the figure up just enough, without being obnoxious. The gold paint on his grenade and a few other details also contrasts nicely without standing out too much. It was nice to see a figure with this much balance in it’s colors at this point in the line.

His parts aren’t my favorites, but they’re nice enough. Included is a brown rifle and knife, a helmet, and a missile-launcher, with missiles, seat and a tripod. The brown plastic on the rifle and knife strike me as being a little more delicate than typical, but other than that, the sculpts look well enough. The missile launcher is a mildly interesting contraption, as it can be both carried as a backpack, and sat on while in use. I think it looks silly, but it was neat that they were still trying new things. The missile launchers were much more phoned-in on figures from ’93 and ’94.

This mold and parts from it got more use than they probably should have. A fairly nice woodland-camo version came out in the 2001 ARAHC line, and it popped up again as the excellent, aforementioned Desert Patrol Stalker figure in ‘04. The arms and chest were used for ’01 Leatherneck, and the head and biceps were also used to make Agent Faces in ‘03, and later the biceps for all of the releases of the 2000‘s Crimson Guard and the Shadow Guard. The arms are easily the worst part of this toy, so it’s a shame they used them on the Crimson Guards from that era.

It’s easy to find this Duke in good shape, and mostly complete examples fetch around $15. With that said, he’s usually missing at least the knife, and it’s pretty common to find his gun broken too. Most of his parts besides his helmet really aren’t all that necessary though, and he looks pretty good in a 90‘s display without any of his parts. He’s not a must have figure, but he’s one that’s good enough to have, especially if you like 90‘s Joes.

1992 Duke Links:

Forgotten Figures

Half the Battle

Joe A Day

1997 Duke

Posted on August 12, 2019 by mwnekoman

1997 Duke

I’ve talked once before about 1997 Duke and cited him as one of the worst GI Joes in my collection. Big emphasis on the “my collection” part, but I’d still consider him a figure with significant issues. With that said, elements of the figure are of decent quality, and parts of his design are… interesting enough to be worth talking about.

Me and my brother collected the 1997 GI Joes, and they were the first “new” line of GI Joes I was able to collect as a kid. While they were controversial to collectors for their quality issues, I really have a special fondness for this year, 1998, and 1994 since those were more or less my introduction to the line. Despite this, my bias doesn’t apply to Duke, as somehow I didn’t know of his existence until I was an adult.

Duke’s first obvious problem is his colors. The 97‘s were prone to some experimental color schemes, that in some cases were excellent. In other cases, you had oddities like this figure. Brown hair, lime shirt, red boots? Looking at his colors makes me feel like the hue on my monitor is off, they’re just way too weird and random for a character like Duke.

But the biggest shame? His paint applications are actually pretty sweet. Check out the detail on his breast pocket, or the decoration just above it, multiple colors on the bandolier, camo on the pants, ect. The only thing he’s missing is some paint for the watch, which is oddly left a giant mass of flesh.

This was also the first Duke that was badly hurt by the original’s missing tooling. Duke’s old arms weren’t something that precious (The Hit&Run arms on the Tiger Force and Chinese variants were great), but these replacements were just terrible. As he uses arms from Gung-ho V1, his sleeves are essentially just painted on; the lack of any thickness or detail just looks unnatural. This was the parts combo the kept for all subsequent Dukes too, which really just adds insult to injury.

His parts are pretty decent, but not perfect. He keeps the gun and binoculars from 1984 Duke, while swapping the helmet for a generic one from ‘97 Grunt, as well as the generic black Hawk backpack that practically every figure from that year had. For some reason, they also decided to toss in a 1982 style visor for his helmet too, which is actually pretty cool. All in all, I really just wish he had a better backpack, but it looks like they kinda tried with this one. Kinda.

Sealed or with the Silver Mirage, 1997 Dukes go for around $30 to $40. Meanwhile the figure can go for about $8 loose and on it’s own. 97‘s go for some pretty random prices, but it certainly seems like Duke is on the less interesting end for the most part, with only figures from the Arctic Mission Team really underpricing him.

Note: I thought I had an alternate version of this picture without the filter, but it’s been lost while swapping computers over years. I’d have taken another to show him off better, but I can’t say the figure motivated me enough to do that!

1997 Duke Links:

Yo Joe

Modern Style Custom by Oreobuilder

Chinese Duke

Posted on October 29, 2018 by mwnekoman

Chinese Duke

In the 90‘s, Hasbro produced a line of GI Joe figures for China. The assortment consisted mainly of assorted 80‘s and 90‘s items, but a few releases stood out for being rather unique. Of them, there was a Tiger Force Flint made from V1 Falcon, a unique Major Bludd figure, and the Duke that is the focus of this profile.

On the surface, Duke seems more similar to his original V1 figure than the Major Bludd and Flint I mentioned. And in truth, he is quite similar to the original, but the main difference is that he uses the part recipe from Tiger Force Duke, just in V1 colors. The result is a figure that’s a near perfect representation of V1 Duke, but with a few different details that really makes it an interesting novelty as well.

Just like Tiger Force Duke, on this figure the arms are from Hit & Run, while the waist is from the Cobra Officer. The legs, head, and torso are the same as V1 Duke’s however. Until this writing, I actually forgot about the waist being different, and the main visual difference here is the elastic sleeves he features over the original cuffed ones.

V1 Duke ended up being one of those expensive main characters I put off buying through my early collecting years. Eventually I came across one of these Chinese Dukes and my need for the American figure diminished rapidly. Essentially, this figure provides you with almost everything the original does, only with a few odd sculpt changes that work to provide you with a more interesting collectible.

For the most part, his accessories are the same as the original’s as well. You get the same green helmet and gun, backpack, and binoculars. I really like these parts and am glad this figure includes them without changing anything. Subsequent releases of this sculpt lost more and more of the original parts, so it’s really nice that everything was included here one last time.

I don’t remember the last time I saw a Chinese Duke for sale. It probably was over a year ago, but at a time these were pretty common. I think I payed less than $15 for mine, and, if I had to say what I thought the figure is worth now based on that, I’d say about $15, and no more than $20 even for a carded example. These are out there and in collections, but a lack of interest in the brand right now is really creating a false since of scarcity. You almost never see this figure for sale, but the same can be said for plenty of the American items released at retail between ‘04 and ‘06, so let that speak for where we stand.

Chinese Duke Links:

Forgotten Figures

Yo Joe

Duke (Battle Corps, 1993)

Posted on March 10, 2016 by mwnekoman

Love him or hate him, there’s a number of good Duke toys that have come out over the years. While I don’t think many are quite as fun as the original Duke, this Battle Corps version does provide quite a bit, especially for a Battle Corps figure.

This Duke is almost strange for being such an especially well reasoned and realistic looking figure. At a time when GI Joe was mainly remembered for ridiculous colors and goofy gimmicks, this figure slipped out amazingly removed of those elements. His uniform and sculpt are so grounded looking I can easily understand why someone might use him as an army-builder, as I’ve been so tempted in the past.

The sculpt here is full of detail while remaining mostly simplistic, which I think works in it’s favor. The figure’s helmet is sculpted on, unlike the previous three Dukes. I think the figure gains the merit of a better head sculpt from that, although it’s a bit sad to lose that playability from a removable helmet.

His accessories were well chosen for this figure too, even if they’re generic parts. He includes a pump-action shotgun, MP5-K, machete, riffle, and a boring missile launcher. As the parts are cast in black plastic, he has a rather nice and realistic set of parts compared to many of his contemporaries. I feel like this figure was heavily influenced by the Gulf War and this area is especially so.

I think if there’s a downside to this one, his paint apps are pretty thin. Overall, the figure just looks a little flat and isn’t painted many colors. It especially hurts in areas where the sculpted details like the goggles on his helmet stand out, but lack any paint. It’s nothing major though, as the rest of the paint is decent enough.

All in all, this is definitely one of my favorite 90‘s figures, and one of the better Duke’s Hasbro made.

10 GI Joe Figures that are Surprisingly Bad

Posted on September 24, 2015 by mwnekoman

With how much fun collecting GI Joe can be, I sometimes forget about the little oddball figures that really just aren’t up to par. There’s some obvious choices that could be considered worse than these, but I wanted to avoid going for cheap-shots like Armor Tech figures. So without further ado, here’s ten figures I’ve acquired that are really bad.

10. Flaming M.O.T.H Chuckles

What a surprise, a figure from the official GI Joe collector’s club. Usually these guys are a little more on point, but this figure serves almost no purpose. It’s sad because a set of collectors have always mocked Chuckle’s classic attire and it would have been a great chance for them to release the character in a more grounded looking outfit. Instead, they chose to recreate his classic look, only from the very buff Heavy Duty mold. Really?

9. T’Jbang

I’m a fan of the outlandish side of GI Joe, but this guy does some things wrong. First, he suffers from the same obtrusive gimmicks many of the Ninja Force figures suffered, restricting his torso articulation. His color scheme is rather ugly and makes me think of Dr. Fate if he were a luchador. The tiger mask comes off as chintzy, as do his bright blue parts. His bio also mentions he’s taken a vow of silence … Because that’s very original when it comes to GI Joe, isn’t it?

8. Dr. Link Talbot

This one makes me pretty sad honestly. Link is actually a pretty decent character with a unique specialty as a veterinarian. Neither version of this figure includes any sort of animal however, which is a huge missed opportunity. The figure really doesn’t include any sort of nice parts. His sculpt and overall design are both extremely boring, featuring minimal gear and equipment. What you end up with is a cool character represented by two toys that are highly lackluster.

7. Funskool Barbecue

Funskool has been known for making a lot of cool and strange little variants during their run with GI Joe. With this one, I sadly can find no place for him. Normal Funskool Barbecue figures came with a yellow mask that was at least slightly more attractive looking, but this variant replaces that color with flesh-tone. It’s so ugly! It goes a long way to make a mediocre figure simply inferior. For added insult, some of these were shipped as random vehicle drivers with no parts, such as this figure.

6. Windmill

Aspects of Windmill seem like the makings of an average Joe pilot, but the execution on this one comes off so bad. I have no problem with bright colors, but the way this figure mixes orange with bright green makes him hard to look at. His head sculpt irritates me too, what’s up with the cat ears? To round it all off check the size of that revolver of his, that thing is HUGE.

5. Long Range

This figure might have made an alright Iron Grenadier in different colors, or with a little paint. As he is, this figure truly puzzles me with what he’s supposed to look like. He features almost no paint and is cast in an ugly, prototype gray color. His helmet is goofy looking, and even the small pistol he includes leaves much to be desired.

4. 1997 Duke

1997 was another strange time for GI Joe. While many nice repaints came out during this year, the figures were plagued with quality issues. This Duke has said issues as well, but is also just a terrible looking figure! Albeit, he does brandish a nice amount of paint applications, they’re all so random. Why is Duke’s hair brown? Why are his shoes red? And, of all things why would they paint his pockets and not the flesh colored watch on his wrist?

3. 1993 Muskrat

What on earth … this Muskrat is a strange and terrible figure that makes no sense at all. His colors are incohesive with a navy blue, orange and some sandy color. His sculpt has terrible proportions, just look how low his arms sit on his shoulders. He also features one of the most mind-boggling launcher accessories in the entire line. It’s a missile launcher that mounts on his helmet. Screw practicality, it’s not even cool looking.

2. Wild Card

Not only does Wild Card have a bizarre appearance for a Joe, he also offers very little as a figure. He brings little in terms of sculpted detail, and his head is extremely generic. He looks almost just like every other mustached GI Joe. Sadly his generic head sculpt is one of the better things about this figure, when the rest of him is both so random and bland at the same time. I think he looks like a homeless guy to be honest.

1. 25th Anniversary Gung-Ho

25th figures are easy to pick on because so many of them haven’t aged well, but let’s face it: Gung-Ho was bad even when the figure first came out and everyone was hyped for the new construction. That alone says a lot, but in my observation this is the worst Modern Era figure to date. First, the figure features a bland deco with a horrendous, zombified looking skin tone. As you can imagine, the figure is as narrowly articulated as the other original 25th figures, Gung-Ho’s arms barely bend 45 degrees at the elbows. He has an awkward neckline that looks awful at even the slightest profile view. His cap doesn’t feature a marine logo, but instead an anchor in its place. His legs had a universal problem of being extremely loose and flopping all over the place. Oh, and lastly I almost forgot his grenade launcher, the one almost no figure can hold and won’t stay together at all.

Disagree with my picks? Sound off @MW_Nekoman on twitter.

Tiger Force Roadblock (1988)

Posted on August 19, 2015 by mwnekoman

Three of my favorite figures here. The original Tiger Force color schemes were so vibrant, yet cohesive. It also helps that they often recycled excellent sculpts, just making the figures all the better. Given, I think some are nicer than others. Duke’s colors seem a tad more bland to me than the other two.

Most of the later attempts at the TF weren’t so great. I’m not a fan of the UK figures, and the Spy Troops set that was inspired by those was pretty weak too. I’ve not seen many ME figures do Tiger Force with much success either, so for me, these guys are where it’s at.

First Strike

Posted on July 24, 2015 by mwnekoman

Duke leads a mission into the middle of Springfield, dangerous Cobra territory. Nothing a GI Joe can’t handle.

I thought there really couldn’t be a better way to start a GI Joe blog than with a picture of POC Duke. This will mainly be a gallery of my diorama shots, but that’s not to say I won’t casually blog news I like, or review a figure every now and then. So welcome to the Viper Pit!

The Viper Pit

Tag Archives: Duke

1988 Duke (Tiger Force)

1988 Duke (Tiger Force)

1988 Duke (Tiger Force) Links:

1992 Duke

1992 Duke

1992 Duke Links:

1997 Duke

1997 Duke

1997 Duke Links:

Chinese Duke

Chinese Duke

Chinese Duke Links:

Duke (Battle Corps, 1993)

10 GI Joe Figures that are Surprisingly Bad

Tiger Force Roadblock (1988)

First Strike