Tag Archives: Iron Grenadiers

1988 Iron Grenadier

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Sometimes, I’m not sure about my ability to separate a character or idea I like from the actual toy it’s applied to. Like with the Iron Grenadier, the elite foot-soldier of Destro’s personal faction, I’m not really sure if the toy is that good or if I’ve just been conditioned to love it from the daydreams I have about him. Of course, the character is kind of part of the toy, which was one of the selling points that separated GI Joe from things like The Corps!. Without getting to deep about it, here’s some happy words and a few photos of the Iron Grenadier.

The colors are really nice on the Iron Grenadier, in multifaceted ways. Going with his elite European profile, the black and red makes him a little reminiscent of a Nazi SS uniform. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not, but this wasn’t too long before WWII mania really set in so there’s that. More importantly, the colors also riff off his Cobra equivalent of the Viper, and directly match up with either version of Destro. Obviously his colors match Iron Grenadiers Destro, but with only silver and gold to separate them, he looks pretty splendid alongside the V1. There’s some amazing consistency there, as I really wouldn’t expect an ’88 figure to look good along side an ’83 figure, but the thematic colors are one of the stronger characteristics of the Iron Grenadiers, as a faction.

I’ve seen the sculpt described as “space conquistadors” and mildly can’t unsee it, but overall I really dig the look of the armor. It’s bulky, and looks like it could take some shots. Paired with his primary weapon being an Uzi, I imagine Iron Grenadiers using a lot of shock tactics without much worry as to their personal harm. The helmet design is really impressive: the fin on top gives it a similar look to knight armor, but also the more ornate WWI European helmet designs*. Underneath that, is an advanced and futuristic looking tactical (Gas?) mask, that combines to form the most defining element of the figure.

*In particular, it kinda looks like a Russian Adrian helmet. I wonder if that was intentional, since Cobra Troopers have helmets sometimes depicted with mildly German styling. Given the conflict between Cobra and the IG’s, perhaps a reference to Germany vs Russia at any given point. That, or a toy designer just checked out a history book on gear, choose it at random, and here I am making shit up 37 years later.

It’s funny how the space-y look of Iron Grenadiers is fairly well accepted, even outside of this figure, whereas the BF2000 remain obscurities hardly touched by any facet of the brand (I think even Classified has continued to ignore them). I think some of that is owed to the fact that the Iron Grenadier is actually a good figure, as well as the face of his own faction (which, you really can’t say about Maverick). I’ve sometimes wondered if sci-fi is just a more accepted theme for villains, but there again the character ties back to Destro, whereas the BF2000 amounts to a bunch of bland Captain Power rejects, who drive MASK reject vehicles. One expands the lore a bit, but the other serves no real purpose.

His accessories are interesting. He includes a gold, sheathed sword, a red pistol and a giant black Uzi. These parts are tied to the character and make him more visually impressive, though none of them are very good. The obvious flaw with the Uzi is that it’s absolutely massive, over-scaled on par with something atrocious like the SAW Viper LMG. It’s also a notorious thumb breaker, so I don’t use the ones that I have and usually opt for a Snake Eyes or Low-Light/LAW Uzi. I also find some flaw in the hip mounted accessories that were popular for a few years, such as this sword. As an adult, it works well enough and figures can be carefully posed with said style of accessory, but I couldn’t imagine playing with something like this. It just falls right off. Of yeah, last but not least is the pistol, which is actually pretty cool. It’s very blocky, but it looks unique and he holds it well, so that’s good. This later became more of a standard Cobra pistol during Battle Corps, included with a few oddballs like the HEAT Viper and TARGAT.

The Iron Grenadier sculpt never got a good repaint besides 4 bootleg versions by Letal Customs. In Brazil he was released as Terrok, with no changes at all. The head was slapped into a Night Viper body and released as a 2005 JoeCon figure. The Letal Customs figures were nice, but he never released more than a handful of them. Given his recent habit of revisiting Cobra Troopers and Steel Brigades over again, it’d be nice if The Black Major would take another stab at the Iron Grenadier. The sculpt still has a lot of untapped potential, and an o-ring version of the fantastic looking POC Iron Grenadier seems more than doable.

Iron Grenadiers price in around $20, though auctions seem fairly inconsistent for them. Joe prices seem to finally be softening a lot, as a few years ago these guys had gotten really pricey. I remember wanting a broken one for a custom and being unable to get even that for less than $30. It’s a far cry from when you could get toys like this for $5, but $20 is a fair market price for an o-ring figure when you consider that’s about what a new TBM figure or ReAction figure would cost. For me, I might go back for a few more at current prices, since my squad is still fairly modest.

gi joe iron grenadier destro 1988 hasbro

gi joe iron grenadier destro 1988 hasbro

Orange swords from the bootleg. Not a perfect swap.

1988 Iron Grenadier Links:

Forgotten Figures

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Half the Battle

Funskool T.A.R.G.A.T.

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Funskool T.A.R.G.A.T.

So as I mentioned before I’m a big fan of the T.A.R.G.A.T. (or as I refer to him henceforth as the TARGAT). He features fun elements from the Alley Viper (flip down visor), he’s basically an astronaut, who’s also kinda like a jet-pack paratrooper kinda thing. Stretch your imagination a bit and you have a fun Cobra/Iron Grenadier that appears out of thin air and begins attacking, and unlike the Annihilator he doesn’t look terrible. Another thing to like about the TARGAT, is that he has a few cool repaints to collect, such as this Funskool figure.

I’m not sure to say that the Funskool TARGAT’s aged like wine, but one figure it has inevitably shown it’s appeal over is the Star Brigade TARGAT, whose color scheme it’s based on. Of course, the reason for this is because the Hasbro figure suffers from GPS, meaning that sooner or later the figure will fully turn to dust, whereas the Funskool figure replaces most of the gold with a copper-colored soft plastic. At a certain point, you’ll be hard pressed to find a V2 TARGAT with intact knee-pins, so a similar alternative is very much a welcomed thing.

I miss the depth of that gold color a little bit, though in many ways the Funskool version is absolutely better than the Star Brigade release. All of the orange details were replaced with yellow ones in most of the same spots. though you lose the painted details on his biceps. Although the head’s left purple, his purple paint applications have been replaced by more of a German Grey color, which looks pretty nice for the added variety, though the purple was quite good originally. He’s also kept the black on his grenades and gold on his visor, with the later color gaining the added benefit of some extra contrast, given that now the visor isn’t painted the same color as the entire figure. For the most part, everything’s pretty similar between the two figures, but different enough to make owning them both pretty fun. Except for the Hasbro one crumbling, that’s not any fun.

It used to entertain me to assign asinine roles to every repaint or variant that came into my possession. For the TARGAT, the original ‘89 release was the basic trooper, with the ‘93 version becoming the officers. The Funskool version became something that was ambiguously a unique character and another generic, and was the TARGAT flight instructor. He’s a senior operator among the Iron Grenadiers and an expert at using the complicated TARGAT flight gear, so he’s responsible for teaching the rest of them tactics and how to use this crap. I like this idea still and mostly associate the figure with that role, but it’s also somewhat frustrating to pigeonhole a figure I have into such a relatively niche role. With that in mind, I sometimes hesitate at creating new repaint characters, at the cost of being more hedonistic with owning recolors that serve no real purpose.

funskool T.A.R.G.A.T. TARGAT GI Joe international cobra Hasbro

A major flaw of both this figure and the original Star Brigade release is the inclusion of generic 90‘s gear. I think the TARGAT works pretty well with ordinary guns, but the backpack was cool and a defining part of the figure. Included here is a Rock Viper PSG1, the Annihilator’s SMG, the V1 Iron Grenadier’s pistol and a missile-launcher (HEAT Viper, M. Bison, Night Creeper Leader and later Metal Head’s), plus missiles and a stand in eye-searing pink. There’s a lot of variants on the coloring of these, with the colors ranging from red to orange and some looking a little more florescent pink than others, though bright pink seems to be the most common color. I think PINK is probably the worst color you put Joe guns into, but as a novelty it makes him odd at the very least. Plus now you have some guns that might look nice with other pink-clad figures like Banzai- haven’t you always wanted that?

Fortunately this is still one of the more common and less popular Funskool releases, and with a little bit of patience you can get a Funskool TARGAT for around $15. If you’re a Star Brigade fan, he’s a nice alternative to Hasbro’s release, since you can still safely pose him and have a little bit of fun as opposed to sealing him in an acrylic case and waiting for gravity to finish him off. Though, it’s also reasonable to find this figure and the one it’s based on to be horribly garish, but I collect TARGATs so I’m forced to ignore such a notion.

funskool T.A.R.G.A.T. TARGAT GI Joe international cobra Hasbrofunskool T.A.R.G.A.T. TARGAT GI Joe international cobra Hasbro

Funskool T.A.R.G.A.T. Links:

The Dragon Fortress

1989 Darklon

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1989 Darklon

Darklon’s an interesting figure to me, particularly for the fact that he’s one of those figures that’s really grown on me since I got him. Of course, like half of the Iron Grenadiers he’s fairly flawed, but the character was pretty cool, and if any classic Cobras needed replacing in the 80‘s, it was probably Destro more so than Cobra Commander.

Overall, Darklon’s kind of a tough sell. His first problem is that he’s tied to a vehicle, Darklon’s Evader. I believe I’m more open than most people to oddball GI Joe vehicles, though the Evader is something I’m fairly certain I’ll never own unless it’s by pure chance. Usually, when Hasbro packed an important character with a small vehicle, the character was some kind of big badass, and the vehicle was more like an oversized accessory (See Zartan, Serpentor, Sgt. Slaughter, ect.). In Darklon’s case, he’s kind of an oddball in bell-pepper colors, who comes with a motorbike(?) too embarrassing for a Funskool Batman figure to use. Maybe in a different context it wouldn’t have seemed so strange to me.

The main appeal of Darklon is his albeit underdeveloped character, which mainly only existed for a brief tenure in the Marvel comics. That’s one way of saying the toy really isn’t that good, as without some interest in his role in the GI Joe world, this wouldn’t be a figure much worth paying attention to. Still, I associate him with some pretty cool issues and moments in the comics, such as the debut of the Python Patrol. He did more than Voltar anyways.

Now normally in a comic-book story line, having a popular character whose getting worn-out replaced by his family member who pretty much does all of the same things (Just more evil!), is a pretty shabby way of trying to get repeated interest and sales, but with Destro and Darklon, there’s actually a pretty good case for it. By this point in the comics, a lot of the older Cobra’s were played out and over-exposed. Destro especially, saw his character melt and go from being a ruthless, terrorist arms-dealer, to being some kind of half sympathetic anti-hero, dedicated to Baroness, and nice enough to smooth over her life-long hatred of Snake Eyes! I think it would have been better if a character like Darklon had played a bigger role after his initial appearance, especially since I do think he was genuinely cool for the few scenes he had.

Putting his character aside, Darklon’s a guy who wears an outfit so random and asymmetrical it looks like something that’d be made by an AI-art generator. Asymmetry is a big theme in the Iron Grenadier aesthetic, so I understand it’s role here, but Darklon still might look just a little too random. Probably the most strange detail is the strap of tiny gold grenades on his right knee, which is among the dumbest grenade-oriented details I’ve seen on a GI Joe toy. Though, in Darklon’s defense, maybe they’re just decorations.

Everything else is just kind of okay for him. I like his head, the mask-sculpt especially looks pretty neat; the texturing on his shirt is nice too. Nothing special, but a good enough figure to represent a gaudy European warlord. In that context, even his wack-o colors aren’t so bad, but the Bronze Bombers repaint into Crazeblaze is much better. That would be my go-to Darklon, but mine’s missing his arms, so I still have to fix that at some point.

Despite being a late-era vehicle driver, Darklon gets the privilege of having a gun. It’s a terrible kind of weapon that looks more like an air-soft or a Nerf gun, so I’ve yet to bother with one. My personal replacement for this is the black version of Skydive’s pistol, also included with Battle Corps Leatherneck. It has a bulky, sci-fi look to it, which I think suits him pretty well.

To my Surprise, mint complete Darklon’s fetch a steady $15. Ones missing the gun go for about half of that, and ones sold with the Evader trend towards $30. Not the worst price, but more than I’d have expected for figure that’s both obscure and somewhat unremarkable. I like him and he brings value to my collection, so I suppose others just see him that way as well.

gi joe iron grenadier Darklon 1989 destro hasbro vintage gi joe iron grenadier Darklon 1989 destro hasbro vintage gi joe iron grenadier Darklon 1989 destro hasbro vintage

1989 Darklon Links:

Forgotten Figures

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1988 Voltar

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1988 Voltar

Among all of the non-Cobra entities GI Joe has to deal with, the Iron Grenadiers are easily my favorite Cobra alternative. Most of their figures weren’t perfect, but as villains, they make a lot of sense and have an interesting esthetic. Voltar’s a good example of this, as he’s very much not perfect, but also a cool little figure in some other ways, that does a lot of things I like.

Voltar was originally part of my brother’s collection, but was one his odd figures that captivated me a lot. I think it’s because he had several things I liked going on, which included: A robotic monocle-helmet, gold, and evil facial hair. He wasn’t enough of an evil cyborg to outclass Vapor, but he fell into his role as a general. At this point in my childhood, he had Power Rangers style battles with Ninja Force Bushido and the ‘92 Eel (who was a good guy, to me).

My fascination with Voltar didn’t end there though, and I continued to like this figure in particular, even into my teenage years when 25th Anniversary was my collecting focus. I really wanted a Voltar to go with my Destro from that line, but that was at the point when acknowledging the GI Joe line after 1986 was a blaspheme. Mixing modern and vintage figures has always looked way too dumb to me, but I still think there was a few odd moments when 25th Iron Grenadier Destro hung out with Voltar and Metal Head just because I liked them that much.

All that sentiment aside, Voltar’s a nice figure in some ways, and a weak figure in others. There’s a ridge on top of Voltar’s helmet, that seems to nicely line up with the one on the normal Iron Grenadier: an underappreciated bit of continuity between them. I also think his head sculpt is nicely sharp, best illustrated by the prototype Long Range figure that reused his head, and looked much better without the oversized helmet (instead, Long Range got a new head that looks much worse). A few parts of his design leave something to be desired, around his knees and his gloves in particular, but other than that it’s a nice looking figure. I like that he uses gold and black to tie him into the Iron Grenadiers, but also introduces magenta as a color for the group.

I like his parts, but they’re definitely not for everyone. He included a backpack, SMG, and a condor. His SMG is pretty unpopular, frankly, I don’t like it much myself. However, when I see it, I just recall a lot of memories of using this gun in various colors as a kid. It looks powerful, and fit into hands pretty well too. The backpack’s okay, but kind of a mess. Then you have his pet bird, which is probably the strangest part of the figure. It really doesn’t tie into the character any at all, though I sometimes wonder if including a vulture was a play on his role as a general for a war-mongering arms dealer. Was there a quota for animal pack-ins? Either way, I’d use the birdy, but mine’s missing the feet.

Voltar was sold in an “Ultimate Enemies” pack with Muskrat. I don’t know why these two have each other as nemeses, but it seems like something fun and goofy enough to think about. While we’re on his role in the fiction, I really hate how Hama treated a lot of later characters like this in the comic. Sure, Raptor was dumb and nobody cared if he was tossed into a volcano and never seen again, but Voltar? He seemed like a fun and resourceful enough character to keep having some kind of role. But, he wasn’t Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Zartan, Scarlet or Baroness, so he had to get killed off in favor of continuing to over-expose the soap opera of five or six characters.

Voltar’s a cheap figure surprisingly enough, you can get a mint complete one for around $15 with some regularity. Given that I was losing bid-wars on broken Iron Grenadiers at the beginning of the year, I thought he’d be a tad pricier just as a member of the group. Obviously, most folks just don’t care about this guy a whole lot, though part of me wants to be hopeful it’s a sign prices are starting to soften again overall.

1988 Voltar gi joe hasbro cobra iron grenadier vintage 1988 Voltar gi joe hasbro cobra iron grenadier vintage

1988 Voltar Links:

Forgotten Figures

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3D Joes

1989 TARGAT

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1989 TARGAT

I’ve talked before about a few figures that I used extensively as a kid, which included the Frag Viper and Vapor. The third figure I used almost all the time was the TARGAT, who was another major member of my Cobra-robot army (I didn’t have the filecards and I liked androids, so most of my Cobras were reimagined as robots). Because of that, I’m pretty sentimental towards this figure and his Star Brigade repaint, but objectively I do think he’s one of the better Iron Grenadiers.

The TARGAT is a “Trans Atmospheric Rapid Global Assault Trooper”, who deploys into orbit from a space shuttle, and then flies to their mission area on earth, according to his file card. With some suspension of disbelief, it sounds neat, though personally I just see them as normal paratroopers. Maybe the whole idea is a bit cooler in the comics, but I just started reading the Marvel run again and haven’t gotten to the issues where they show up (if they do).

There was some nice uniformity on the colors of the early Iron Grenadiers. I like that the TARGAT keeps the red and black theme of the Iron Grenadier, but replaces the gold with sky-blue. It’s attractive and different looking, while still fitting with the established look for the group. This was something I didn’t like about the later convention Iron Grenadiers, like the Iron Anvils, where they went to strictly using the black/red/gold pattern with no changes. It makes the figures too generic when they all have the exact same colors.

The TARGAT is a pretty nice mold. There’s a fair amount of detail on it, but it’s mostly kept to little things like the stitches on his chest or the ribbed part of his uniform. I always really liked his head and visor combo, especially as a kid, and I think it was executed a slightly better than the fragile mask on the Alley Viper. The belt of grenades around his waist exemplifies the start of a trend we saw more of in the 90‘s, but here it’s not too overdone.

Originally he included a pistol, a control stick, a hose, the visor, and his flight unit with folding wings. The flight unit is really cool, it’s bulky and surprisingly large for a pack-in item. The control stick is extremely small, so although it was a nice detail, I tend to ignore it since it’s usually missing and doesn’t add much. The pistol is also an interesting, if not somewhat weird part. It’s made of a flexible plastic and clips onto his bicep while he holds it, I guess to make it easier to use while he’s flying? It’s unique at the very least, though personally I think it’s easy to replace with a normal gun.

I find it somewhat surprising as to the amount of repaints this mold received. After this release, it showed up again in ‘93 for Star Brigade , and sans the head as Create-a-Cobra, before going to India where Funskool used it for their own version of the Star Brigade figure, followed by a recolor as Street Hawk. Then, the mold was returned to Hasbro, and was used one last time for the convention Coil Troopers (with a Decimator head). All of those mold uses were pretty good, though personally I think the original here had the best colors of them all.

Complete TARGATs can trend around $25, but ones missing just the control stick go as low as $10. I don’t really think that part adds that much to the figure, which means this guy is still a fairly affordable and fun army-builder in 2021. After getting a couple mostly complete examples, I enjoy picking up the occasional extra with only his visor.

 

1989 TARGAT Links:

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

Half the Battle

Metal Head V2, 1994

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Battle Corps Metal Head

There’s a lot of strong V2 and V3 figures that came out of the 90‘s. Some of them I feel are clearly better than their predecessors. Others are strong, but can’t surpass their original figures (Beachhead and Duke). V2 Metal Head is one of the former, and is a figure I consider to be a clear cut upgrade over V1 Metal Head.

To explain my affinity for this figure, I have to first mention that I’m really not a fan of V1 Metal Head. I love the character and appreciate him as one of the few Iron Grenadiers who isn’t a troop builder, but the toy has way too many problems. The accessories made the figure far too delicate and it’s hard to find one that isn’t broken. Furthermore, the sculpt just looked lame. His head is poorly defined, and his stocky proportions have always given him a “Dad bod” look to me.

This Metal Head largely avoids all of those problems. Starting with the sculpt, it’s amazing how much sharper the figure looks being only four years newer than his last incarnation. The head is full of personality that reflects Metal Head’s character, with a deviously smug expression and a lot more detail overall. The metallic vest and asymmetrical arms have a nice and unique look too. He’s rounded off with the waist and legs of the Rock Viper, which look good and appropriate with the rockets on one thigh.

Like many ‘94 Joes, his paint applications are few to be seen. He’s mainly the plastic colors that he was cast in with silver and black detailing the majority of the figure, and a little white for his teeth. Nothing important is left unpainted, and the colors are relatively strong for a figure from this time period.

Gi Joe 90's Battle Corps Hasbro vintage action figure dic season 3 Iron Grenadiers Voltar

The figure’s parts are somewhat of it’s weak point. They’re all recycled guns from older figures just like with the rest of the Battle Corps line, but at the very least most of the guns are appropriate for once. Both the SMG and pistol are from other Iron Grenadiers (the Annihilator and Iron Grenadier respectively), giving a nice touch of consistency with his weapons. For some reason, I really don’t mind the purple on the Iron Grenadier pistol, so the coloring doesn’t hurt it much in my eyes. His last weapons are the PSG1 from the Rock Viper, and the V2 HEAT Viper’s missile launcher. Neither elicit much interest.

Overall, he’s really only a slightly better than average ‘94 figure, but when you compare that to a slightly worse than average ‘90 figure, you’re left with an compelling upgrade. As such, he is and almost always has been my default Metal Head. As a figure that won’t run you more than a few dollars, even MOSC, I highly recommend him.

Gi Joe 90's Battle Corps Hasbro vintage action figure dic season 3 Iron Grenadiers VoltarGi Joe 90's Battle Corps Hasbro vintage action figure dic season 3 Iron Grenadiers Voltar

Metal Head V2, 1994 Links:

Yo Joe

Forgotten Figures

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Joe A Day

Letal Customs Iron Grenadiers

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In late 2017, another individual producing factory GI Joe customs (bootlegs) showed up going by the handle of Letal Customs. The first set of figures is the 1988 Iron Grenadier in four color schemes. Like The Black Major’s customs, these figures are of high quality and this writing will profile my thoughts on all four figures from the first wave.

Letal Custom TBM The Black Major Bootleg GI Joe Destro Iron Grenadiers

They come mainly in environment themed color schemes, with one being a Crimson Guard teemed palette. All of the colors are vaguely reminiscent of existing Hasbro figures, such as the Snow Serpent, Desert Scorpion and Night Viper. They’re similar enough that they blend in well with those figures, but different enough that they’re able to stand on their own as well.

Each figure comes with a very nice assortment of five parts. You get the original Iron Grenadier’s gigantic Uzi, sword, and pistol as well as a smaller Uzi, and Iron Grenadier Destro’s sword. The Destro sword was a very nice inclusion and a great extra mile these figures didn’t have to go, but are hugely benefited by. The smaller Uzi is also great, as the vintage one is somewhat risky to use for it’s tendency to break thumbs. The load out does a really good job covering all of it’s basses.

Letal Custom TBM The Black Major Bootleg GI Joe Destro Iron Grenadiers

The quality of these figures is very good. Overall, the plastic has a nice feeling akin to that used on the vintage figures, and is thoroughly pleasing. A few figures have reversed rivets in the shoulders, but that’s the worst I can say and it’s hardly a problem. The paint applications are also very clean.

Moving along here are my thought on the individual color schemes.

Crimson Guard colors

Of the lot, this one is the most eye-catching and my personal favorite. I also feel like there’s a lot of applications this figure can be used for, as the colors work well enough with the Iron Grenadiers still, but also look excellent with most of the existing Crimson Guard figures. Below is a comparison of the Crimson Iron Grenadier with Hasbro’s Crimson Guard Immortal, Funskool’s Crimson Guard Immortal, the Crimson Guard Commander, and the 1985 Crimson Guard:

Letal Custom TBM The Black Major Bootleg GI Joe Destro Iron Grenadiers

As you can see, the particular shade of red isn’t a perfect match to the V1 Crimson Guard, but it is almost the exact same shade as the Crimson Guard Immortals. I’m not quite sure if this was intentional or not, but it’s pretty cool and opens you up to some LBC (part swapping) potential as well.

Desert colors

I was really torn on this color scheme, and I have to admit that at first I didn’t like this one. Though, it’s greatly grown on me, especially after seeing how it looks with the Desert Scorpion. Personally, I’d have much preferred for all of the yellow to be replaced by either gold or another shade of brown. However, when coupled with the orange accessories, you have a figure that looks like he jumped right out of the 90‘s, which I appreciate for it’s retro appeal.

Letal Custom TBM The Black Major Bootleg GI Joe Destro Iron Grenadiers

Snow Serpent Colors

These colors are really interesting. The blue and white makes it the opposite of the vintage Iron Grenadier, which is a cool look. Of course, I believe the colors are meant to resemble the V1 Snow Serpent, which it also does a fairly good job of. I’ve always figured MARS probably operates often in cold, northern climates, so as an environmentally themed repaint, this one makes a bit of sense too.

Forest Green Colors

Lastly, we have the green one. He’s an odd shade of green that I don’t think matches any other Cobras exactly, but looks good with a few regardless. It’s a bit harder to see the details on this guy, as they’re painted largely in black and brown shades, but it’s a nice look regardless. He comes off as a bit bland to me, but that’s mainly because I just prefer the more regal palates such as the Crimson one.

Letal Custom TBM The Black Major Bootleg GI Joe Destro Iron Grenadiers

All in all, these are some excellent figures and I’m really pleased with my set. Right now you can get them off eBay or from Letal Customs on Instagram, which I recommend doing if you have any interest in these. Most of these customs tend to be figures you have a short window to acquiring before they’re gone, so I wouldn’t suggest waiting too long.

More on Letal Customs Iron Grenadiers:

Custom Iron Grenadiers at Cobra Island (Desert, Jungle, Arctic, Crimson)

eBay listing

Letal Customs on Instagram

2005 Iron Anvil

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I’ve been thinking about the convention Iron Anvils a lot lately, and namely how these have a reputation for being well received convention items. Years ago I enjoyed these a good bit as most other GI Joe collectors did, but as times have passed I’ve slowly begun to see faults in the figure that prevent me from enjoying it as much.

The Iron Anvil is made from the 1994 Battle Corps Viper mold, which was due for a repaint so many collectors enjoyed this figure’s appearance in the 2005 Joecon set. Switching from purple and orange to the classic 1988 Iron Grenadier color scheme was a move met with enthusiasm from GI Joe collectors. I must admit, the new colors do bring out a lot of the mold’s potential, and the Iron Grenadier color scheme is a dashing contrast that’s hard to object to. The downside to this is that the colors take away an element of uniqueness from the mold, perhaps a side effect of this palate being widely applied to too many Iron Grenadiers.

The filecard describes them as being paratroopers, which strikes me as being slightly odd since there isn’t much on the sculpt to really make them appear as that. I suppose it’s as okay a specialty as any other, but you’d think they might’ve played off the bulky, ballistic armor they don a bit more. I think they look more well suited to heavy weapons and shock tactics personally, but there’s probably some other specialties that might’ve fit better than the paratrooper angle.

Lastly, the accessories leave much the be desired. Being paratroopers, they of course come equipped with the typical foil parachutes. I don’t value these much, and they have a tendency to quickly become a mess. As such, I usually leave these in storage and completely forget about them. His armaments include a gray version of the Annihilator’s SMG, and the Hydro Viper’s knife. I find neither of these accessories to be greatly exciting, but if nothing else they’re alright.

Looking back on it, the 2005 convention set left a lot to be desired, and the Iron Anvil which is usually regarded as the highlight of said set, is neither perfect. It doesn’t provide an interesting niche, and the colors don’t distinguish the Iron Anvil from the normal Iron Grenadier, leaving him slightly on the bland side. My feelings for this figure would’ve been more positive years ago, but as I’ve grown to better appreciate brightly colored figures such as the Viper this figure is based off of, I no longer can value these based solely on their colors alone, hence the diminishing opinion I have of them.

Iron Anvil GI Joe convention figure

Destro

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Destro Iron Grenadiers POC 30th Anniversary Pursuit of Cobra 50th GI Joe CobraDestro personally sees to the delivery of new tech and weapons for Cobra.

This 50th Anniversary Destro figure is quite nice. I recall fans being disappointed by the construction of his knees or  some such, but generally speaking this is a fantastic figure. The sculpting is awesome, he’s made mostly out of new tooling, and most of all, he LOOKS like Destro. I really dig his briefcase and modular riffle too.