Tag Archives: Red Laser Army

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs)

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2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs)

In 2018, Red Laser Customs, a very similar entity to the Black Major, made a massive set of 19(?) figures. Among a plethora of Spy Troops characters and original creations, there were remakes of the famous “Argen7” figures with swivel-arm sculpts. The downside was that this set was a logistics nightmare, and is the reason why Red Laser Customs is no longer a thing, as I understand it.

International Joes are a weird thing to me, as on one hand, seeing the curious and unique way our favorite toy line emerged all over the world adds a lot of interest to collecting. On the other hand though, most of what makes them interesting is limited to that one novel aspect, and in some ways it’s questionable why you’d even want them. The original Manleh from Argentina is a cool figure, but costing around $1000, you really can’t do much besides look at the thing on a shelf. It’s too precious to handle, and even then, most of the appeal is just in how exotic the figure is. Once that’s taken away, the figure just becomes an oddball recolor.

I realized this earlier with the underwhelming feeling I got from Joecon figures that were often times international homages. “Remaking” things like the Funskool Dreadnoks in ‘04 or even the 25th-era repaints like the TNT homage they made, doesn’t really have the same appeal as owning something old and esoteric from a foreign country. And although RLC’s Manleh is a much better recreation than those figures, my initial reaction to owning this toy was “I own a Manleh!” followed by “What the hell do I do with Manleh?”. Really, I enjoy owning this figure much more than I would the real thing, but the experience seems to highlight to me how overrated foreign figures are at a certain point.

These gripes aside, Manleh really has an incredibly eye-catching color scheme. Blue and yellow are colors that compliment each other really well. The tones make him look unlike much of anything you’d have seen Hasbro make in the 80‘s, though the camouflage ties him back in with classic figures well enough to overcome that. The tone of the colors is darker, which appears to be a faithful recreation of a darker Manleh variant I’ve seen floating around, which is in contrast to a noticeably lighter colored figure. That, or those dark ones are just discolored, and this toy’s colors were based those discolored examples.

The quality is good on this figure. A major problem with the way these figures were sold is that you had to buy them in a large set. This was a terrible mistake, but also one that made the entire package seem a lot worse to me than it really was. Most of the figures have really solid joints and good tolerances that make them easier to pose than other bootlegs I’ve handled, but for a while I didn’t really notice that since I got a handful of figures with duplicate limbs and similar problems. When you buy so many figures at once, that sort of thing is bound to happen, but it still lowers the overall experience. Worst thing I can say about Manleh is that his gun fits really loosely in his hand, but that itself is a lot better than having a grip too tight to hold anything.

For accessories, he just included the M-32 Pulverizer, the same gun from V1 Stalker. The original Manleh included a Snake Eyes Uzi and a parachute, but I’m not too bothered by that, since there’s plenty of Uzis to go around, and parachutes suck. I will say though, while it looks decent with a few classics, the Pulverizer is probably one of my least favorite guns from the swivel-neck era.

Despite the fact that this figure honestly offers more than the Argentina figure it’s based on, it’s current worth is really around $40 more or less. I say that without much to go on, as you don’t find these for sale very often any more. The other RLC Argen7 remakes only go for about that much though, sometimes a little less, so it’s fair to say Manleh’s not worth more than that. Because it’s a bootleg, there’s a much lower price-cap on it since it’s not a “real” GI Joe, and thus has no value to a completionist.

gi joe Argentina argen7 manleh funskool toy skydiver gi joe Argentina argen7 manleh funskool toy skydiver

2018 Manleh (Red Laser Customs) Links:

Attica Gazette

Forgotten Figures: Rarities – Plastirama 2nd Series Figures

2017 RLA Odin

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2017 RLA Odin

In the late 2010‘s, we really had it good with factory customs (AKA: bootlegs), so much so that the endless repaints of similar sculpts began to be something collectors took for granted, at least a little bit. In hindsight, it would seem things are winding down, at least for the moment, as RLA no longer operates, Letal Customs ended after a single run, and now even the Black Major is transitioning his business to other avenues.

I really respected RLA’s efforts to make figures that were more akin to a continued GI Joe line, as to an endless barrage of army-builders. Odin’s a great example of that, where he’s a unique character that gives me something new to invent a story around. Of course, I don’t think it sold all that well, which probably has to do with the fact that people weren’t buying them by the dozens.

So far, my character for this guy is essentially Col. Courage redux, and I also use him as a bit of an expy for Hawk, since I prefer the ‘86 figure to represent him. So he’s taken on the role of a field commander for some early Joes. I could probably do something more interesting with him, like have him be the leader of a prototype GI Joe team or something like that, but my GI Joe-verse is usually in a state of flux, so the idea can change based on my needs.

Obsidian is a nice looking figure. For the most part, it’s a repaint of ‘82 Hawk, but with the legs from ‘83 Airborne. This is a decent little parts mix that helps break up the monotonous look of the early Joes. Plus, rendering the sculpt in all gray colors with an African-American skin tone, goes further to make him not look like Hawk.

The quality was okay on these. On my figure, the joints aren’t particularly tight, but they’re also not loose either, kinda like the condition you’ll usually find a decent vintage figure in. The paint applications are somewhat janky, as there’s a lot of brown overspray on one of his forearms. Comparing him to my V1 Short-Fuze, I’m also tempted to say his head isn’t a perfect copy of the sculpt , either. Overall, it feels like a reasonably decent toy in hand, but there’s examples of where the quality could be better.

The parts are pretty lackluster. As I recall you get a generic knife and pistol similar to many of the ones included with the Steel Brigades of the same era. I say “as I recall” since I squirreled away my parts somewhere in a bag with a bunch of other bootleg guns. Worse yet, finding online documentation on these is actually pretty hard to do, so that was a pretty clumsy mistake on my part. Back to the point, he certainly didn’t come with any nice ‘82 guns he can hold, or a helmet, which was a bummer. This guy looks okay without one, and a lot of the old Accessory Pack helmets work nicely for him too, so there’s that.

Years later, Odins are hard to find, and a little hard to price. One sold a while back for $40, which actually seems fair given the difficulty in locating one. Other RLA customs don’t sell for so much though, and many of the contemporaries of this figure barely fetch $20. Truthfully, I don’t think Odins are worth much more than that, but at this point, you might be hunting for a while before you can find one at a fair price.

gi joe custom rla tbm black major odin hawk

gi joe custom rla tbm black major odin hawk

2018 Red Laser’s Army Blackout

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2018 Red Laser’s Army Blackout

The Spy Troops line from 2003 is remembered for it’s terrible sculpts, goofy gimmicks and relatively brightly colored toys. In many ways, the line was poorly done, but in others, it’s still worth remembering. If you look past Spy Troops and it’s follow-up Valor vs Venom, it was probably the closest we ever got the GI Joe’s glory days in the 80‘s. Detractors of this era might find that a dubious statement, but think about it: Spy Troops was the last time GI Joe had a major push with mostly new products and a fair amount of new characters, with everything that came afterwards being an unending deluge of adult-targeted remakes and nostalgia driven impulse buys. Even the new 6-inch Joe line, is mostly just stale remakes of the same old ideas and characters.

Blackout came as a part of Red Laser Army’s controversial set of customs in 2018. He’s been largely overshadowed by the other customs in the set, which include remakes of the Argen 7, as well as new characters with incredibly well done skull masks. Compared to that, Blackout doesn’t have much going for him, but it’s safe to say he’s a fun little remake of a popular Spy Troops character, and his limitations certainly don’t make him any worse than what he’s based upon.

The figure’s made from a variety of ‘83 tooling, like Short-Fuze’s torso, Grunt’s head, Snake Eye’s legs and Clutch’s arms. I’ve found that these parts are starting to get pretty boring as far as third party stuff goes, but here, it kind of works for a few reasons. First, as his character portrays a reject from the GI Joe team, it’s seems pretty appropriate he’d be done up in a similar uniform to the original thirteen Joes. There’s also not been that many figures that were done in black and silver like this from that era, so it works, even if it’s a little stale compared to other RLA offerings.

The only real problem I just can’t get past is the head; Grunt’s head simply does not work for me here. It’s butt-ugly and doesn’t look much like Blackout from Spy Troops. I guess RLA didn’t want to commission a new head just for this guy, but this could’ve been so much better with a Caucasian casting of Doc’s head, with the glasses painted up like his original goggles. Heck, I like that idea enough I might just do it myself.

For parts, you get Gnawgahyde’s sniper rifle and bi-pod. I’m not sure what to think of this choice, especially as his only accessory, but it works. In my mind, this gun is permanently associated with Gnawgahyde, so seeing it with anyone else feels weird. Then again, he can hold it a couple of ways, and at the very least it’s a vintage sniper rifle that’s not been done to death.

gi joe custom red lasers army 2018 factory custom

Not many of these were made, so finding them at all takes some work. It’s very hard to price these because of that, but among 3rd party items, these are rare and you won’t see them very often. Of course, I don’t think this was a highly demanded item in the same vein as some other 3rd party releases, so I wouldn’t assume them to have a value beyond $40~, which is where most figures like this top off in value. I preordered the set he was in and got this guy at a highly discounted price, though I’m not sure I’d bother hunting for him now if I didn’t already have him.

Bootleg Cobra Viper (Tele-Viper colors), Red Laser Army Customs

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Bootleg Cobra Viper (Tele-Viper colors), Red Laser Army Customs

I’ve been meaning to get around to reviewing one of the Red Laser Custom Vipers, and the one that’s caught a lot of my interests lately is the Tele-Viper colored “Telecommunications Infantry” Viper. It’s sort of odd, as on the surface it still looks mostly like a normal Viper, but some of the nuances are what makes this color scheme appeal to me.

For the most part, this figure looks pretty much like a normal, 1986 Viper. He’s still mainly Cobra blue, but swaps the traditional black vest for a purple, Tele-Viper colored one. All of the red is replaced with either more blue or black, and like the Viper Pit Viper, the gloves are painted a separate color from his blue arm guards. It’s a pretty nice color scheme that’s different enough from a normal Viper, but still retains enough of those early 80‘s Cobra colors that he doesn’t look out of place with figures of that era.

To me, I think this figure provides a similar appeal as the different Phase II Clone Trooper regiments from Star Wars. Most Clone Troopers look a lot alike, but their regiment is distinguished typically by a single color. Normally, most Cobras come in disparate color schemes and don’t really form cohesive looking squads. The V1 Viper and Tele-Viper aren’t that different, but when a few colors are changed out like you have on this guy, it makes for a more uniform squad.

With all of these customs, a topic of high interest is usually the construction quality. With some of the other Viper customs I’ve acquired I have run into some issues, but these are pretty good. They hold their guns perfectly, paint applications are very tight and consistent, and the joints are okay. They’re not super tight like a card-fresh figure might be, but it’s reasonable enough they can hold a pose well and no modding seems necessary.

For parts, you get the standard V1 Viper backpack and riffle, with the addition of a removable helmet. The helmet’s nicely done, although it’s a very tight fit over the head. It’s really strange to me that despite there being almost 30 figures of the Viper, Hasbro has never once made one with a removable helmet, which heightens my appreciation for this feature.

Red Laser Customs still has some of these for sale on eBay, at the price of $12 each. If you’re into custom figures and you like these colors like I do, there’s not a very good reason to wait on grabbing some. As the market for factory customs has become more inflated with a wealth of odd and interesting figures, prices for oddball stuff like this doesn’t seem to go up as much. However, army building figures like this at a later date will likely prove challenging.

black major custom letal factory custom bootleg hasbro gi joe vintage arah

Red Laser Army Customs Viper Links:

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