Tag Archives: Red Shadows

1983 Action Force Shadowtrak

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1983 Action Force Shadowtrak

I realized that by coincidence, every toy I’ve posted about for the last month has been red. Not intentionally, but just something that happened. So to cap off May, I’ll finally get around to a post on the Shadowtrak. Action Force vehicles could be kind of hit-or-miss, but the hits tend to be fairly pronounced, as exemplified by this vehicle. Really, the only downside to the Shadowtrak is that it’s a pain in the ass to get a nice one and a handful of Red Shadows to have for it’s crew.

1983 Shadowtrak gi joe

Despite not being designed initially as a bad-guy vehicle, the Shadowtrak strikes me as almost exclusively being the light reconnaissance vehicle of the Red Shadows. It’s odd too, because the angular design and square glass windshield doesn’t look that far off from what would become a standard look for Joe vehicles come ‘86, like the HAVOC. Still, something about the angular peaks of the design seems oddly communist by way Art Deco. It’s an odd thing to describe, but there’s just something a tad bit alien about it that feels much better as a Red Shadows vehicle rather than anything else.

I remember hearing somewhere that Action Force wasn’t a particularly high-budget toy line. This seems fairly evident with toys like the Shadowtrak, which itself is a repaint of the AF5, and the Q-Force Cosmic Cruiser. Small parts are changed across the toys making them unique, and in the case of the Cosmic Cruiser it was totally re-engineered to be a space ship. They work well in their intended roles, but there weren’t really a whole lot of Action Force toys that were mostly unique identities.

It seats two figures: one facing the back and one driver, though I think it looks perfectly reasonable with three, and you could probably fit five on there if you wanted. The backend is very open and not so restrictive in terms of how figures are seated on it, so there’s room to get creative with how it’s used. It’s armed with a pair of missiles on the side and some adjustable guns that go on both sides of the back. Mine doesn’t have these yet, so you won’t see them pictured here, but it’s a starter that was sent to me for free by one of the kindest GI Joe fans I’ve ever known. I don’t really mind it without those parts, as I just use it as something similar to the LCV Recon Sled, as if the Recon Sled were a good toy, it’d be a lot more like this. Part of what makes the vehicle seem so nice is that it has a pretty detailed parts count, compared to something like the VAMP which is only made of a dozen or so parts in total.

With that said, the Shadowtrak and it’s various repaints are fantastic vehicles that trounce many of Hasbro’s contemporary offerings. That’s a pretty impressive feat when you consider the fact that the Shadowtrak also has to be compatible with arthritic, 5-POA Action Force figures. The overall quality and feel of the vehicle is much more pleasing aesthetically than the more cheap and utilitarian feeling of the GI Joe vehicles. Little things like the eight rubber wheels, the Red Shadows marking on the windshield, the folding seat and weight of the vehicle make it feel more premium in nature.

The non-Hasbro Action Force stuff used to be cheap, but isn’t really any more. Shadowtrak’s are fairly common, but it has a lot of little pieces that are easily lost or damaged, so it’s hard to get a complete one for less than $70, and here in the US you’re going to get eaten up by shipping if it’s coming from Europe (usually around $30). Still, this is a niche collecting interest and you can get good deals on almost anything if you wait long enough. Though if you really want one, it’s probably also something where you won’t do bad buying an example at full price if it’s mint and complete.

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1983 Action Force Shadowtrak Links:

Forgotten Figures

Blood For the Baron

2017 Red Shadows Star Duster (TBM)

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2017 Red Shadows Star Duster (TBM)

Sometimes I feel like the staying-power of a TBM figure is dependent on how “needed” the given figure was. Over the years a lot of them have blended together and I can barely even remember when some came out. For others though, they seem a lot more remarkable if it was something there was a lot of pent up demand for, and such is the case with the Star Duster customs.

I don’t use most of them besides this Red Shadows Star Duster in photos a whole lot, though I’m tempted to say some of that comes from a subconscious notion that this Star Duster is the best one, so I always like tossing him around a little more than the others. Something about him really works as a Red Shadow for me, I think partly just because Action Force already has enough of a separate continuity from the American GI Joe media that it doesn’t feel so odd having Steeler’s evil twin wondering around. There’s a few more degrees of separation between them. Amusingly, the Red Shadows have a tendency to be the low-hanging fruit of the “factory customs”, since many of them tend to work so well. Palitoy seemed a little whimsical in their repurposing of molds, probably with Hunter being the best example of that.

The figure looking fantastic is another thing that makes him stand out as the best. The original Star Duster colors are pretty dandy, but the fluorescent red with black camouflage and details just pops. His red is not a perfect match for any particular Palitoy Red Shadow, though it does strike me as being very similar to the color some guns were cast in, which gives it some added novelty. The visor-helmet works pretty well for his look too, as V1 Hawk and Flash aren’t so iconic as to make the look sacred, and Scrap-Iron’s helmet wasn’t that much different either. I like that the opaque visor hides his face somewhat villainously while lacking so much overlap with all the Cobras that keep their mouths covered.

Overall the quality is solid on the figure too: Nice joints, solid construction, good paint-masks and sculpt looks fairly undistorted. I’m not to sensitive to TBM’s occasional quality defects, which I think partly comes from years of restoring junker figures with loose joints and other flaws. Despite that though, the Star Dusters felt better than average, especially the overall feel of the plastic; it’s much more Hasbro-like in tolerance compared to some of the other customs that strike me as a tad more brittle feeling.

Most of the TBM Star Duster’s also included and alternate torso casting, so you could chose between Duke’s torso and Recondo’s. The Recondo torso has that open shirt and looks a little more wild, so I like that better than Duke’s. Still, giving you the option is to switch to your preferred Star Duster configuration was pretty neat. There’s a very fickle audience for these sorts of figures, so this method is nice way of pleasing everyone.

Included is full set of Star Duster accessories in different colors, so a China Lake grenade launcher, a jet-pack, a helmet and visor all in solid red. The jet-pack’s pretty nifty, but also similar to the one with the Q-Force Deep Sea Defender, so it’s not too new. The helmet and visor completes his look and are integral accessories, but you’d also be fine to swap them for a few others. Lastly, the grenade launcher is still the classic part from Gung-Ho, and in my opinion, the best thing about Gung-Ho. A standard black or silver gun might look a tad better with him, but the red guns have their uses, and this makes a nice alternative for plenty of Cobras.

You can still find these floating around, if you look long enough. Almost all of the TBM Star Dusters, including this figure, go for a routine $30, which I don’t find that appalling. It’s still a fair bit of money to pay, but the nice thing is that he’s not an army-builder, so it’s not like he has diminished appeal for the lack of a squad. Plus, if you’re into Action Force, you don’t really have that much to collect to begin with, so in that context he’s a relatively inexpensive addition.

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2017 Red Shadows Star Duster (TBM) Links:

Attica Gazette

TBM Red Shadows Night Viper

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TBM Red Shadows Night Viper

I’ve talked a lot (actually too much) about how much of a stereotypical Night Viper fan I am. Partly because The Black Major produced an ample amount of Night Viper customs for me to gnaw on, but I’ve also had plenty of opportunities to talk about official offerings from Hasbro and Funskool. While most of TBM’s repaints are cool, there’s not much to say about them that you can’t say about any other variation, though, the Red Shadows version is in particular, a favorite, so here’s a few unique things about it.

Despite how popular the Red Shadows are as a theme, truth is, I’ve gotten pretty tired of them. I’m not tired of Palitoy’s excellent vintage figures, but more so the contemporary trend of taking any Cobra, coloring him bright red, a calling it a Red Shadow, like with this Night Viper. It’s always popular and much of the time, the colors are quite striking, but it also dilutes the Red Shadows into just being Cobra with a singular, monotonous color scheme. It’s the same problem the Collector’s Club had with Iron Grenadiers, where they made “new” characters like the Iron Anvil, but only using the original Iron Grenadier’s color scheme, which was repetitive.

I say all that, but I have a glowing opinion of this Red Shadows Night Viper. I don’t know why, but I absolutely love the way the Night Viper looks in fluorescent red, which was something I realized a few years prior when Hasbro made the incredibly odd 50th Anniversary Night Viper. When TBM announced he was making Night Viper customs, the thing I wanted most was some approximation of that figure from the o-ring mold, and this release was pretty much that.

Of course, finding a way to justify a bright red night fighter is virtually impossible, so this figure can be a Red Shadow and bypass my normal grievances with that, just because. Truth is, a bright red Night Viper is pretty asinine at face value. For me, I like the mold, and the bright color makes a few of the details stand out, in addition to just giving me something different to fiddle around with. It’s all I could want from a novel bootleg, so I don’t care if it’s unrealistic.

Parts are the same thing you get with every TBM Night Viper: Visor, scope, gun and backpack. TBM’s experimented with odd part inclusions on more recent releases, which has often been a good thing, though, there’s nothing wrong with a figure like this, which stays loyal to the original’s loadout. I think the Night Viper’s gear is cool and does everything it needs too, although once you get these parts enough times they do get pretty old.

Because these don’t show up for sale too often, it’s hard to say what people are paying for them. Most of the other custom Night Vipers trend between $20 to $30, so it’s probably fair to assume that’s what this figure’s worth. Still, there’s a lot of interest in the Red Shadows, so that alone might put this one on the slightly higher end. They nicely compliment an Action Force collection, so I think they’re worth seeking out if you can find one under $30.

red laser the black major factory custom night viper hasbro palitoy

2021 Red Shadow Agent X (TBM Cobra Officer)

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2021 Red Shadow Agent X (TBM Cobra Officer)

For one of his 2021 projects, The Black Major took a different route from his more typical repaints of popular army builders, and instead made sets of new army builders, from a more original recipe dubbed Agent X. Each figure came in four variations, with the main changes being the head, torso and accessories. Essentially, there’s two versions of Snake Eyes, a Firefly and then then a Cobra Officer.

It’s a different approach even if I think most of the figures that resulted from this aren’t too interesting. For me, the main draw to this series of figures are the Cobra Officers, while I honestly have enough Firefly and Snake Eyes repaints not to bother too much with those. With that said, a few of the color schemes are strong enough to warrant the extra variations, likewise, they do nice to supplement collections of odd groups like the Red Shadows. With that said, I think he missed a big opportunity by not doing SAS Force from this mold.

The part choices are fairly interesting too. In the case of the Cobra Officer, he’s made from the ‘83 Officer’s head and torso, ‘83 Snake Eyes arms and legs, and the waist from ‘86 Roadblock. Gotta admit, I’m not a big fan of either the Snake Eyes legs or the Roadblock waist, especially not when paired together. At the same time, they don’t look horrible, and I appreciate having the figure changed up in small ways that make me not feel so insane for buying copious amounts of the same toy in different colors.

This Red Shadow Officer is really well done and looks much more on point than some of the early Red Shadow customs. The red color is bright and a good match for the tones you saw on Palitoy’s releases. It doesn’t take too many creative liberties and mostly stays in line with the paint masks for the other Agent X figures, which in this case seems like a good thing.

The accessories are actually what inspired me to stock up on a few variations of this figure, although that might sound odd to some. Included is an M4 (Marauders Gun Runners sculpt), a 25th Snake Eyes knife, and ‘87 Chuckles’s pistol. I really liked getting the extra Chuckles pistols! That’s a really nice part and it’s not the easiest to get a few of, let alone in large amounts. The other parts work and are okay. I really enjoy collecting odd colored bootlegged ARAH parts from TBM, so it bums me out a little when he does MGR accessories. The 25th SE knife is a weird choice too, but it has a thin handle, which means it’s useful to old-sculpts at the very least.

The quality of this release seems alright, and about middle of the road as far as factory customs go. The joints seem okay, most of mine are pretty tight. Paint applications are tight and look very good consistently. Out of a little more than a dozen, I’ve yet to acquire any with any weird casting defects or anything like that.

At the moment, you can get these for about $15 retail, but he knocks off a few dollars when you buy a few at a time. I’m really curious to see how these will change in value over time. On the one hand, they’re fairly odd figures and I’m not sure how popular this set’s been compared to past releases. Then again, he’s also making a lot fewer figures than he used to, and Cobra Officers are popular. Personally, I speculate this figure will be more demanded later on, while the oddball SE’s and Firefly’s will probably languish a tad more, especially given that people might feel fine only acquiring one each of those.

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1984 Action Force Laser Exterminator

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Action Force Laser Exterminator

I’ve found that over the years, while collectors put a huge focus on the recolored figures that showed up in Palitoy’s Action Force, less focus is placed on the vehicles. This is par for the course with Joes, as vehicles always come second to the figures. Still, the Action Force line really cranked out some classics out of both Joe molds and their own original molds, and the Laser Exterminator is a good example of that.

The truth is, I acquired this vehicle along with my other Red Shadows vehicles basically as a gift from good friend 00zxcvb, back around 2012 or so. It was a total surprise and probably one of the most generous things I’ve been sent by friends on the internet (Which is among a lot of nice things that friends have sent me!). In a hobby that broadly consists of consumerism and buying stuff from strangers on eBay, it really puts into prospective for me the value of sentimentality when it comes to toys. Many of my favorite pieces in my collection are things I didn’t even pay for.

This vehicle was my first experience with the HAL mold, and I have to say it’s one of my favorites among the early Joe vehicles. It’s a fun toy that looks good and has some pretty fun gimmicks. The turret can rotate in any direction, and also point upwards almost 90 degrees, so it’s fully functional as an artillery unit. Of course, it’s a towed weapon too, which adds options for using it with other vehicles. For a moderately small item that supports one gunner, there’s a fair amount the HAL can do, which makes it much more fun than something like the FLAK.

I think the leg mechanisms are worth some criticism, however. The turret is propped up by the two hooks used for towing it, as well as a third leg that stabilizes it. The tow-hook legs are kind of cumbersome and have a tendency to flop around, while the third leg really doesn’t have much holding it in place- hence why it’s usually missing. The later ASP had much better legs, but to be fair, this vehicle’s older, so maybe they learned as they went.

The colors are really nice on the Laser Exterminator, maybe even nicer than the HAL’s. The bright red is eye-catching, but more than that, the vehicle’s details really come across thanks to the contrasting charcoal and red plastic. The HAL is mostly a dark olive color, so you really don’t get to see just how much detail is featured on the different pieces. The standard HAL was far more realistic, but the colors here are a pretty good example of how brighter tones can be to a vehicle’s benefit when used tastefully.

Laser Exterminator’s are pretty cheap and easy to get. In general, Action Force pieces aren’t all that rare, and most of the collecting focus is on the figure molds. So, the Red Laser who was included with the vehicle will cost you a lot, but the vehicle itself is really only worth around $30. It’s pretty tough finding one with the stabilizer leg and computer, so that will run the price up every now any then. Usually, the worst thing about buying Action Force items is having to pay for shipping from the UK, which will typically cost you as much or more than the vehicle will.

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Action Force Laser Exterminator Links:

Forgotten Figures