This week’s images from my personal forum, ARAH Gallery, are from Amazing A-man and Scarrviper. Thanks for sharing them!

Dockside Deals – Scarrviper

This image really shows how much potential is in the Headhunters, especially Gristle. It’s a treat to see such a great scene with Headhunter Stormtroopers, now that those figures have gotten so expensive. Also, I need one of those forklifts!

Still Haven’t Got the BET – A-man

Using a Captain Power vehicle as the BET from GI Joe the Movie is not only a fun idea, but also something very nostalgic feeling. Repurposing oddball toys as things I was more interested in was a staple of my playtimes growing up. It’s also nice seeing more photos of V1 Serpentor before they all disintegrate.

If you enjoy fantastic images like these, make sure to join ARAH Gallery. Also, check out some more great images that were featured on the blog last week.

2005 Serpentor

The 2000‘s comic packs did a lot more wrong than they did right, but that was not always the case, such as with the #49 set. The reason this set’s so nice, is because you got arguably the best o-ring Firefly, and excellent update to Serpentor, and a hastily degrading Scrap-Iron who’s easy enough to sit aside.

I’m sort of ambivalent to Serpentor as a character. He’s unnecessary as a concept, and as I feel GI Joe relies so heavily on Cobra Commander as a central character in the plot, it’s a bad idea to try and replace him. Regardless, both the cartoon and the comics tried pretty hard to make the character appealing, so I have some interest in him for that. The Arise Serpentor, Arise mini-series was one of the more fun Sunbow storylines, likewise, I associate him a lot with the Cobra Civil War from the comics, which was another highlight. Put another way, the character is corny and irritating, but also a decent plot device you can associate with some of GI Joe’s better stories.

Unlike many of his comic portrayals, this Serpentor comes in bright shades of green and yellow, with yellow paint making up a lot of his details. Like with many comic-pack figures, he features a new head with a scowling face. I dislike how small it is, but it looks alright with his helmet on. The head can be put aside, and it leaves you with a fun, brightly colored repaint. The end result is a figure that retains the overall look of Serpentor while still providing something new and interesting, which is exactly what this figure needed to be.

For me and likely others too, one of the biggest appeals of this figure is that it’s one of the few Serpentor figures that’s decently easy to get and keep in good shape. The original ‘86 Serpentor has the infamous gold-plastic-syndrome plastic, which means the figure is overly fragile and virtually a ticking time-bomb, especially now that most of them are about 35-years old. The only other release of the character before the ME stuff was the ‘02 ARAHC repaint, which is virtually an unreleased figure. And then there’s this one, which was available for years with unsold overstock of these sets, available at or below retail price. Essentially, this one wins by default.

On that note, it’s sort of weird there isn’t more Serpentor toys. Even after the shift to 25th Anniversary style construction, there was two haphazard attempts at the character, before he was to be put away once again. He’s iconic enough that you’d think he’d be around a little more often, but alas, such is not the case. Joe fans rarely even seem to complain about his absence, which mildly gives me the impression there’s still more disdain for this character than there is fondness.

As for his parts, you get about everything you could hope for. Included is his cowl/backpack, a removable helmet, his tiny little knife, and a nice yellow cape. Something extra to make him a bit more interesting would’ve been nice, but I guess you get that in the form of the helmet. He’s really a figure where all of his parts are unique to him and can’t be switched with anything else, lest you worsen the figure’s look. With that in mind, it’s nice he’s one of the few vintage sculpts to retain most of his original parts.

For the longest time, this whole set Serpentor was included in was cheap and common. I got mine sealed, years after the fact from Amazon for something like $10, which was probably stock from when they managed online sales for TRU. Right now, anything can for random and absurd prices, but generally this set’s never been worth more than $30, sealed. With the current state of both Joe prices and inflation, that’s still a pretty good price for what you get.