1988 Sgt. Slaughter
I don’t know a lot about wrestling, and generally speaking I don’t like celebrities either. So normally I’d be against anything to do with a celebrity crossover inside my precious military fantasy, but the Sarge is an exception. To me, Sgt. Slaughter is a GI Joe icon; He’s the face of the brand in a way Duke could never be, partly because he encapsulates something of 80‘s culture* that’s lost now. Also, he’s on Twitter and is incredibly nice to GI Joe fans to this day, so it’s hard not to like him. With that said, here’s the less-seen V3 Sgt. Slaughter.
*One of my vague statements that’s probably more amusing left to interpretation. A team of elite American soldiers recruiting a famous wrestler to be their drill sergeant, and help them win fistfights against ancient aliens and terrorist leaders made from the DNA of history’s baddest dudes, is so over-the-top and unashamedly macho. GI Joe seemed a lot less like propaganda for the war machine, but rather a collection of anything cool that would make a boy’s imagination run wild. Ninjas, laser guns, big tanks, killer robots, ninja women in tights, some heavy metal lookin’ dudes; tossing in Sgt. Slaughter kind of gives you the essence of the brand in a nutshell. It’s also something they’ve never recreated in the roughly four decades since.
This Slaughter was the included Driver for the Warthog A.I.F.V., which is a pairing that only makes sense when you think about that fact that Slaughter probably helped move a ton of these vehicles off shelves. With the Triple T, that felt a lot more like an excuse to upcharge for Sgt. Slaughter, but at least with this version he’s actually included with one of the best vehicles ever made. 1988 was a good year for GI Joe in general, but the vehicles especially were better than average.
1988 Sgt. Slaughter stands apart from the first two releases by switching out his more standard outfits for a stereotypical GI Joe design. The result is something that feels well integrated with the line at the time, at the cost of seeming much more generic than the previous two Sgt. Slaughter figures. This version of the Sarge looks like it could easily have been some random Joe just with a head swap, which is a good thing or a bad thing depending upon how you look at it.
It’s a strong figure besides being mildly generic though. The sculpt is nice and sharp, especially around the chest with those bullets and a few other details. The head’s a little large and soft, but it doesn’t bother me too much, since he has a removable hat. Normally I’d prefer a sharper sculpt to a removable piece of headgear, though one of the strengths of this figure is that he’s different enough from the last two Slaughters, so the compromise is worth it in return for something new.
Speaking of the hat, it’s his only accessory, so that’s about it for this paragraph. Kinda weird he’s got an ammo belt sculpted onto him and nothing it goes to, but later vehicle drivers tended to cut corners like that. My introduction to the GI Joe media was an old VHS recording of GI Joe:THE MOVIE, and the Terror Drome infiltration scene was always one of my favorite parts. I think because of that, I tend to pair him with Cobra weapons I imagine he’s stolen while fighting behind enemy lines. That’s how I rationalize the bullets too: He picked them up as spare ammo after raiding a Cobra armory.
1988 Sgt. Slaughters are harder to find than others, and are somewhat pricey at the moment, consistently hitting between $20 to $30 for a good example. Being an ‘88 figure that’s tied to a mid-sized vehicle probably means there’s less of them out there, though the relative scarcity would be offset by the fact that this is the least memorable Sgt. Slaughter figure (I put Slaughter’s Marauder’s ahead of him, since at least he had a sub-team named after him). This is a lot more than I paid for my example years ago, but the seller’s market fades slowly, and Sgt. Slaughter appeals to more than one fandom, so it makes sense.
The Viper Pit 