Rarities - Remco Captain Impermeable

The various Remco action figure lines are full of lower quality toys that were meant to mimic more popular, and expensive, brands of the '80's.  They were a cheap alternative for the media driven icons of the decade.  Despite the poor quality, their 3 3/4 military inspired lines actually featured some really interesting ideas.  The pinnacle was their S.I.T. series of figures.  But, earlier Remco lines also featured some very interesting character designs that created figures with some merit.  As an example, we look at Captain Impermeable.

First off, Captain Impermeable is a fantastic name.  It's both an unheard of level of superhero cheesiness and a great moniker for a one off villain.  (Though, to be fair, this guy has no character.  So, him being a good guy or a bad guy was entirely up to the kid who owned him.)  The figure is black and silver and dons a full hazmat suit.  The figure's look is a weird combo of '80's fear mongering and World War II nostalgia.  The suit looks modern.  But, the ancient gas mask combo mish-mashes the look into something right out of a comic book.

To my knowledge, this figure is the first hazmat suit wearing 3 3/4" figure.  His 1986 release year predates anything Hasbro would do in G.I. Joe.  (The Toxo Viper wouldn't appear until 1988.)  And, appears to have beaten Lanard's hazmat themed figures to market, too.  The black and silver color scheme is also rather unique.  It wouldn't appear in the Joe line until the 1989 Snake Eyes.  The Hasbro team would have been knowledgeable of other competition in the marketplace.  But, we'll look at some other ideas they "borrowed" from Remco in next year's Rarities posts.

One aspect of play that Remco leaned into in their various military themed 3 3/4" lines was horror.  This isn't all that surprising since Remco released the classic 3 3/4", 5 POA monster figures at the start of the 1980's.  They had the classics of Wolf Man, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon (among others.).  Remco later created their own Wolf Man character with a two-faced head for kids to mimic the transformation into the creature.  But, I see figures like Captain Impermeable in that same vein.  This guy looks like he crawled out of a crappy '80s slasher flick.  And, paired with some of the other Remco figures would have formed a creepy contingent of monsters and nightmares for the good guys to battle.  

Being a Remco figure, Captain Impermeable exists in a few different forms.  You can find his parts on other figures.  And, there are full repaints of the mold that are available.  I've seen them in both bright and olive green color schemes.  (This character was also sold under the name of Smokescreen.)  I'm not sure under which banners the repaints were released.  Remco is sparsely documented.  Which, makes it difficult to fully track down all uses of a figure's parts or even the universe of all the times the mold was repainted.

Back in the early days of online collecting, you'd often find lots of Joe figures that also included Remco and Lanard figures.  They were just mixed in because you were buying some kids' childhood toys.  Slowly, though, the knock-offs and discount lines were filtered out.  For many collectors, they all just went into a box or were sold off in large lots of non-Joe figures.  But, now, high quality Remco figures are pretty tough to find and they will cost you.  The poor quality of the original figures is part of this.  You'll often find Remco figures with broken parts (especially thumbs), heavily worn paint or missing accessories.  So, you'll pay a premium for mint specimens, especially if they happen to be interesting figures like this Captain Impermeable.

Rarities - European Action Force Taurus

Taurus is a boring figure.  He's the least popular of the Renegades and is the one you least often see in action.  The only really interesting thing about his figureis that, in Europe, he was released on a single card with new artwork.  All of the Renegades were released as single carded figures in various European markets.  There's no real explanation as to why this was.  Cobra La didn't receive similar treatment.  And, there were plenty of other '87 figures to fill out an international line.  

The card features unique artwork for Taurus. You can find the carded Taurus figures from various European markets that will feature different languages, too.  You'll note that G.I. Joe is the marketing focus for the toy.  But, there is still an Action Force subheader to tie the figure to the established European brand.

More than 20 years ago, a collector friend of mine who specialized in foreign variants believed that the European Renegades figures had slight coloring differences from their U.S. released counterparts.  He was unable to confirm this, though, as he didn't have known samples of the Euro figures in his possession at the time.  It's something I'd love to finally put to rest.  We know that many European figure releases did have slight variances from their North American counterparts...mostly just due to the fact that they were released in later years and not part of the initial run.  You'll see slight color variants all the way up to different dates stamps on some European versions of figures that, otherwise, are identical to the North American release.  Most of these are not documented and can be tough to verify.  So, if you have known samples of both releases of Taurus and see any differences, please post them up as I'd love to confirm/deny the rumors from the turn of the century.

The one thing about these figures that was of note to me is that they clearly showed which accessories were intended for which Renegade.  As a kid, I always put the black Footloose backpack on Taurus since it was a better color match.  The brown Recondo pack went to Mercer for the same reason.  While I've come around on the black Footloose pack belonging to Mercer, I can't reconcile this Recondo pack on Taurus.  Mostly, it's because I don't care about Taurus all that much.  But, seeing him with his correct backpack still looks odd to me.

There was a short time when these single carded figures were very desirable.  But, that ebbed away rather quickly.  The Renegades are rarely anyone's favorite figures.  And, Taurus and Red Dog are among the most obscure '80's figure releases.  Maybe they were dropped into the assortments to help recoup mold costs.  (The '87 Mercer was later released in Brazil and Red Dog has a famous, race changing Funskool release.)  Sadly, documentation on how European releases came to be is mostly non-existent.  Which is too bad as some of those decisions would be more interesting than getting made up stories from fading memories of the Hasbro line.

Rarities - 1993 G.I. Joe Complete the Mission Advertisement

So, this is more of an oddity than anything rare.  But, really, I just like the idea that there is a marketing piece out there that carried on the tradition of Kenner's old "Collect Them All" mentality that dates from 1993.  What is interesting to me, though, is the manner in which the text depicts the line.  

Initially, it implies that the 1993 Joes are "shipping out" and won't be available much longer.  While the 1993's only had the single production year, the reality is that fresh cases were still being sent to closeout retailers through, at least, late 1995.  So, Hasbro had plenty of stock left.  Seeing the "Supplies are limited" moniker seems awkward since it was the 1993 figures who lingered into 1995 and 1996 at retail chains while the lower production run 1994 figures sold out first.  This was one of those marketing attempts to drive what we'd later define as FOMO.  Disney used it to remarkable effect in their VHS vault concept.  So, you can't fault Hasbro for trying.

The other thing that stuck out to me is that the line is described as "Collectible".  This is a shift that began in the early 1990's.  Hasbro, especially on the G.I. Joe team, was recognizing that there was a new, burgeoning market for their legacy brands: adult collectors.  They, though, weren't interested in spring loaded gimmicks.  But, promoting something as "collectible" could draw them in.  Most of the focus on adults was on the 12" side of the Joe brand.  But, there was enough cross-over for them to port some of the messaging to 3 3/4", too.  In 1994, the Joe team went all in promoting the Joseph Colton mail away to adults...to great success.  In fact, the reason Joe Coltons are cheap and widely available, now, is because so many adult collectors back in 1994 hoarded extras with visions of future riches in  their heads.

The poster isn't really noteworthy for anything else.  All of the figures appear to be production level samples.  So, there's no weird colors or oddball accessories in there that I can spot.  You'll note a few absences, though.  Figures like Wild Bill appear on the checklist.  Even though the figure isn't pictured.  The Alley Viper and Beach Head, though, are completely absent from both the poster and the checklist.  

The Duke actor is prominently featured, too.  The 1993 live action sequences are best left forgotten.  The commercials were terrible.  But, Joe needed to try something.  And, by the early 1990's, live action was cheaper than high quality animation.  There used to be a bunch of interviews with the Duke actor that were out there.  If you look around, you might still find them and can hear his perspective on the production.

While the idea of a poster with checkboxes to notate the completeness of your collection seems quaint in 2025.  Hasbro was still putting out material like this through at least the late 2000's in some of their lines.  There are even G.I. Joe marketing materials showcasing figures through the end of the Venom Vs. Valor series.  (Spinmaster even used them with their Batman line in the early 2020's.)  So, the concept behind a piece like this is sound and something that's still part of a marketer's playbook.  There have been some great fan-created checklist posters for the Star Wars line.  And, a high concept poster would actually sell to collectors.  For now, though, I'm going to seek out late run ephemera like this poster as they give insight into the Joe line's final years.

Rarities - Auriken Grunt

In Mexico, the Auriken toy company released a small line of exclusive Joes.  There are a few different series.  The initial series, though, features all straight arm figures.  In fact, it features all of the straight arm figures that were also released in the U.S.  All nine Joes are available, as well as both the Cobra Trooper and Officer.  But, two of the figures featured some "updated" artwork.  One was Snake Eyes.  The other was Grunt.  Instead of the classic Grunt artwork on the packaging, the Auriken Grunt featured Footloose's artwork.  

Footloose matched Grunt's specialty of "Infantry Soldier".  So, it's  possible that the artwork got mixed up as it traveled around the world.  But, the proper Grunt artwork was used in Brazil and Argentina.  So, it getting mixed up when it went to Mexico seems less likely.  The Footloose figure was also released in both Brazil and Argentina.  He didn't see release by Auriken.  Though, all of the Auriken figures that were released were also released in Brazil.  It seems the line went straight from Brazil to Mexico for figure releases.  The mechanism and timeline of how that happened, though, is murky at best.

As a figure, Grunt sucks.  Footloose is awesome, though.  So, getting another crappy Grunt and missing out on another international Footloose release is disappointing.  But, the Auriken figures have kind of dried up and it would be unlikely that a Footloose release would be something I had been able to track down.  

The real story is the box, in general.  It is a unique way for Joes to be presented.  Each figure being affixed with a twist tie is also unique.  During the early days of collecting, when Auriken figures were a bit more common, many collectors gravitated towards them due to the unique packaging.  It's weird that the figure's filecard would be displayed if you folded the box flap over the figure's window.  The whole design seems rather inefficient.  Regardless, it's a good example of how Joes were sold around the world.

Rarities - 1989 Deep Six (Unproduced Diving Shoes)

The 1989 Deep Six is not a beloved figure.  He is, though, a pretty great figure for his specialty.  He was the perfect blend of 1989 modernity that defined the Joe line and old-timey diving suits that every kid in the '80's knew from the Fisher Price figure that came with the orange octopus.  Originally, though, the figure was supposed to include even more gear than he did.  Along with all his production pieces, Deep Six was also going to include two diving shoes that attached to his feet.  You can see them in the catalog image below.

It's certain that these shoes were removed for cost cutting reasons.  They really offered nothing to the figure.  And, Deep Six included a nice amount of gear, even without them.  And, no kid was making a purchase decision on Deep Six based on whether or not he included some weighted shoes.  They were small pieces that would have been easily lost.  So, much like Mainframe's computer stand from 1986, the accessories were entirely superfluous and didn't really affect the overall impression of the figure were they removed.

If you look very closely at Deep Six's card artwork, you can just barely see the shoes.  Hasbro was deft in their editing, though.  And, the bottom of Deep Six's feet are cut off by the edges of the card.  Knowing the shoes were axed and this would have just been a matter of cropping the photo slightly differently, it's tough to see the feet being so close to the edge as anything other than intentional.  

It's always interesting to see items like this.  We know that the cost to develop an accessory is the biggest part of the overall expense.  But, even in the late '80's, Hasbro was making at least 150,000-200,000 of their least popular figures.  So, saving a few pennies on a figure could add up across the whole line...even if Hasbro had incurred the cost to make the parts.  The shoes appearing in a promo catalog with production level figures, though, tells you they were a late strike from the figure's complement of gear.  While I would love for their to be a complicated back story as to why these pieces were chosen for elimination, the truth is that it is certain to be nothing more than financial.  And, decisions like that are both boring and depressing while also driving home that, to the Hasbro guys, the Joe line was, at the end of the day, a job.