Friday, March 15, 2024

2002 Mirage - Random Photos of the Day

Hasbro got Mirage happy between 2002 and 2005.  In that short time, they released no less than 4 repaints of the obscure 1993 Mega Marine.  The thing is, all of them were pretty decent.  While the repaint still didn't fully accentuate Mirage's details, they did bring a more muted paint scheme to the mold.  Unfortunately, collectors quickly tired of Mirage.  Not only was it because of the multiple uses in such a short time span, but also, Hasbro made the mistake of packaging the first two repaints with Viper repaints.  As this was the height of the army building era, collectors quickly amassed dozens of Mirage figures.

And, with that, a once acceptable character from the '90's quickly became a collector nightmare.  And, the repaint era releases were quickly disregarded and tossed into boxes or custom fodder bags in frustration.  More than 20 years later, the figure still doesn't really have any cachet.  You don't see any  of the modern versions used very often since old habits die hard and few collectors who were around in the Mirage heyday still consider him a useful figure to have around.

This is too bad, though, as the all the Mirage figures are a nice and cool way to update the Mega Marines.  Personally, I think the 2003 Hoverstrike figure is the best version of Mirage.  But, this 2002 version that was first released in Wave 1.5 in the early summer of 2002 is also really nice.  So, enjoy some random photos as you stroll down memory lane to a time when Hasbro was really pumping out the figures at retail.

2002 Mirage, Wave 1.5, Dial Tone, BJ's Exclusive, Gift Set, Big Ben


2002 Mirage, Mega Marines,  Wave 1.5, 1991 Ozone, Eco Warriors

2002 Mirage, Mega Marines,  Wave 1.5


2002 Mirage, Mega Marines,  Wave 1.5

Monday, March 11, 2024

1987 Taurus

When I first saw the 1987 catalog, it was full of toys I wanted.  Two oddball items stuck out to me, though.  The first, obviously, was Cobra La.  I wasn't sure what the hell that was supposed to be.  So, the companion three figure set also seemed weird.  At some point in the summer of 1987, I found the two three packs at the local Toys R Us.  There was no way I was buying the Cobra La set.  So, I bought the Slaughter's Renegades set while my younger brother purchased the Cobra La figures.  Once opened, I still didn't really understand the Renegades.  Taurus and Red Dog seemed out of place in the line.  Mercer, though, quickly found heavy use.  Though, I didn't really follow his ex-Viper background.

As the year progressed, the Renegades didn't appear in the comic.  This was rare for the age as even Crystal Ball showed up in an issue of Special Missions.  When our friends from down the street tried to describe the G.I. Joe Movie to me, they made no mention of the Renegades as the bizarre fate for Cobra Commander and the celebrity voices were the extent of the highlights.  So, the Renegades, and their purpose, remained a mystery to me.  So, I found uses for the two "lesser" figures in the set.  Red Dog's main value came from his pistol.  Taurus, though, never really found grounds for existence and was one of the very rare 1987 figures who I didn't fully characterize.  

Taurus's head is well sculpted.  Really, it might be one of the best sculpted heads in the entire line.  It is distinctive, unique and it conveys a sense of consternation and experience that is difficult to convey with a small, plastic countenance.  The bushy red beard and eyebrows offsetting the bald head and large ears leave you with a lasting impression of the figure.  You know what they sculptors were trying to convey and it came through very well.  It is still flummoxing to me that even  modern sculptors have struggled so mightily to match the sculpting of vintage Joe heads.  Especially when you see how much variety there was in the line.  Heck, Falcon and Taurus were sculpted in the same year and offer two extremes of head design.  Yet, to this day, people have yet to really mimic the overall aesthetic of vintage Hasbro heads.

Taurus's colors are interesting.  He was just the fourth figure in the line to use yellow as a primary body color.  (Blowtorch, Airtight and Claymore)  His legs are a pea green that are a near match for the green that would define the Night Force subset starting in 1988.  I feel this is an overlooked detail that would allow for Taurus parts to appear on more Night Force customs.  The colors aren't a bad match, though.  And, Taurus is visually interesting.  It's just that the super short sleeves, dramatically exposed chest and red facial hair offset the yellow and somewhat ruin the overall appearance of the figure.  The more I look at him, now, though, I find more value in Taurus's appearance.  Really, he's one of the most visually distinctive Joes in both colors and sculpt.  And, re-evaluating him more than 35 years later has left me with a very different opinion of the figure than I had as a kid back in 1987.  

As a kid, I didn't find much use for Taurus.  Often, he'd be relegated to the role of a nameless villain who would pop out of the A-Team van and kill a bunch of civilians: causing the Joe team to hunt him down.  In one of the Special Missions issues, Larry Hama created a radical named Horst.  He was a brainwashed zealot who blew himself to bits: thinking it would lead to eternal glory.  Instead, his comrades didn't even remember his name.  I used Taurus as a stand in for a Horst like character.  Though, it was far more often that the Joes (and, sometimes, Cobras) would kill him before he could suicide them all away.  Taurus had no name or characterization beyond being a terrorist who could offer some divergent adventures from the standard Joe vs. Cobra scenarios.

As I've grown to appreciate this figure more, though, I don't have many regrets over my childhood treatment of the toy.  Really, Taurus got every chance to capture my imagination.  He just failed to do so in any meaningful way.  As I had a pretty much full collection of Joes, though, Taurus as going to have a tough time breaking out.  He appeared near the very end of my childhood acquisitions.  And, his bizarre release vehicle to which I lacked context didn't endear him to me.  I was just confused as to why the entire Renegades team existed.  So, that left Taurus to stand on his own without the benefit of a comic book appearance.  But, one of the benefits of adult collecting is that you can reconsider figures like Taurus who didn't matter in my childhood collection.  And, in Taurus's case, he's a rare occasion where I've found him more valuable as an adult collection piece than I ever did as childhood plaything.

Taurus' gear, well, sucks.  He has the worst weapon in the three pack.  It is silver, which wasn't common for the time.  But, it's not quite a pistol.  And, also too small to be a rifle.  It doesn't really work with any figure and just always looks awkward.  He also includes a brown version of Recondo's backpack.  As a kid, I matched the black Footloose pack with Taurus as I thought the brown Recondo pack better fit with Mercer's color scheme and the black pack was a better match for Taurus.  The card artwork didn't offer any clues for the pack/figure matches.  So, I kept the Recondo pack meant for Taurus with my Mercer figure for years.  In fact, if you scroll through photos on this site from 2008 or earlier, you'll always see Mercer wearing Taurus's pack.  Now, though, we have plenty of evidence that this pack was meant for Taurus and I've evolved to using Mercer's proper backpack with his figure.

Taurus is the only one of the three Renegades figures who doesn't really have a foreign exclusive repaint.  Red Dog got a Funskool repaint in 2001.  And, Mercer saw release in Brazil about a decade earlier.  However, all three Renegades did get exclusive single carded releases in various European countries.  All of these cards feature unique artwork that wasn't available in the U.S.  Many years ago, a collector friend of mine mentioned that he thought there were extremely slight coloring differences between the U.S. and European releases of the Renegades: Taurus in particular.  But, he never confirmed it.  So, this is one of the rumored Euro exclusive releases that I'd love to someday validate.

Taurus is one of the cheaper figures in the entire line.  He is the least popular renegade and doesn't match with Mercer or Red Dog.  The yellow shirt isn't a color people much care for.  And, as such, you can still get nicely conditioned and complete Taurus figures for under $10.  Dealers do sell a lot in the $15 range.  And, the highly fragile gold paint will often drive that price point.  All of the Renegades seem pretty common.  1987 saw a high production run to coincide with the G.I. Joe Movie...which then ended up as a straight to video release.  So, the less popular figures from this year really tend to show up a lot and remain extremely cheap.  It's a just fate for Taurus as he's really not that good of a figure.  But, I do appreciate his sculpting and colors more as an adult collector than I did as a kid in the final days of childhood.

1987 Taurus, Sgt. Slaughter, Slaughter's Renegades, 2009 Bootleg Desert Cobra Trooper



1987 Taurus, Slaughter's Renegades, Iron Grenadier, 1988



1987 Taurus, Slaughter's Renegades,


Friday, March 8, 2024

1991 Cloudburst - Around The Web

Cloudburst is one of those figures that would have made for an excellent repaint.  But, even his original figure has some merit.  The sculpt is solid and the colors do work within the context of his release.  He's a pretty obscure release.  Which leads to a dearth of content available about the figure.  But, there's some fun stuff that you can find below.









1991 Cloudburst, 1992 Talking Battle Commander General Hawk






























1991 Cloudburst, 1993 Col. Courage, 1988 Mean Dog


Monday, March 4, 2024

2003 Black Dragon Trooper - Convention Exclusive

If you collect ARAH style Joe figures, 2003 is kind of the lost year.  In 2002, Hasbro produced 2 full waves of ARAH style figures.  Plus, there was a gift set as well as army builders and oddball characters that were included in the standard retail line.  2004 saw the proliferation of the Toys R Us 6 figure sets, vehicle/figure combos and the arrival of the Comic Pack figures.  2003, though, was actually somewhat sparse when it came to classic style Joe figures.  There were the two, initial, Toys R Us sets.  And, TRU got quite a collection of exclusive vehicles that also included classically styled figures.  There were a bunch of mail away and online figures.  But, retail saw just two figures included in standard waves.  And, due to the massive upswing in the line's popularity in late 2003, those weren't around for very long.  Also lost in the year is the 2003 Convention set.  While the 2002 set was lauded for it's for it army building centric design, the 2003 was condemned for it's focus on characters and more obscure mold reuses.  And, even today, it remains the most obscure Convention set.  Which is easy to see when one of the best figures released that year is a repaint of the 1988 Ferret figure that was repurposed into the Black Dragon Trooper.

The 1988 Ferret figure is weird.  The mold is bizarre. And, the colors are banal.  You'd be hard pressed to find it in any photos on my site.  And, I don't even own one any longer.  But, seeing it repurposed for a new army builder in 2003 wasn't terrible.  Collectors weren't sick of the mold.  But, when the figure was first shown, many collectors couldn't even place the original figure who had used the mold: such was the obscurity of the original Ferret.  But, this was also where the figure failed.  In 2003, collectors were not aware of the sea of army builders that would be debuted at the 2003 convention.  And, as such, the collecting community was still full throated shouting that they wanted more of the classic army builders like the Vipers, BATS and Cobra Troopers.  So, seeing a figure in classic Cobra colors but using a mold that most couldn't even place was a disappointment.  After getting classic Vipers in 2002, there was an expectation that convention sets would always be excellently colored uses of staple army building molds.  When the script shifted, collectors weren't pleased.  And, there simply wasn't much excitement over the 2003 sets as an army in the box that collectors felt they deserved.

The one thing you can say about the 2003 Convention set is that it, probably, leaned too hard into the obscure aspect for the mold choices.  And, instead of making just good figures, the set ended up with an abundance of unappreciated molds that collectors really didn't care for.  While the 2002 Convention set quickly appreciated on the second hand market right after its release, the 2003 did not.  In fact, you could even get many figures in from the set for less than their original cost for a bit.  In time, the Falcon and Lady Jaye found some appreciation.  But, generally, the set was just discarded.  Collectors put it away in their closets and just left it there.  Even today, about the only content that exists on this are the remnants of the 2003 Joe community that you can find on a select few remaining fan sites.  People just don't use the figures.  And, for the newer collectors who don't own the figures, there's little desire to track them down.

I don't really have a specific purpose for the Black Dragon Trooper.  He's, pretty much, just a figure that I use as a humble brag in the background of photos of other, blue Cobras from that era.  He can be heavily armored.  And, with 2001 Fast Blast Viper gear, he might make for an interesting take on a HEAT Viper.  But, I think his best use is with a 2001 Shadow Viper backpack so you can pigeon hole the figure into Star Brigade.  In this capacity, the oddball chest piece works as space survival gear.  And, the weird helmet is more forgivable.  But, really, I've never seen the figure as anything other than a checkbox to complete my collection.  I had one back at the time of his release.  But, ended up selling it.  It was only through a random (and cheap!) find at a local shop that I bothered to re-add him to my collection.  And, really, the only reason I did so was because convention figures were starting to rise in price and I figured I could at least use him in a profile.

The figure's true purpose is one I've never bothered to explore.  Convention filecards were laughably bad. They weren't bad in the over-produced way that adults tend to write filecards, now.  No, they were just terrible.  The Black Dragon faction was the first stand alone idea that the club put together.  For some reason, a ninja had to have a force of heavily armored troopers.  It made no sense.  And, as the Black Dragon Ninja didn't really jive with fans of the era, the entire concept was mothballed away.  While we got a retail Black Dragon Ninja in late 2004, it had no relevance to the 2003 convention figures.  Maybe the convention filecards try to make a story of all this mess.  But, in the end, there's two out of place figures in really nice coloring that collectors can use however they please.

The paint applications on the Black Dragon Trooper are well done.  The blue color is rich and vibrant.  It is offset by strong gold accents that break up the black base.  The figure even features grey boots: adding another color to the palette and making this figure feel more substantial than retail releases of ARAH  molds from the same time period.  But, really, while the colors are great, they also allow the mold's weakness to show through.  1988 tends to be a weird villain year with lots of figures who have oddball and unexplainable details.  And, the Ferret is the poster child for the silliness that 1988 sometimes offered.  The welder's mask beneath a a bouffant helmet is still just that.  It's mystifying but indifferent.  And, that sums the figure up as a whole.  He looks fine.  But, he's still just so obscure and bizarre that you aren't compelled to own one.

The Black Dragon Trooper's weapons are just a recycled 1993 weapon tree.  However, since collectors of 2003 were still VERY anti-'90's, the club actually took the step to remove all the weapons from the tree and only offer them as loose accessories.  This is too bad because weapon trees are awesome.  But, it was also nice because it ensured that every weapon was already loose and we don't see hundreds of these figures with an unused weapon tree behind them as the default sales mode.  The chosen weapons are one of the stronger "Cobra" trees from that era.  It features the 1991 Incinerator flamethrower (a personal favorite), a 1988 Voltar rifle, a 1988 Toxo Viper weapon and a 1990 Rock Viper rifle.  I don't care for the last three weapons.  But, I like the Incinerator weapon well enough to call the accessories good enough.  2003 was the final year that black weapons were included with convention figures.  The club switched to grey in 2004 under the false pretext that "people" were worried about mistaking the much, much rarer convention accessories for the easy to find originals.  The figure also includes a 1992 Gung Ho backpack and a clear figure stand.  This was the last set that ever tried to use weapon tree molds with a figure.  And, the sets were better for it since the trees didn't really match the aesthetic of the later convention figures.

The 2003 Convention figures were very affordable...up until the latest boom in Joe prices.  And, while the 2003 figures lagged their peers in value for a while, you'll now only find these figures at premium pricing.  Black Dragon Troopers seem to sell in the $40-$45 range.  But, you'll more often find dealers trying to still get $70.  For a Convention figure, that's actually not too bad of a price these days.  But, it's a far cry from the $15-$18 this guy would have cost you just 5 years ago.  The general malaise towards the 2003 set and the specific disinterest in the Ferret mold combine for one of, if not the, cheapest Convention army builders that's left.  I can't say, though, that he's worth it.  The Black Dragon Trooper is a fine figure.  But, you don't need it.  He's a great companion piece to an army.  But, a squad of 12 of them seems like overkill.  He's just one of those figures who exists but everyone seems to have completely forgotten.

2003 Black Dragon Trooper, Convention Exclusive, Ferret, 2004 Flak Viper, Nullifier, Urban Strike


2003 Black Dragon Trooper, Convention Exclusive, Ferret, 2004 Flak Viper, Nullifier, Urban Strike


2003 Black Dragon Trooper, Convention Exclusive, Ferret, 2004 Flak Viper, Nullifier, Urban Strike

2003 Convention Exclusive Black Dragon Trooper, 1993 Mail Away Spirit Iron Knife

Friday, March 1, 2024

2018 Shadowtracker - Around The Web

In regards to the comments on the Fail Safe profile.

For the past few months I have been very down on Joe.  There are a variety of reasons for this.  First and foremost is that I'm simply getting bored.  Since the fall of 2015, I've posted an average of 2 posts per week.  That's thousands of photos of action figures.  And, it's the equivalent of several novels.  In short, I'm out of things to say.  I've told my stories.  I've expressed my likes and dislikes of the Joe line.  And, I'm just at a point where my collection has not kept up with my content and I'm out of things to write about.

Part of this is just the weather.  I hate winter.  Like, really hate it.  And, 6 months of brown, dead leaves and mud saps much of my desire to get Joes outside.  I've broken more than a couple Joes in cold weather in the past few years.  And, that pisses me off.  So, I'm more loathe to even  consider outdoor photography when it's cold outside.  And, one thing I've learned is that if I'm not taking photos of my collection, I really don't have much else to do with it.

An equal part, though, is that the collecting world is pretty stagnant.  Hasbro's o-ring line fell flat.  Even if you don't mind the quality, the line was almost exclusively items we already had.  The best figures were the ones we didn't get before.  (Duke, Cobra Commander and the Ramp Rat come to mind.)  But, overall, there's really nothing in the 2020's line that you'd miss if it didn't exist.  

That leaves the Kickstarter figures.  And, while I get the excitement these bring many collectors, I find them lacking.  None of them capture the essence or style of the original Joe line.  Some lines look like mega-block figures.  Other lines look like downscaled anniversary figures that had an o-ring inserted for nostalgia.  I've always been a Joe snob.  I don't even think that Remco or Lanard figures are compatible with Joe.  They stick out.  And, most of the Kickstarters do, too.

Mostly, it's the heads.  Not even Hasbro has been able to replicate vintage Joe heads.  The attempts never look right.  And, this is where most of the Kickstarters, to me, fall short.  I see pumpkin heads that extend over the figure's shoulders and I'm turned off.  I've yet to see an actual production level Kickstarter that has left me disappointed that I didn't back it.  In fact, the opposite has been true.

I kvech a lot about the decaying Joe line and getting older because it's a big part of collecting.  One my esteemed commenters mentioned that we are now the guys with trains in their basements.  There's nothing wrong with that.  But, it helps put a collection into perspective.  When I see my childhood playthings turning to yellowed dust, I reminds me of my Dad's prized possessions from his childhood and the way they rusted and broke into decay as they were stored in a closet in our basement.  I see the same thing happening to me.  And, frankly, writing about it helps me deal with some of the harshness of now being over 50.  It's cheaper and more convenient than real therapy.

In short, I may just need a break.  In the past, I've taken short and long hiatuses from the hobby.  I come back, recharged.  But, when the plants turn green, we get some rain and there's a great, natural setting down by the creek, I might be out with a bucket full of figures every afternoon.  

The important thing is that I still find value in the Joe community.  I appreciate every single person who stops by to view or read my part of the Joe world.  And, I'm grateful for those who take the time to comment.  

For me, I have some fun stuff coming up.  I've got a piece that I really enjoy that's coming...maybe even next week.  And, there's a couple of really obscure figures that I'll be posting soon, too.  I still have over 500 drafts sitting in my content bucket.  So, I won't want for content for a while.  And, when I do get a spark of creativity, I tend to write a lot in a very short time.  

Until then, enjoy some other peoples' work in regards to the 2018 Shadowtracker from Red Laser Army.  I miss RLA.  They made some neat stuff.

2018 Shadowtracker Profile