1993 Night Creeper Leader

There are terrible figures in the 1993 line.  And, then, there are really terrible figures in the 1993 line.  This orange Night Creeper Leader figure is, easily, the worst of the worst when it comes to Joe releases and may be the worst figure Hasbro released during the vintage years.  (Nah, it's still Big Boa.)  

When the Night Creepers were first introduced in the comic in the early 1990's, they were lead by a character named Aleph.  This figure is not that character, though.  It is, instead, a new character.  There's no explanation for this.  This character masks his eyes, though, to feign blindness and use his heightened senses.  The orange uniform appeared in the comics.  It was during the late run ninja madness, though.  I really need to re-read the comic from about #125 through #150 again to brush up on the end of the line lore.    

The most famous appearances of this figure are actually on other custom figures.  The Night Creeper Leader's pants were often used in Tiger Force customs in the early 2000's.  You'd see them on European inspired Tiger Force ideas and most of them were used very effectively without even requiring any paint.  

The Night Creeper Leader was released twice.  The first is this orange 1993 version.  There is also an obscure 1994 variant that uses purple and gold.  It's, far and away the better of the two releases.  There's also an oddball Asian bootleg of the figure you can also track down.  For a crappy mold of a crappy character, that's more than enough variety for collectors to track down.  You do wonder what happened to the mold.  It didn't turn up in Brazil or India.  But, there's really no Funskool colors that would have been more ostentatious than this 1993 figure.

1993 Night Creeper Leader figures are sadly expensive....at least when compared to what you would think a terrible figure like this would cost.  You can get still get carded figures for under $15.  (Though, dealers price them as high as $30.)  But, high quality loose, mint and complete with filecard figures still sell for around $12.  That's barely any disparity for a figure that no one should really care about.  But, the 1993 series, in general, has finally found some collecting life and people are paying to fill those gaps in their collection, now.  In the long run, bad figures like Night Creeper Leader will soften while excellent figures like the Head Hunter Stormtrooper will rise in price.