Rarities - 2000's Era Stormshadow Unproduced Figures

For some reason, Hasbro loved the 1992 Stormshadow mold.  After the debut of the 1984 mold in the 1997 repaint sets, Hasbro put it on hiatus for another 7 years.  In between, they, instead, released repainted 1992 Stormshadow figures.  The first, in 2000, was a nice diversion and something different.  But, then it appeared again in 2002 in the BJ's Gift Set and again in 2004 in the Urban Strike set.

Design wise, this wasn't terrible.  The figure mold is nicely done.  But, as the mold debuted in Ninja Force, it has construction and design limitations.  As a one off, it was neat to see.  As the default Stormshadow, though, the mold was frustrating.  In 2004, Hasbro got the 1988 Stormshadow mold back from Funskool and also resurrected the 1984 figure.  By then, though, it was kind of too late.

In additionl to the production versions of this mold, there are also several pre-production and unproduced figures from this time period.  The first is the unproduced 2003 Sky Patrol Stormshadow that would have been a Wal Mart exclusive.  These figures were cancelled due to the parachutes they would have included.  And, Wal Mart released some decent JvC sculpt repaints instead.   The figure is an interesting blend of blue and red.  On the 1984 or 1988 mold, this color scheme might have been fun.  On the 1992 figure, though, it doesn't do much for me.

Hasbro then followed up the unproduced 2003 Wal Mart set with the mold's use in the 2004 Urban Strike set.  All of the Urban Strike figures have unproduced variants that use red cammo.  You can see Stormshadow below.  In this case, the production figure was a better release.  But, the red cammo was available for cheap for a long time and was worth picking up for that reason alone.

But, for some reason, there are actually two different unproduced Urban Strike Stormshadows.  In addition to the red cammo version, there is the grey version you see in the team shot below.  There was no explanation given as to why there are two variants of Stormshadow but not of the other members of the team.  But, such was the nature of the era.

Of course, all these figures are now tough to find and will cost you way more than the couple of bucks they'd have set you back in 2005.  But, that's the way of the market right now.  But, if you like the 1992 Stormshadow mold, there's some fun stuff to find that will keep you occupied for a while.