1989 Countdown - Around The Web

Countdown was the first Joe astronaut that was released on a single card.  Oddly, this was a case when Cobra got a carded specialty first.  But, Countdown was worth the wait and remains one of the top astronaut sculpts in the line.  He's sleek, properly colored and includes amazing gear.  He got a few repaints, some of which are equally as nice as this figure.  Here's the best of him from around the web.

1989 Countdown Profile

1989 Countdown by nightforcetunnelrat

1989 Countdown by atticagazette

1989 Countdown by python.patrol_benny

1989 Countdown by Slipstream80

1989 Countdown by Hit and Run

1989 Countdown by dantedmc

1989 Countdown by Formbx257

1989 Countdown by gijoecbarcelona

1989 Countdown at JoeADay.com

1993 Star Brigade Countdown

Some memories fade in time.  But, working through all the details I do recall, I'm able to confirm timelines of many of my post childhood Joes.  What I do remember about the 1993 Countdown is that I found him over spring break when I was home from college.  I also remember that I emptied out a jar of change and paid for this figure in quarters at the local KB Toy Works that was at the Lafayette Square mall in Indianapolis.  Remembering that the weather was nice helps me place this as a 1995 purchase. That also jives with my recollection of him being among the first figures I added to my collection around this time.

Countdown's color scheme is just poor.  The blue flightsuit is too close to Cobra colors.  (And, the plastic Hasbro used is REALLY susceptible to discoloring.)  The white and red mesh well enough.  But, the figure is busy without being put together.  The 1989 and 1994 paint jobs tie the mold together much more tightly.  The yellow accessories exacerbate the problem.  The figure just seems noisy.  It's hard to pair him with other figures for photos and he seems out of place in most vehicles.  While the mold is strong for an Astronaut, the more subtle paint choices on the other releases are far better options with the Crusader or Defiant as well as any other Joe aircraft.

The paint job obfuscates the quality of the Countdown mold.  The space suit is sleek and the helmet is a tight fit without being detrimental to the paint on the figure's head.  It's a look that's instantly recognizable as an astronaut.  But, also somewhat futuristic and modern.  In short, it's a perfect look for an astronaut on the G.I. Joe team.  The holstered pistol and various canisters on the body work for a military spaceman.  Sadly, though, without a backpack, Countdown's survival in space would be severely limited in time.  1989 Countdown packs work well enough and were common to find back in the early days of Joe collecting.  But, the lack of a pack was one of the reasons why this figure found himself an earth bound fighter pilot instead of an astronaut in my Joe world.

This Countdown no longer serves any real purpose in my collection.  I have better Countdown figures to display and use in photos.  The only reason this figure holds any value to me is because he was one of the figures I had early in my return to collecting as a young adult.  I was a broke college kid who bought this figure in change because the price was right and, at the time, any figure that had a removable helmet and could be used as a pilot was in my wheelhouse.  So, Countdown quickly found himself in the Razorblade.  Here, he was a nameless, faceless pilot who was blown to bits, incinerated, flatted upon impact or drowned in the ocean when his aircraft was destroyed.  But, this was short-lived.  First, Countdown's colors didn't really work with the more military themed paint job of the Razorblade.  But, second and more importantly, Ozone was more fun to play with.  His smaller helmet allowed for greater head movement and, by proxy, much more brutal death scenes.  So, Ozone became the pilot du jour in the Razorblade and Countdown fell out of favor...never to return.

Twenty five years later, this Countdown's place remains the same.  While I love Star Brigade, the 1993 Countdown isn't really part of that equation.  The Countdown character is the 1994 figure.  When I look at this 1993 version, I do remember the times when I had only he and Ozone as pilots.  But, my memories are mostly of Ozone due to his far better death scenes played out with the less limiting fit of his helmet.  I tried Countdown as a deep sea diver.  But, the 1993 Payload worked better for that.  And, I added the 1989 Deep Six to my collection relatively quickly in the late 1990's.  So, this Countdown sat, unloved for many years.  While I still have a carded version, this loose figure is starting to discolor due to neglect.  It's a sad fate for the figure.  But, kind of analogous to his history in my collection.  

Countdown's accessories are not great.  The reason they're not great is because they are bright yellow.  Really, the weapons included with the figure are excellent sculpts.  But, in bad colors, they lose all their value.  Countdown's main rifle is a re-sculpt of the 1992 Cloudburst rifle.  I have little recollection of this yellow release.  Instead, all the memories of this weapon being introduced into my collection are from the 1993 Backblast's black version.  The gun is large.  But, I find it a nice complement to 1993 era figures.  Countdown also has a huge rocket launcher.  I've never really liked it as it's a bit outlandish.  But, the weapon can have some uses.  There is also a nice, slim knife.  In black, it's pretty good.  In yellow, it's not.  Countdown is completed with a figure stand and the requisite spring loaded missile launcher.  In black, this gear would have been cool.  But, in yellow, it's not.  You can get this same weapon tree in an interesting green color with the Funskool Countdown figure.  While it still doesn't really mesh with the 1993 Countdown paint job, it has more uses with other 1993 figures.

Countdown had a nice history.  The first version of the figure appeared in 1989.  This release was silver, white and blue and is one of the nicest astronauts Hasbro ever made.  The red, blue and white 1993 release is drastically different.  The 1994 paint job is grey, green and blue and is a striking figure that's easily on par with the 1989 release.  Hasbro then sent the mold to Funskool.  They started producing a Countdown in India starting in the late 1990's.  There are a few variants of this figure: mostly slight color shadings and differences in eye paint.  Countdown's head appeared in some of the Funskool marketing incentive figures, too.  Collectors have three major paint variations they can track down.  And, one Funskool figure that is based on this 1993 paint job.  That's a lot for an astronaut.  Of course, I'd take another repaint of the mold.  But, this will never happen and I'm content with what we actually got from Hasbro.

The 1993 Star Brigade figures actually share a general look.  Countdown shares the red and white with Roadblock and the red and blue with Ozone.  The colors aren't a perfect match.  But, they show more uniformity than other late subsets.  Payload is the only outlier.  Though, his blue 1994 variant would kind of fit with the team.  The real oddball of the series, though, is the cardbacks.  The 1993 Star Brigade featured the first generic card art in the line's history.  Instead of each character getting their own artwork, the packaging features an Astro Viper and the mold that was supposed to be Payload.  (Hasbro couldn't find the 1987 Payload mold.  So, the 1992 Eco Warriors Barbecue was tapped for the character instead.)  Even the cardbacks featured photos of the actual figures instead of thumbnails of the card art.  (Though, the green Payload on early cardbacks is either airbrushed or a photo of a handpainted sample.)  The Armor Tech Star Brigade figures did get unique card art and appear as artwork on the cardbacks.  But, Hasbro was about saving money as the line limped to the end.  1993 Star Brigade would be joined by the Shadow Ninjas in 1994 as the only U.S. Joe releases with generic card art.  The entire series suffers for this as the cards are generic and not that eye-catching.  The 1994 Star Brigade series is one of the nicest looking subsets in the line.  1993 Star Brigade might be the worst.

High quality carded 1993 Countdowns run around $18 or so.  But, there are lots of off condition carded samples available that tend to sell in the $10 range.  This is about the same price you'll pay for a mint and complete with filecard Countdown.  Figures that aren't complete will run about $5.  In short, loose 1993 Countdowns remain one of the really cheap options for Joe collectors.  But, this red, blue and white version is, easily, the worst paint job for this sculpt.  So, his pricing makes sense.  While I love Star Brigade figures, I'm not fond of this Countdown.  All of his other versions are better.  This figure, though, does still have a connection to me though his time of purchase and his existence in my collection when my pickings were slim.

1994 Star Brigade - Carded Set

In the second half of 1998, I really started to look to G.I. Joe collecting as my hobby of choice.  I had dabbled a bit in a Joe resurgence for a while.  But, the retail stream of new Star Wars figures consumed not only most of my money, but also my time.  However, by the summer of 1998, the Star Wars market was over-saturated.  The huge volume of shipments and new waves that included carry over figures from earlier releases had caused a pegwarming backup that was unprecedented.  While the early part of 1998 had been a great time of constant new figures and refreshed army builders, Hasbro had made too much and the waves planned for later in the year could not get out to retail.  This resulted in a some waves being cancelled, others only showing up in obscure retailers and the complete reboot of the line in early 1999.  To me, though, the retail frustration of Star Wars, coupled with my first major promotion in my adult career lead me down another path along which I could spend my money.  All of this, of course, coincided with the emergence of Ebay as a means to purchase items that were not available from local toy dealers or second hand shops.  As I shifted my collecting priorities, I first focused on a few items from the Joe line that I had long wanted.  Among them were a Hammer, the 1989 Rock and Roll and, at least one Lunartix Alien.

In 1998, the alien figures, MOC, fetched about $15 on the secondary market.  This seems low, but was a princely sum back then.  You could get lesser character 1985 figures MOC for that price at the time.  So, it was a large purchase when I bit the bullet and got a Lobotomaxx figure.  When he arrived, I realized how cool the overall card presentation was.  I liked the colors and look of Star Brigade.  And, I had a connection to the 1993 series that I had found at KB Toys liquidation stores a few years prior.  As I surveyed the other 1994 Star Brigade offerings, I was enthralled by the designs and colors.  At the time, the figures were relatively hard to find, especially if you wanted them loose.  However, you could find them carded: and they were cheap when you did.  So, I put together my first complete series of carded figures: the 1994 Star Brigade.

The '94 Star Brigade line was divided into two distinct series.  The first wave consisted of Cobra Commander, Cobra Blackstar, Sci Fi, Payload, Space Shot, Duke and Roadblock.  The second wave contained Ozone, Countdown, Effects, Lobotomaxx, Predacon and Carcass.  This left an unlucky 13 figures in the retail, single carded line.  But, the overall presentation remained.  Gone were the generic pink cards from 1993 and in was a visual delight of black, blue and purple with a clean G.I. Joe logo running up the card's left edge, culminating in a bright Star Brigade logo at the card's top.  Each character got his own, unique card art along with a yellow "gimmick" tag that touted some feature of each figure.  In short, they were a crisp, clean look for the last unique retail wave of figures to hit stores.

Wave 1 showcased Hasbro's commitment to the line.  5 of the 7 figures featured either mostly new parts, or all new parts.  On top of this, the characters all included a wide array of feature rich accessories that were essential for retail success at the time.  Hasbro did skimp on the overall paint applications, though.  Most of the figures only have three or four minor paint masks.  And, Duke and the variant Roadblock only featured one paint mask on their entire body.  This Roadblock and the Payload figure were repaints of Star Brigade molds that had been released in 1993.  Which, in turn, were mostly repaints of prior years' retail release figures.  So, the line spent money wisely in terms of bringing something new to the market.

1994 Star Brigade Wave 1: Duke, Sci Fi, Space Shot and Cobra Commander

1994 Star Brigade Countdown

I remain a Star Brigade junkie.  I enjoy the subset and find the figures from both 1993 and 1994 to be extremely well done.  I freely admit that the notion of all astronaut sub team that, in the end, was fighting aliens is pretty far off the edge of acceptable G.I. Joe mythos.  But, that doesn't take away from the overall quality of the figures released in the series.  The reality is that the Star Brigade figures are extremely high quality and feature some great colors and molds and were a great bookend to the vintage line.  Of the figures in the 1994 Star Brigade series, it is the Countdown figure that features my favorite color palette.

As a character, Countdown was not the first Joe astronaut figure.  But, he was the first to be released in the carded retail line.  (Though the Cobra Astro Viper was released the year prior.)  As such, Countdown was actually designed as an astronaut mold.  The remaining repaints in this series are all from other purposes, originally.  This gives the mold some authenticity.  The body features intricate details that fit with the astronaut theme.  The helmet, though, is the greatest asset of the figure.  The helmet fits snugly over the figure's head and melds perfectly with the body.  It looks like an astronaut helmet and matches the look for the figure.  Countdown has some weapons (which I assume would be used inside space stations or in the atmosphere) molded to his chest.  This version, though, lacks the backpack from the original figure.  The result is a helmeted figure with no life support systems.  The upside is that 1989 Countdowns are cheap and it's easy to get extra packs to outfit this figure.  But, it's a glaring omission that plagued most of the Star Brigade figures.

I found the 1993 Star Brigade figures at a toy liquidator in 1995.  I enjoyed the hodge podge of blues, reds, whites and greens that comprised the 1993 series.  I did not learn of the 1994 series until much later.  As soon as I saw the more muted colors of the 1994 Star Brigade series, I was hooked and had to have them.  I began a search for any and all 1994 Star Brigade figures.  At the time, it was fairly easy to find the Lunartix aliens on the second hand market.  They were expensive, but available.  The remaining figures, though, were very difficult to find.  Over time, I was able to track down carded versions of the complete 1994 Star Brigade series except for Countdown and Ozone.   Those two figures just never appeared for sale.  Finally, in very early 1999, I found a lot with multiples of each. I staked it out and was finally able to add Countdown to my collection.

I immediately opened the carded version as there was no way I could not have a loose version of the grey, green and blue Countdown figure.  This version was easily the best version of Countdown ever released.  Quickly, this figure became the replacement for the 1993 Countdown who was one of the main pilot figures in my collection.  He looked good in the Skystriker, but did not fit in the Skyhawk.  As I did not have a Defiant, though, my uses for Countdown were somewhat limited.  I wanted the figure to be more prominent.  But, it was difficult to find many of the few aircraft I had in my collection that would both fit the figure and display him appropriately.

The second series of Star Brigade was extremely limited in production.  It was estimated that only around 10,000 of each Lunartix alien figure was produced.  The humans in the series were produced in equal numbers.  So, Countdown, Ozone and Effects join Lobotomaxx, Predacon,  Carcass, Gears and the V2 Techno Viper as some of the rarest figures in the vintage line.  That doesn't mean you can't find them.  But, even today, it is much easier to track these figures down still carded than it is to find them loose.  By the time the 2nd series of Star Brigade was released, many collectors and dealers were in the market for them.  That kept the carded figures easily available in the collector market while loose figures have mostly come from collectors like me who opened carded figures acquired on the secondary market.

The Countdown mold has a decent history.  It was released in 1989, 1993 and then in 1994.  Around 1999 or 2000, the mold appeared in India where it was released by Funskool.  The Funskool version is similar to the 1993 Countdown, but has some unique elements.  (It should be noted that Funskool was still releasing Countdown as late as 2009.)  Overall, there are 3 basic incarnations of Countdown, but each is very well done and is different enough from the others that the mold has some nice diversity.  The V1 and V3 figures are both excellent visual representations of the character.  The V2 offers some different colors that still work very well.  Even if Hasbro had the mold back (though that is unlikely) there isn't much that could be done with the mold that would surpass the figures that have already been released.

These days, the 1994 Star Brigade figures are actually somewhat desirable among collectors.  This has lead to higher prices than we've ever seen for carded and loose samples of the figures.  The most highly sought after figures remain Roadblock, Blackstar and Space Shot.  But, figures like this Countdown are starting to get their due.  Collectors have realized that Countdown is among the rarest figures ever released in the line, is actually a great color scheme and is worth owning.  As such, you can expect to pay upwards of $12-$15 for a mint, loose, complete version and maybe $25 for a carded sample.  In the grand scheme of things, that's still pretty cheap.  But, when you consider that about a decade ago, you could carded samples for under $3 each, you're talking quite an increase.  For my money, this figure is worth it.  The colors are excellent and really add something interesting to any collection.

1989 Countdown

Love it or hate it, space exploration was a major part of the G. I. Joe toy line. Starting with the Defiant Space Shuttle complex, the second most ambitious toy ever created, in 1987, and continuing until the lines bitter end in 1994, space toys were an integral part of the Joe team. The first astronaut to be available carded was the 1988 Astro Viper. It was a cool figure, but largely ignored. In 1989, though, the Joes got tougher in the space ranks when the Crusader shuttle, a smaller, more affordable toy that was just the shuttle from the Defiant complex, and Countdown were released. In 1989, I was out of Joe collecting. I had picked up a few straggler figures in early 1988, but I had started high school that year, and Joes weren't cool anymore. I did pick up a Night Viper in 1990, but that was it until I went to college. In 1995, I discovered the 1993 Star Brigade figures. Roadblock, of course, was my favorite. Ozone and Countdown, though, were both very high up on my list. I used them as pilots in all sorts of aircraft. As soon as I realized there was an earlier, better version of Countdown available, though, I sought him out. Now, I have 5.

Every year, I make one big purchase that is a bit too expensive and something that I want, but won't use enough to justify the purchase price. In 1998, it was a vintage Star Wars POTF Amanaman and Barada. In 1999, it was my Battle Rangers Flint. This year, it will either be a USS Flagg aircraft carrier, or a Defiant Space Shuttle Complex. As I have recently been informed that the Flagg won't float, the tide is turning towards a Defiant. (Still, it would have been too cool to have the Flagg in my pool being attacked by a bunch of hydrofoils.) In order to properly man that Defiant, I have been stockpiling astronaut figures for several years. The 1989 version of Countdown will be among the primary crew. I've been adding '93 Star Brigade figures as well. The five 1993 green Payloads are also on the short list for the first flight.

This is not my favorite version of this figure. The 1993 version, with red, white, and blue, is the worst, but the 1994 version is far and away my favorite. Of course, I have never, ever seen him offered sale as a loose figure. He is tough to find carded, and never appears loose. Fortunately, this original 1989 version is very similar and is also very cool. I just like the look of this figure. Normally, all white figures that aren't Arctic specialists don't really enthrall me. With this figure, though, the look works. The colors blend and complement each other wonderfully. Countdown is just a figure that is fun to look at. When it comes time to use him, though, the possibilities are also endless. Of course, I use him as an astronaut, but I also use him as a deep sea diver. Countdown also pilots a few of my jets. I have also removed his helmet, and given him a 1984 Ripcord helmet and mask and turned him into a fighter jock. Again, the look is cool. There is no reason to limit this figure just because space exploration is not an arena where you like to use your Joes.

I love this guy's accessories. The helmet is just awesome. The space pack with the rope thingie, though, looks cooler than it really is. Still, I enjoy using it with figures other than Countdown. His pistol is a bit futuristic, but isn't outlandish like some of the weapons from the '90's were. I am after a couple more of his packs, though, as I want to take the grappling hook off and use it with some other figures. I am anxious to get a shuttle of some type as I want to man it with my many Countdowns and 1993 Payloads. Then, the rope and hook will come in much more handy. Space rescue missions will be a lot of fun and something that I haven't been able to do before. I've been thinking about picking up one of those CORPS! Space Force shuttles. The CORPS! Hummer is a very nice toy. If the shuttle is of even remotely similar quality, it could be a fun companion piece to a Defiant.

After his many releases in the US, Countdown was also released in India in colors very similar to those of the 1993 figure. As he was a late Funskool release, it is likely that the mold is now back in the control of Hasbro and they could use it for another figure at some point in the future. However, I don't think that's very likely anymore and we have probably seen the last of the Countdown mold.

Countdowns aren't too tough to find. Getting one complete can be a bit of a hassle. Collectors don't tend to be terribly fond of astronaut figures. As such, you can often get these guys pretty cheap. They appear in all sorts of lots and usually at least come with a helmet. As is the case, though, with all white figures, you do have to watch out for discoloring. The bright white color tends to darken, and is easily stained. The figure you see below looked fine in the dim morning light when I picked him out. When I got to work to scan him in, I realized just how miscolored he was. You can see how bright the helmet is compared to the figure. That is how white the figure should look. Still, slightly miscolored figures are fun to have. The 1993 version of this figure can still be had for about $2.00 carded. The 1994's, if you can find them, are also only about $6.00 or $7.00 carded. This version, goes for a bit more, but is more readily available loose than the superior 1994 version. You can usually find these guys in any lot that includes 1989 or 1990 figures. As long as you get the helmet, this figure is one that has found many uses in my collection.

I would really like a loose 1994 Countdown. If you can help, email me.