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.)  But, to be forthcoming, much of my personal hatred for this figure arose during his release window.  You'd often find him and only him resting on a peg at an otherwise sold out retailer.  And, all the false hope instilled in me when I'd see a few Joes on the shelves, only to find them being Night Creeper Leaders doesn't help my perception of this figure.

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.  But, the character was, pretty much, a throw away villain for Snake Eyes as the comic went deeper and deeper into his story.

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.  For a while, incomplete or slightly off condition figures were desirable in the customizing community for this reason.  And, if you can find any of the old customs sites from the early 2000's, it's likely you'll see this figure's legs appear rather frequently.  Even today, you'll see some kitbashes using Night Creeper Leader parts.

Normally, I adore orange figures.  The 1994 Star Brigade Roadblock remains one of my favorite figures ever released in the line.  But, for some reason, the color doesn't work for me on this figure.  I suspect a big part of that is the mold.  It just doesn't resonate with me.  I've never been a huge fan of bare chests.  Though, to be fair, the Night Creeper Leader's sculpting isn't bad.  But, that's one strike against him.  The second strike is that ninja figures didn't much matter to me back in the early '90's.  Without a firearm, the figure lost appeal.  The final strike, though, is that the figure just isn't what I envisioned a Night Creeper to be.

I was out of Joe toys in 1990.  My youngest brother got a Bullhorn.  That's the extent of the figures to enter our home.  I had no time or inclination to go to a toy store.  But, I did still  read the comic.  And, there, the Night Creepers looked badass.  I thought they had to be an  amazing figure.  So, seeing this Night Creeper leader that looked nothing like the amazing assassins from the early 90's era of the comic was a huge disappointment.  I wanted a figure that reminded me of the comic appearance.  And, this figure was about as far from that look as was possible.  And, that was enough to sink him.

I found the 1993 Night Creeper Leader several times as I chased the remnants of the Joe line in the mid 1990's.  And, I never bought him.  He joined Gristle as the only two standard carded figures from that era that I was able to find but decided to leave behind.  And, like Gristle, I've found that my original impressions of the figure were probably a bit too harsh.  While I doubt I'd have actually found a use for the Night Creeper Leader, the reality is that the figure isn't terrible.  The sculpting is strong, the proportions are nice and the colors are striking.  All of this adds up to a figure design that I should appreciate more than I do.  But, old perceptions are hard to shake.  And, when  I see this figure, I'm reminded of finding him and only him on various retail shelves and the seething disappointment I felt that another trip to a store had actually been in vain.   And, honestly, I don't really want to let all of that go because it reminds of when I was in my early 20's and evokes the feelings of the era that are getting harder and harder to recall as we get further away from them.  

The Night Creeper Leader's accessories are actually really nice.  While orange, his complement includes two well proportioned swords, the wicked knife that originated with the 1988 Hydro Viper, the crossbow from the 1990 Night Creeper (another great call back to the character's roots) and then the arm shield and wrist mounted crossbow from the 1988 Road Pig.  He's completed with the requisite spring loaded missile launcher, missiles and figure stand.  The Road Pig gear is especially nice as it's something that attaches to the figure and wasn't the type of thing seen all that often in the standard Battle Corps line of 1993 and 1994.  You can get the same tree in gold with the 1994 figure.  And, that's the way to go for better colors.  (The golden gear is also included with the Street Fighter Movie Edition Dhalsim.)  But, the entire complement feels rather close to the character in a way that few accessory trees of the era did.

The Night Creeper Leader was released twice.  (Technically, his legs first appeared on the 1990 Night Creeper and that bit of connection helps tie this figure to the original faction.)  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.  That's starting to happen.  But, the weird disparity hasn't ironed itself out, yet.  

Rarities - Asian Bootleg Night Creeper Leader

In the late 2000's and early 2010's, an oddball series of bootlegs showed up.  Originating in Asia, the figures were poor quality recreations of many 1993 G.I. Joe figures.  Most of them, though, had fairly substantial color differences from the Hasbro releases.  For a while, they were all fairly easy to find and really cheap: like $10 or less for a carded sample.  Slowly, though, the supply dried up and the figures disappeared.  Now, when they periodically show up, the figures drive lots of questions from collectors who have not seen them before.  

I'm unsure of the origin of these figures.  But, they are of extremely poor quality.  The paint is wonky and the construction materials are not good.  For something cheap, that's OK.  But, as these figures have now become "collectible", it can be problematic.  So, if you're spending big money on one of them, be sure to take care when you attempt to move it as they break easily.

There were lots of paint jobs on these figures that, if they were Hasbro quality, would be considered superior to the Hasbro figure that was released.  With this Night Creeper Leader, it's a mixed bag.  The figure features more muted colors than the 1993 release.  But, the soap colored flesh is offputting.  I do have to admit, though, that I like the blue more than the more rust colored orange pants.

His flesh colored weapons are just bizarre.  But, they are also a color that would have not otherwise existed.  Many of the figures in this series use weapon colors not seen in the Hasbro line.  I always like oddball weapon colors.  So, that's a point of interest for me.

You will that the carded figure below steals the card art from the 1993 figure.  The cardstock is thicker than a Hasbro cardback and is not easily mistaken for a Hasbro product by anyone even slightly familiar with the cardstock that Hasbro used.

If someone found this figure loose, it could be easily confused for a Funskool release.  The silver boots and bright blue highlights are the type of thing that Funskool was doing in the early 2000's.  But, the quality is much lower than even early 2000's Funskool.  

The cardback is interesting.  It shows all of the standard 1993 Hasbro releases that were shown on the real Night Creeper Leader card.  While many of the figures shown do have bootlegs that are in this series, others either do not or have yet to be found.  And, there are several figures which do exist that are not on this, particular cardback.

At one time, theses figures were all over Ebay and could be had for under $10 each.  Slowly, some of them dried up.  But, figures like Cobra Commander and Firefly hung around and could be acquired for the $10 price as recently as 2017.  But, those days are gone, now.  These figures rarely appear for sale.  And, while they're not overly expensive, you're still going to pay way too much for a toy of this quality.  I would love to know the full story of how these came to be and what became of the molds used to make them.  I find it odd that no pumped out a rainbow of Alley Vipers.  But, we're probably better off that they didn't.  Hopefully, someday, we'll get the full story on these guys.  Until then, we can enjoy the oddities.

1994 Night Creeper Leader - Around The Web

The 1994 Night Creeper Leader is one of the more obscure releases in the line.  He's a character that was introduced in 1993, though in a bright orange.  His 1994 repaint is more subtle.  But, it's kind of a hard figure to find.  I had to open mine off the card in the early 2000's to get one.  The 1993 figure is far easier to find and is the coloring that appears in the comic.  There's a lot more content available on the 1993 figure, too.  But, I was able to find a few gems that specifically related to the 1994 figure.  So, here's the best 1994 Night Creeper Leader content I could find around the web.

1994 Night Creeper Leader Profile

1994 Night Creeper Leader at JoeADay.com

1994 Night Creeper Leader by Danish Dude

1994 Night Creeper Leader by toysandtomfoolery

1994 Night Creeper Leader by thedustinmccoy

1994 Night Creeper Leader

In the mid 1990's, there were still some G.I. Joe figures hanging around at various retail outlets.  Most of them were the less desirable figures from the 1992 though 1994 assortments.  But, you could find gems from time to time.  During that era, I purchased pretty much every figure I found at retail.  Every now and then, though, there was a figure that was just too terrible for even me to buy.  These were mostly things like the Shadow Ninjas or Star Brigade Armor Tech or higher price point figures like the Mega Marines.  There was one standard carded figure, though, that I could not bring myself to every buy: the 1993 Night Creeper Leader.  This figure was just about everywhere.  But, the bare chested, tiger striped orange monstrosity simply never sat right with me.  I could not come up with any possible use for the figure.  So, I left him behind.  Years later, I found that the figure was repainted in 1994.  This purple and yellow incarnation wasn't much better than the Tigger the Tiger inspired 1993.  But, for some reason, I wanted him.

I spent several months searching for this figure, but could not find one anywhere.  No dealers had one, there were none posted on the online auction sites.  Basically, you couldn't find this figure.  I searched for months to no avail.  While it's hard to imagine now in the late 1990's, 1994 figures were difficult to track down in general and the repaints of 1993 characters were especially difficult to acquire.  That didn't mean the figure was expensive: far from it in most cases.  But, it was frustrating to track down.  I ended having to purchase a carded version of the figure from a seller in Asia.  He was selling Funskool figures (which, at that time, were only available from Asian sellers directly) as well as some obscure 1993 and 1994 figures.  Since I had spent a year unable to find one of these figures in the U.S., I bit the bullet and just ordered the figure from Asia.

Once I had the figure, though, he stayed carded for a few years.  I simply never got around to opening him as the figure was obtained for completion's sake rather than true desire to own.  In the early 2000's, I got around to opening the figure up and found his about as I had anticipated: mostly useless.  The sculpt and specialty didn't fit with my collecting goals at the time and the colors just didn't mesh even with the Night Creepers who still had a bit of home in my Joe world.  As time passed and my collection focus changed, it never came around to the Night Creeper Leader.  I don't really use ninjas at all in my collection and I mostly find the figures of them (especially those from the '90's) to be poor in relation to the contemporaries released at the time.  So, the Night Creeper Leader stays tucked in a bag, in a box, in a closet.  Some day, he may join a full display of 1994 Joes.  Until then, this is likely the last time he will escape from his baggie for a breath of fresh air.

At it's core, the figure is just purple and yellow with a splash of easily rubbed away gold paint on the top of the figure's head.  The mold details are fairly well sculpted.  But, the figure being bare chested really limits it's potential.  Had they sculpted or painted a shirt, the figure might be more useful.  Still, the straps on the figure's chest hold grenades (which don't seem like the most ninja weapon to me...), a knife and a throwing star.  They are actually painted a different color than the straps.  Granted, that color is purple, but it's more than other 1994 figures were treated to.  The figure features another knife and more grenades on his wrists.  (Really, he has more grenades than anything else.)  The pants feature no additional trappings.  But, the figure's face is sculpted into a hardened scowl.  The facial sculpting of the Joe line really progressed in the final years.  And, were it not for the mask with no eye slits, the Night Creeper Leader's head might be more preferred among customizers today due to the level of detail.

As a character, the Night Creeper Leader is basically no one.  He appeared in one issue of the comic as a foil to Snake Eyes who was defeated soundly.  Really, he is still a blank slate.  I suppose he could be used as Aleph, the leader of the Night Creepers in the comic.  But, Aleph had a cool design.  This guy does not.  The biggest characterization he was given is that the character covers his eyes.  You will notice his eye mask has not holes through which he can see.  These would be unnecessary for a blind man.  I suppose this was Hasbro's way of incorporating some of Larry Hama's ninja mystique into the line.  I get what they were going at.  But, it all just seems a little much.  Leaving him as the leader of a cool sub faction of Cobra would have been good enough.  The "I'm so such an awesome ninja that I don't need to see!" seems a bit forced.  But, if not for that, this guy would be just another member of the ninja overkill that saturated the final 3 years of the vintage line.

For accessories, the Night Creeper Leader is actually decked out nicely...especially when you consider that he doesn't have an original weapon in the lot.  His golden tree included 2 well done ninja swords that form the backbone of his arsenal.  Also included is the wrist crossbow from Road Pig.  It's not the greatest accessory in the world.  But, at it least it fits within the ninja context.  He also includes a golden version of the classic Night Creeper crossbow.  This at least gives him some continuity within his ranks and allows him to be identified with the Night Creepers...even if his mold does not.  He is completed with a spiked arm shield and a wicked "lightning" knife.  All told, it's a well thought out complement to the figure that fits his specialty.  The golden color even works for the swords.  (Though the pads and crossbow are a bit of a stretch.)

The Night Creeper Leader mold was rarely used.  While the pants and waist are from the 1990 Night Creeper that was used 3 times in the U.S., the rest of the figure is new.  But, being a late release, the new parts never appeared again in the U.S. or any other part of the world.  It is likely that Hasbro had access to the mold during the repaint era.  But, collector disinterest in the mold likely never made it a viable candidate for re-release.  Still, the mold has potential and could have been used in the Convention Dreadnok Set.  Beyond that, though, there is really no reason to see this mold return.

Today, 1994 Night Creeper Leaders aren't difficult to track down.  The supply that was locked away 15 years ago has come out and is readily available.  Carded, this figure can be purchased for under $10 each.  For that price, there's no reason to not acquire a sample.  Even if the figure isn't great, he is worth that type of cheap price.  I'm glad I picked this guy up all those years ago.  He's not the abomination that defines his original, orange version.  But, he's not great, either.  Interspersed with a full display of the 1994 figures, though, the Night Creeper Leader does fit right in.  (And, that's not an insult!)  For what it costs to acquire him today, this limited use is still worth the outlay.