The 2004 Night Force set featured a nice set of molds that were recently returned from Funskool. Flint, Beach Head, Action Man and Tunnel Rat were fresh from India and Hasbro were keen to get them into production. The set was augmented by the 1989 Downtown mold. These five figures all meshed quite well in terms of style and bulk. The 6th figure in the set, though, was the odd man out. Instead of using another mold that was also of the ball headed style, Hasbro tossed in an older, swivel headed mold. And, it was a mold that had been used twice in the prior three years. By the time of the Night Force set's released, collectors were tired of the 1984 Roadblock mold. It had been released enough times. And, the last thing collectors wanted was another version of it that was also missing the classic accessory complement that was iconic to the Roadblock character.
In 1984, Roadblock was bulky. The figure's torso was design to showcase Roadblock's muscles and size. In looking at him through the lens of 2004, though, the limitations of this design show through. Hasbro got much better at figure sculpting as the line progressed and figures like Roadblock, while important stepping stones, show the age of their design. He was out of place with the other figures in the set. The fact that Hasbro tried to use paint to cover up the fact that the original had a lot of exposed skin also made the figure's visual just seem odd. He lost the muscle tone that was implied by his exposed flesh. Even in 2004, Roadblock was the least popular member of the Night Force. And, his inclusion was the most questioned by the collecting community.
I was one of those who found little purpose in the figure. I get it that Roadblock was a hugely popular character at the time. But, Hasbro had just gotten back the 1992 Roadblock mold. (We didn't know it would re-debut just a few months later in the Anti-Venom set.) And, they had used the 1986 Roadblock mold in 1997, but never given us an actual Roadblock release using that body. Seeing the 1984 sculpt so close on the heels of the BJ's Roadblock and the 2001 Double Blast just felt like laziness. And, that colored the perceptions of the Night Force set. Roadblock was enough to suck some of the joy from a set that, otherwise, featured molds collectors were clamoring for.
Hasbro's ability to paint figures grew quite a bit between the vintage Joe line and the early 2000's. And, Hasbro took several opportunities to showcase just how far they could push the paint applications on figures. The Night Force is one of the best examples from a retail release of that time. Roadblock features six different colors on his body. And, the Night Force cross pattern shows just how intricate Hasbro could be with their paint applications. But, one of the things that the new paint proved was that, sometimes, less is more. The Night Force figures are so elaborate that they're too busy. The details become distracting. And, what could be great figures end up somewhat diminished because they simply tried to do too much. If Roadblock had more solidly colored pants with the patterned shirt, he wouldn't seem quite so distracting. The same is true if the Spider-Man webbing were removed from his torso and the digital cammo on his legs remained. Hasbro outsmarted themselves on several figure sets in the 2000s where they did too much. Then, they overcorrected and did too little. It was rare to find figures that were just right. But, when they did hit, Hasbro was still capable of making figures that surpassed much of the vintage line. This Roadblock, though, just wasn't one of the figures that accomplished this.
One of the things that the reuse of the Roadblock mold proved was just how important the proper accessories were with some figures. The 2001 Double Blast used this mold and included almost all of the original Roadblock's gear. And, as such, he's an acceptable (but boring!) repaint. Once Hasbro removed the helmet, pack and proper machine gun, though, the limitations of this Roadblock become apparent. I've hated this figure for 22 years. Yet, when I finally slapped a black version of his pack on him along with a 1985 Battle Gear helmet, the figure is actually useful and can be a nice version of Roadblock to drop into photos.
But, you have to have your own accessory store from which to outfit the figure. The 2004 Night Force was notoriously light on accessories and all the figures included common gear that had been recently used with other figures instead of classic accessories that were intended for the molds. Roadblock was a typical offender. Instead of his "Ma Deuce", Roadblock included just two rifles. Neither fit the figure. One was the classic 1984 Firefly sub machine gun...a weapon far too paltry for Roadblock. The second is the 1990 Big Ben rifle. Once upon a time, this was a great weapon that was fun to have around. By 2004, though, it was overused, overexposed and generally hated by collectors. It also didn't fit the character. I can't reiterate enough just how much this 2004 Roadblock is improved with a helmet and the 1984 Roadblock machine gun, stand and backpack. Fortunately, the weapon, pack and stand were all released in bulk during the 2000's. So, they are an easy acquisition you can get to improve this figure.
With the added accessories, I've come to not hate this figure. But, I also still don't have any uses for it. I much prefer to use the 1984 figure or even Double Blast when I want this mold in a photo. This Night Force version is nice to intermingle with other 2000's era figures. But, Double Blast is better for that, too. That leaves this Roadblock on the outskirts of my collection. He's just not a guy who has a lot of purpose. And, he's so out of place among his team that he doesn't even fit there. So, I have the photos of him I took for this profile. That's the extent of the usage I've gotten from him in over 20 years. That's not much of a legacy. If you don't have a Double Blast, though, the Night Force Roadblock isn't a terrible stand in. But, then you have to go out and find some new accessories for him. And, that's not really worth the effort.
The 1984 Roadblock mold was only used by Hasbro. But, it was used a lot! The figure debuted in 1984, got a 1988 Tiger Force repaint and then proceeded to appear in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005. The parts (mostly the arms) were used on a multitude of other figures. The torso even appeared on the 2006 Tommy Arashikage figure. The 2001 repaint (which, technically, was Double Blast) was OK, but not materially different from the 1984 figure. The 2002 Gift Set figure is an odd blue color that appears more Cobra than Joe. (There is also an unproduced version of this figure available in red.) The comic pack figure from 2005 is equally bad as it uses pastel yellow as the base and has a terribly sculpted new head. Even this Night Force figure has an unproduced variant where you can find the figure in white pants. In short, Hasbro overused the mold but still never managed to make a good repaint of this Roadblock. Thankfully, Hasbro moved on to the 1992 Roadblock mold for their repaint mania and collectors were spared additional, bad repaints of this 1984 mold.
Despite the fact that this Roadblock, you know, sucks, dealer pricing is high. Incomplete figures sell for $12-$15 with alarming regularity since the figure doesn't appear all that often. Hasbro made around 20,000 Night Force sets to be sold at retail. The sets were available both in stores and online and it took until the end of 2004 for them to really sell out. And, large quantities of additional loose figures were available from Asia for a while. So, the figure is out there in numbers. But, the influx of new Joe collectors since 2018 has caused many of them to overestimate the rarity of the 2000's era figures. The same thing happened to the 1997 and 1998 figures in 2001-2003 when a large group of collectors who had just missed the prior retail releases came online. In time, that sorted itself out and those figures fell precipitously in price. The same thing will happen with this Roadblock since he simply doesn't stand up to real scrutiny. He's not the worst Roadblock. But, that's only because Hasbro made stinkers that are even more abominable.
