1985 Snake Eyes

How do you approach a figure that is generally regarded as the most popular and most important figure in the entire Joe line?  The figure isn't "forgotten" by any means.  It is also a mold that is personal and dear to collectors of multiple generations.  While there are admitted flaws in the figure's design, they are forgivable due to the overall quality of the the release.  I've avoided writing about this figure for 25 years.  Yes, officially, this Snake Eyes marks the 25th anniversary of me profiling G.I. Joe figures.  And, really, the only choice for such an occasion is the most popular figure in the history of the Joe line: the 1985 Snake Eyes.

In very early 1985, a kid in my class heard rumors of new G.I. Joe figures showing up at the local KB Toys store.  Since the Dreadnoks had come out early, pretty much everyone was aware of who would be part of the 1985 line.  And, the cartoon from the prior fall had made Flint, Lady Jaye and Shipwreck early front runners to be the favorites.  Everyone, though, was also highly curious about the new Commando figure.  We all knew it was a new Snake Eyes and were desperate to add him to our collection as a foil to the then brand new 1984 Stormshadow figure.  I finally got my mother to take me to the local KB on a Friday after we got mid term grades.  Sure enough, 1985 Joes were falling off the pegs.  My young mind could barely take in all the various newness that was strewn about the pegs.  I found a Flint.  But, I put him back because his head drooped and I thought he was broken in the package.  (I didn't know about the new head articulation.)  I ended up buying Footloose and Airtight.  My youngest brother got a Crimson Guard.  While I looked over the figures, a clerk came over and remarked about how they had gotten a couple of the "Commando" figures and they had sold out right away.  On one level, I was disappointed I had missed out on this figure.  But, on the other hand, there was so many other amazing new releases that any disappointment was washed away.

Over the next few weeks, my two best friends and I had a friendly competition over who could find the most new figures.  At the time, we didn't know the code-names for the Tele Viper or Snow Serpent.  And, my one friend was oddly bothered by the fact that no one had found a Lady Jaye figure.  None of us really pined over Snake Eyes, though.  Stormshadow, from the year prior, had not really become available at retail until the Fall and my friend had ended up ordering exta figures from JC Penny's to get a Stormshadow figure after being frustrated at retail for a year.  We assumed Snake Eyes would be similar and we'd not see hide nor hair of him until the leaves began to turn.  

The Friday that Spring Break began, though, my mother took us grocery shopping to stock up on food while we were home for the week.  Both of my friends and their families were going to Florida for the time off.  The local Cub Foods in Indianapolis was very close to the Toys R Us.  And, as a quid pro quo for us going shopping and bagging all the groceries, my mom would stop at TRU and let us browse before we'd go to the supermarket.  When we arrived, nothing seemed all that different.  I made my way to the Joe aisle where I saw a box on the floor.  This box turned out to be a yet to be stocked case of 1985 Joes.  I slowly peeled back the flaps that hid the contents inside.  I scanned the exposed accessory bubbles for anything of interest.  My eyes immediately fixated on a grey wolf.  I yanked the figure out of the case and held the 1985 Snake Eyes figure in my hand for the first time.  I was trembling at my luck.  My mother, though, failed to see the significance of the find and refused to buy me or my brothers anything.  Fortunately, I had my own money and took my prize to the front where he became mine.  In the hullaballoo, I'm sure I bypassed not only my missing Flint, but also Lady Jaye and the yet to be named Tele Viper and Snow Serpent.  But, I only had enough to buy one figure and it was going to be Snake Eyes.

I got Snake Eyes home and opened him up.  Immediately, I posed him with my other new 1985 figures on top of the Bridge Layer.  The new Snake Eyes was just so cool that I didn't do much more than admire him for that first afternoon and evening.  I can still recall turning on the light in my room after bedtime, just to make sure that Snake Eyes was still sitting there, next to Alpine, Airtight and Footloose.  I still wasn't sure that finding him had been a dream.  But, it wasn't. And, in the ensuing days of having no friends to play with, Snake Eyes became the focal point of my adventures.  He battled Stormshadow, would kill scores of Cobras and even just do mundane things around my Joe base.  But, mostly I just admired him.  I found the sculpt and design enthralling.  And, I'd try to dream up adventures for the figure where I felt all aspects of the figure could be used.

In the zeal of youth, I called my friends when I got home.  They, though, were both already gone.  I let each of their phones ring more than 20 times (it was the days before answering machines were common) but did not connect with them.  When we returned to school around 10 days later, neither believed my luck until I brought my new Snake Eyes over to their respective houses.  It was months before either of them found a Snake Eyes.  And, in that time, I was pretty much a dick who wouldn't let anyone play with mine.  In fact, there were times I didn't play with mine as I didn't want to break him.  But, having the figure provided more value than the actual character did.

This revelation, though, proved pivotal in my long term evaluation of this 1985 Snake Eyes figure.  While I did, eventually, play my original to death and broke his thumb, I also found that this version of Snake Eyes was almost too cool to use.  Many times, I would take the figure along, but never actually use him.  It was tough to integrate Snake Eyes into my play.  A big part of this was that my adventures of that era were heavy on dialogue to move the plot along.  Snake Eyes being mute made it difficult for him to be an integral player aside from carrying out a specific task or objective.  This lead to Snake Eyes often being set out of the way, waiting for his time in the spotlight.  This backfired on me, too.

After my original Snake Eyes broke, I got another one at some point in 1986.  This figure was better cared for and continued to tag along on great missions.  He was always included in the "away" force that traveled with me to may grandparents' or aunt and uncle's homes.  It was in my grandparents' backyard in Dayton, Ohio that my second Snake Eyes disappeared.  My grandparents had a great backyard in which to play.  It was terraced into three levels by limestone walls full of ledges, pipes and ivy.  Years later, Hit and Run would be hidden among this ivy for months after I forgot him due to his excellent camouflage.  I do not, though, know where my Snake Eyes went.  The stairway to the third terrace in the yard was lined with fresh potting soil and newly planted geraniums.  It's likely that I left Snake Eyes here and he was tilled under before I could find him.  So, Snake Eyes disappeared from my collection once again.  In late 1987, I paid a classmate $10 for both his 1985 Snake Eyes and a complete with microphone Heavy Metal.  (This seems like a deal, now, just due to Heavy Metal.  But, it seemed a princely sum in 1987.)  This Snake Eyes survived for many years.  Around 1996, he and my childhood Stormshadow were set in a permanent duel on a shelf in my room.  When I moved to AZ, then ended up in a Crown Royal bag for the move and stayed there until 2001.  At that point, he was incorporated into my general collection and is, to the best of my knowledge, one of the three or four 1985 Snake Eyes figures I still own today.

Snake Eyes did take on another life in my collection.  The unbroken parts of my original figure were used to make a new, custom character.  This individual was a "mystic warrior" who was trained in martial arts, but also fantasy magic.  He could speak, giving him a tremendous advantage over Snake Eyes.  He also, though, was torn between the world of military discipline and devout practice of his chosen arts.  As I grew into a 1990's jaded Gen X-er, this character turned his back on the Joes and went off to study in the Rocky Mountains.  Cobra, though, managed to train an assassin who would go insane and then started killing world politicians: setting the stage for a post Cold War World War III.  The Snake Eyes character was pulled out of retirement and sent to find and kill the maniacal assassin.  In the end, he was successful in doing so.  But, then also viewed his debt to G.I. Joe fully paid.  Though, he had one final use.  As an old man, he helped to arrange the killing of General Hawk, forcing G.I. Joe to face the realities of the world in the late 2010's.  If he's ever found out, he will die in prison.  But, the stakes were too high and his final, horrible act is also the one that saves the team and allows them to grow before the world passed them by.

Snake Eyes' accessories are damn near perfection.  The weak link, for me, is one of the aspects of the figure that most other collectors hold as the highlight: the inclusion of Timber.  Timber is well sculpted and commands a premium by himself.  I've never really gotten this as I don't much care for animal companions in general.  But, the wolf is a key element of the figure.  Hasbro sculpted a new Uzi for this Snake Eyes version.  It is nearly identical to the original from 1982/1983.  But, it has a thicker barrel and is jet black in lieu of the charcoal colored original.  The figure then includes a well detailed black backpack.  Into this pack fits the character's sword.  The sword is the highlight for me as it's well detailed and a huge step forwards in terms of toy making from both the 1984 Stormshadow katanas and the contemporary 1985 Quick Kick sword.  Something about the shape of the sword just added to the overall mystique of the figure and it remains my favorite sword in the line.

Snake Eyes was released by Hasbro in 1985 and 1986.  The Hasbro figure was available in Europe and Japan.  Estrela got the figure around the early 1990's and produced a nearly identical figure to this Snake Eyes named Lobisomem (Werewolf).  Thus ends the life of this mold.  Yup, that's it.  What is, arguably, the best and most desirable mold in the entire vintage Joe line was used just twice in nearly identical paint schemes.  It was never repainted in any meaningful way.  Hasbro planned the mold for a 1997 release.  The painted mock up is, basically, the 1985 figure with more details.  It would have been a hugely popular release.  But, Hasbro couldn't find the mold.  So, it was replaced with a V1 Snake Eyes hybrid.  Hasbro remade molds for the vintage Crimson Guard, Cobra Trooper, Cobra Officer, Lady Jaye, Mutt and Scrap Iron.  Yet, they never bothered to remake the iconic 1985 Snake Eyes.

This, though, is likely a factor of Snake Eyes' general success.  Hasbro had no incentive to make a new Snake Eyes in the vein of the 1985 because they had access to the 1982, 1989 and 1991 molds.  Those fulfilled the demand for Snake Eyes well enough that it made no sense for them to incur extra expense to make something new for the character.  Had they chosen to re-do this 1985 mold, though, they probably could have repainted it 4 times before collectors tired of it.  So, there is simply an untold amount of untapped potential in the mold.  

In the late 2010's, though, Black Major released waves of 1985 Snake Eyes repaints.  There were nearly 30 of them in the first three waves.  I'm unsure of the final number of repaints that Black Major eventually released.  Most of them were Cobras and sold as flavors of the Cobra Mortal or Cobra Invasor.  But, there are some great versions that can be used as Snake Eyes.  In 2022, Hasbro brought back o-ring Joes.  The first set was Snake Eyes and Stormshadow.  The box artwork showed the 1985 Snake Eyes.  But, the actual figure was based on the 1983 design.  So, as of this writing, Hasbro has never redone one of the most popular figures in the line's entire history.

One thing that the Black Major repaints showcased, though, was that the 1985 Snake Eyes mold has some flaws.  Collectors were willing to forgive the oddly sculpted mouth behind the mask and, even, the slight pot belly that adorns Snake Eyes' stomach.  But, with all the repaints you could ever want now available, those design flaws in the mold became more pronounced.  The black plastic hid the flaws in a much better way than the lighter colors used one some Black Major designs did.  And, it shows that this Snake Eyes mold isn't perfect.  But, collectors can overlook that because this 1985 update is such an improvement over the 1983 Snake Eyes.  

For me, though, the 1985 Snake Eyes is, entirely, seen through the eyes of 11 year old me who found him months before anyone else on that Toys R Us floor.  The figure holds a mystique because it was the single item that every kid my age wanted.  I used him on adventure after adventure.  And, despite all that, I still feel that I didn't use him enough.  I don't have specific memories of him because I could never quite get a story that was as cool as his figure.  So, I still feel that this figure is underutilized in my collection.  I've found it difficult to photograph him in a way that I feel showcases the awesomeness of the figure.  So, to this day, I can't seem to capture the essence of how awesome I've always felt this figure actually was.

The 1985 Snake Eyes has always been expensive.  Back in the early 2000's, they were among the first figures to climb over $30.  Then, slowly, the went over $50.  But, in the doldrums of the early 2010's, the figures settled into that $30 range.  But, when the Joe world went nuts in 2018, this Snake Eyes was among the most affected.  For a time, mint and complete with filecard figures would flirt with $200.  They found a steady price in the $125 - $150 range, though.  As the market has softened, this Snake Eyes has gotten more affordable.  There are just too many of them out there to really remain among the more expensive figures.  Now, you can find nicely conditioned and complete figures in the $80 range.  And, if you're patient, can probably put a complete one together from different sources for less than that.  Dealers will still get $100+ from impatient and uninformed buyers.  You do need to watch for wear on the silver wrist dart as it's the most common place for paint loss.  And, unscrupulous dealers will equip him with a 2000's era Hasbro Uzi.  (It has a different mold and is very easy to spot from a trained eye.)  But, common, loose figures aren't the plum they were in the last hurrah of Joe pricing.  And, we're starting to see them fall into more normal ranges.  Carded figures, though, are a different story as they remain pricey.

And, with that, 25 years of writing about a toy line that lasted for only 13 is complete.  I've come to realize that my continued fascination with Joe is 100% rooted in my frustrated creative juices.  I've ignored my life long pangings to be a writer due to a crippling fear of failure.  So, instead, I've talked about the toys that were the ignition for that creative spark that still ripples through my mind.  I can't really wrap my head around the notion of 25 years, though.  It seems an impossibly long time and also a chronological flash that has raced by.  Collecting has been fun, frustrating and a hassle.  I've met a lot of great people.  And, had a lot of fun.  I have no idea what the next 25 years will hold.  But,if it's like the journey from 1999 through 2024, it will be an interesting ride.