The first vehicle is a repaint of the 1988 Stellar Stiletto. (It's actually a repainted 1993 Star Fighter since it has the missile launcher. But, po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.) It was released under the Batman license. (Oddly, Funskool never released the Stiletto mold in the G.I. Joe line.) The all black body with the silver tip is actually well done and would have made for a great repaint. There are two major issues with the design. First is the overload of stickers. They detract from the look. But, stickers can be removed. The real issue is that the vehicle was release without a canopy. The larger Batman figure would never fit into the cockpit with the canopy closed. So, it was simply omitted. The lack of canopy doomed collector interest in the U.S. when a small supply of these was offered by American dealers in the early 2000's. Now, though, anyone could easily swap a Stiletto or Star Fighter canopy onto this body or remove the silver parts from this release and upgrade either of the American releases of the mold.
The second release is a repaint Cobra Claw. This exclusive was released under the Superman banner. In this case, Funskool did release a Claw in the G.I. Joe line. But, this repaint was far more obscure and only had a small amount of them imported to the U.S. since the Claw wasn't overly popular at the time.
The artwork on the card shows a yellow body. With Funskool, variants are always a possibility. What's notable, though, are the silver/chrome parts of the Claw. These would be fun ways to upgrade a U.S. Claw release. And, the blue and red colors could be seen as Cobra themed, too.
Funskool repainted G.I. Joe vehicles into many of their lines. Super Cop, these Super Hero releases and a few other, known variants all point to Funskool using the molds as often as they could. It's probably we'll find more Funskool re-uses of G.I. Joe molds in the future. But, these Super Hero items are an interesting take on Joe and show a diverse cross pollination of once popular U.S. toy lines.
ReplyDeleteThe CLAW one is the more amusing of the two, like they thought Superman was like Green Goblin
Wonder like the VAMP, if Funskool still has the molds.
A-Man: Agree with your comment about the Superman set.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen online, it appears Funskool also did some interesting colour differences/variants of some of the DC lines they did from the North American releases.
I find it interesting that for the Batman set, they have a Bruce Wayne Animated Series style Batman, in Batman Beyond/Batman Of The Future Style Packaging(In some countries, "Batman Beyond" was referred to as "Batman Of The Future" for whatever reason). Given that this was probably released back around the early 200's, they should of used either a generic Batman style packaging, or at the very least, the Batman: Mission Masters style packaging.
If these had ever showed up in some small local store in my area at the time these were released, I would of thought that because of the packaging, Funskool logo instead of Hasbro or Kenner, and the Kock-Offish looking quality of the toys, I would of thought they were Bootlegs of sorts, never knowing these were actual official toy releases in International Markets. And at the time, I wouldn't have known that the vehicles were G.I. Joe Vehicles. Though Maybe the CLAW I may have eventually realized on my own, as it's possible that I would realized that it looked similar to the "Jet Gliders" I recalled Cobra using in the cartoon(When I was young, I didn't know the proper name, so I would of referred to it as a Jet Glider), though I can't say for sure on that.