1993 Keel Haul

There are almost 40 repaints in the 1993 G.I. Joe line.  Of those, repaints, though, almost all were molds that had been first released in the 1990's.  Budo and Dee Jay were from 1988 and were the oldest of the figure repaints that year save for one.  In the standard Battle Corps line, Hasbro finally released a retail version of the G.I. Joe Admiral named Keel Haul.  Keel Haul had been the original figure included with the USS Flagg in 1985.  Though he had been available as a mail away offer for a while, he was still a figure that many kids had never seen.  So, offering one at retail was both a way to bring the character to a greater audience while also saving sculpting costs on a figure that most people would construe as new.  The fact that the 1993 Keel Haul is well colored is just icing on the cake.

I found this Keel Haul in a KB Toy Store in a mall in the summer of 1995.  He was there with Backblast and both were figures I had never seen elsewhere.  I sucked up the KB higher price point and bought them both.  Upon opening Keel Haul, I didn't know he was a straight repaint of the figure first released during the heyday of my childhood in 1985.  At the time, I had never owned a Keel Haul and had, maybe, seen one of them for a brief time at a friend's house.  So, to me, he was all new.  And, with that false notion in my head, I set about finding a role for this new Keel Haul since I didn't have a Flagg.

As luck would have it, I found an obscure boat at a local K Mart store that was going out of business.  I distinctly remember my younger brother telling me that there were some Joe toys at this K Mart.  And, I remember going to the store with him on a rainy day in November or December in 1994.  The boat was the Shark 9000.  It was and still is an amazing toy.  It filled the role I had long given to my WHALE Hovercraft and I had no fears of breaking of the new toy like I harbored over the brittle WHALE shell that was leftover from my childhood.  So, the SHARK 9000 quickly became a new favorite.  And, with a new boat came a new crew.  Cutter drove the craft.  And, in time, the 1994 Shipwreck was aboard as infantry and underwater support.  The 1994 Dial Tone manned the turret.  And, Ice Cream Soldier and a 1993 or 1994 Beach Head were in the side gunner stations.  The last position to be filled was the 2nd mate.  And, in this role, Keel Haul excelled.

I did not see the figure as Keel Haul.  Instead, he became a nameless naval officer who was second in command to Cutter aboard the Shark 9000.  Keel Haul carried his massive machine gun, though, and was able to repel boarders, shoot out Moray gun stations or hold prisoners at gunpoint as they were taken back to shore.  Sometimes, he'd mutiny against the captain and end up either taking over the boat and failing in his coup and would be keel-hauled (heh, heh) as fatal punishment for his disloyalty.  

As a figure, Keel Haul is nice enough.  He uses a lot of blue.  But, by 1993, blue was no longer the main color of Cobra.  So, unless you were too old to have been buying the figures (like I was!) you'd have had no real inkling that Keel Haul's colors had once been reserved for his enemies.  His hunter green pants are a color that was criminally underused in the vintage line and are a great complement for the brown highlights and also a nice juxtaposition against the blue jacket.  His chest insignia, dog tags and belt buckle are gold and silver and bring a splash of color.  The only real missing element is the insignia on Keel Haul's hat is left black.  Someday, I'll have to see if a 1985 head matches the skin tone of the 1993 and do a head swap.  But, overall, that's a small criticism.

Keel Haul's accessories are good and not so good.  He uses what I refer to as the "Cloudburst tree".  I had not seen this tree before I acquired Keel Haul.  But, both he and the Backblast that I found on the same day include this tree, just in different colors.  I don't really mind the dark blue color since it matches the figure.  Clashing weapons were a bigger issue to me than offbeat colors.  Keel Haul's tree includes the Cloudburst rifle.  At the time, this weapon was new to me and I though it brand new.  I loved it since it was detailed, cool and worked with the figure.  It's my preferred weapon for Keel Haul today.  The tree also included a blue knife and a blue Eco Warriors weapon and figure stand.  The Eco Warriors gun is big and bulky.  I've never liked it and it was never something I used.  Keel Haul also included the requisite missile launcher and two missiles.  The rifle is a great pairing for Keel Haul and the knife if useful.  The rest of his gear isn't.  But, this figure really just needs a single weapon to be useful.

My main take away from visiting this Keel Haul is the memory of finding him at KB Toys.  KB has been gone for a long time, now.  And, the notion of finding a toy store in a mall is even more dated than the idea of malls being a viable retail option any longer.  But, in the '80's, malls dominated retail shopping.  My family usually went once a week or so to pick up various things.  And, good behavior was rewarded with a stop at KB.  We'd rarely buy.  The mall location meant that prices were always higher than stand alone stores.  So, KB purchases were limited to when they had something in stock that was impossible to find elsewhere.  As I sought out any bastions of remaining Joe toys at retail in the mid 1990's, though, KB could be a treasure trove.  The higher prices meant that stock turned over less frequently than the big box retailers.  But, it also meant taking time to drive to a mall, park, and then try to find the store inside.  

For the two malls I was familiar with during the era, I knew where to park to get in and out as quickly as possible.  For newly visited malls, though, I'd almost always end up parking on the other end of the mall from where the KB was located.  There were no online maps to find stores.  So, it was go into the entrance, find a store map and then walk.  So, I didn't get nearly as many KB's as I did exotic Wal Mart, Target and Toys R Us stores.  KB stores slowly turned into toy graveyards where lines that didn't sell well were discounted.  And, KB started closeout stores called ToyWorks that were havens for overstock lines.  It was at one of these where I first found 1993 Star Brigade figures for $2.00 each.  Sadly, KB's parts were more valuable than the whole and corporate raiders bought it out, saddled it with debt and let the chain cannibalize itself.  There used to be some great write ups of what went down.  Hopefully, they're still out there and you can get the gory details of their demise.  But, it was pretty much the same story that murdered Toys R Us about 15 years later.

There are two versions of this Keel Haul figure.  One has a very small logo on his back.  The other has a larger logo.  At retail, I found the larger logo version.  But, the figure you see below has the smaller logo.  Neither appears to be more common or desirable than the other.  But, it's something else to look for.  It is an odd bit of kismet that both Keel Haul and Backblast have logo size variants and that I found both of them, together, at the same KB at the same time.  The existence of the difference implies multiple paint masks were created.  And, the cost savings on paint for the smaller logos would have been more than gobbled up by the creation and shrinking of the additional paint mask.  So, the reasons why these variants exist have been lost to time.  It might have been a miscommunication with the factory and the logos were fixed and one is meant to be "correct" and other is an error.  We just don't know which is which.

Keel Haul has one distinguishing feature that appears a lot in the Joe line.  While he is excellently designed overall, his flight jacket is unzipped just a bit too low.  Especially since he doesn't have an undershirt on underneath it.  This unzipped/unbuttoned shirt or jacket look appears quite frequently in the early Joe line.  The 1983 Destro is the first time it appeared.  But, it also appears on the 1983 Wild Bill.  (You can make a case for Gung Ho, too, but his vest is completely unbuttoned to show off the Corps tattoo.)  In 1984, Recondo's shirt is open, though his specialty could explain it.  Then, you have Copperhead and Roadblock with bare chests.  In 1985, you have Buzzer, Ripper and Torch with a lot of exposed chest.  But, Tollbooth joins Keel Haul as figures with the low zipper.  In 1986 and 1987, we see the explosion of the fully bare chested figure and the low zipper starts to disappear.  I figure the Hasbro designers were likely young men during the 1970's.  And, their perceptions of being "cool" didn't age when they did.  (This is common, though, and not a criticism of them.)  So, anachronisms like the exposed chest that had dominated discos in the prior decade didn't seem as out of place as they would have to younger people coming of age in the 1980's.  

The Keel Haul mold didn't see a ton of use.  The 1985 release with the USS Flagg was a small production run.  But, Keel Haul was a staple of later mail aways and I even got a bagged version of him from the Hasbro Canada find in 1999.  This repainted figure was released in 1993 and has the two variants.  Then, the mold went to Brazil.  Around 1995, Estrela released the Anjo de Guarda figure.  This carded release was based on the 1993 Keel Haul coloring.  It is slightly different, though, and includes different weapons in similar colors to the 1993 figure.  After this, the mold disappeared.  We now know that Hasbro likely had this mold back in their possession in the 2000's.  And, it not appearing in a convention set meant that either someone didn't care about Keel Haul, or no one bothered to look for him.  But, both Keel Haul figures are pretty nice and there's really not a reason to see another repaint of this mold.

I don't really know why, but this Keel Haul figure has gotten expensive.  Once a staple of cheap, carded lots of 1993 figures that were passed from dealer to dealer, you know see loose Keel Hauls priced at nearly $40 for a mint and complete with filecard figure.  Despite that insane dealer pricing, carded figures sell in the $30 range.  But, even on the open market, loose mint and complete Keel Hauls will fetch well over $20 each.  That seems high for a 1993 release.   But, Keel Haul maintains a mystique that's a holdover from his 1985 release and many new collectors associate later, more common versions of characters with their earlier, rarer releases and bid up prices for nostalgic reasons.  In the unlikely event you have a Flagg but not a Keel Haul, the 1993 figure is a cheaper option.  Outside of that, though, the limitations of the Keel Haul figure remain and there's really no other reason to own one version over another.