I found the Parasite sitting on the top shelf of a Kroger store in my college town. It was years after the toy's release. But, I went really late one night and bought it. I got it home and found I had acquired a little gem of a vehicle. It was my first Cobra trooper transport. And, it was armed to the teeth with great weaponry. It held all of my 1990's Cobras and provided Cobra a powerful weapon to use against the Joes. To this day, I still have the box the Parasite came in. The unused sticker sheet and some unused land mines are still in it. The box carried my 1990's cardbacks around for a very long time.
Seeing the Parasite brings back some fun memories of my early days of collecting. But, seeing it in use is even better as it's a solid toy that not a lot of collectors care to own. After seeing some of the photos below, though, some minds might be changed.
1992 Parasite at Nekoman's Viper Pit
Custom Parasite by Dreadnok Dread
Desert Parasite Custom by Outrider
1992 Parasite by robstoycollection
1992 Parasite by tonegunsrevisited
1992 Parasite by bouncy_bengal
1992 Parasite by my_other_toys
Custom Iron Grenadier Parasite by duoconflywheels
Custom Jungle Parasite by fireflyed
1992 Parasite by 1990s_gi_joes
Nice looking vehicle design. Not having any kind of protection for the hapless Cobra driver/pilot is tiresome at this point. The color looks like it sort of matches the '89 H.E.A.T. Viper so there's that.
ReplyDeleteWhile it doesn't have much realism, the unprotected driver does improve both playability and display value of the toy. As much as I can appreciate the design of the 1983 APC, there's no point in filling it with figures for display since you can't see any of them.
DeleteI guess because I was a tank driver in the US Army, I may be a bit biased. :)
DeleteParasite had one of the few vintage GI JOE box arts to feature multiple Cobra "army builders", in this case Flak-Viper.
ReplyDeleteI also bought mine in 1993, at a Gibson's Discount Center. I had skipped a lot of 1992 items due to their obnoxiousness, but the Parasite turned out to be okay. The other vehicle I think I got at the same time, the Patriot, on the other hand, was not so great.
The under machine guns were too much, but they wanted a bug look to the vehicle. I've written that before. The door being purple was kinda lazy and makes it assymetrically colored, but that means it's not hard plastic that would more likely break.
Had it been made years earlier to the standards/details of those times, it might be considered one of the greats of the late 80's, instead of a mixed reception 90's item.