In a lot of ways, Freefall is a better skydiver than the 1984 Ripcord. In other ways, he's not. Nothing will ever beat Ripcord's original HALO rig. But Freefall makes a valiant attempt. Sans his parachuting gear, though, Freefall is the better figure. He has more accoutrements on his mold and just works better once he's on the ground.
It's somewhat baffling that Hasbro released a parachuting figure in the standard 1990 carded line and, then, released an entire series of 6 figures with working parachutes in the Sky Patrol subset. Joe got a lot of airborne troopers that year. But, Freefall is the best of them.
Originally, Freefall's face mask was going to have two air hoses attach to it: one on each side. This was changed late in the production process, though. And, it only exists in pre-production catalog photography. But, this is why Freefall's backpack has pegs for hoses to attach on both sides. Originally, both would have been used with a complete Freefall figure.
People ask "Why wasn't Downtown just Short Fuse Version 2?" But why wasn't Freefall just RIpcord Version 2? As a character Freefall appeared in DIC's 1990 season, but as another guy lacking any personality.
ReplyDeleteI did not know that two-hose factoid! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteFreefall was a great figure and was very well rooted in more military realism. When based on design and the colors used he certainly is one of the more realistic military type figures in the line. I remember getting him as a kid in 1991 and he always played a role in my joe-verse. I was also confused even as a 9 year old as to why Freefall was a paratrooper released in the same year as Sky Patrol though. As a collector looking at the figure I wish his helmet was not such a hard plastic and was the more flexible softer plastic of Ripcord but it's a small criticism of another wise great (and overlooked) figure.
ReplyDeleteGreat figure, fits in quite well with even the '82-'84 figures IMO. Hope to score a complete one some day.
ReplyDelete