Today, we feature the rarest of the foreign Flash figures: the Rubiplas release from Venezuela. Rubiplas figures are the last great, unexplored reaches of the Joe line. While we have some good info about earlier releases, they were releasing figures in Venezuela for many years after these straight arms were retired.
There are two points of interest on this figure. First, he includes a dark green version of Doc's helmet instead of the standard 1982/1983 helmet. The second is the light brown hair color. It's very distinctive and nicely offsets the darker green of the body. These two items represent the biggest tells of the Rubiplas figure.
In general, Rubiplas figures are not easy to find. There was a time for a couple of years where there were a couple of different ways to acquire them. But, those seem to have dried up. Now, you're left chasing the few samples that were imported when the Venezuelan sellers were active.
They're neat because they are different and have some weird oddities to them. There's really no explanation why this Flash features a Doc helmet. But, this helmet wasn't available in a similar color to the dark Rubiplas green anywhere else. (The AP helmet from Hasbro is drastically different.) So, the figures have a cachet since they are so distinguishable. Someday, I hope to see better info on the full Rubiplas line come to light. Until then, it's just crumbs here and there.
Neat!
ReplyDeleteHadn’t seen the helmet before, the hair-do is really good as well. The Venezuelan line really is the final unearthed Joe line.