I knew the layout of the store. And, was familiar with how the Joe section was stocked. One day in the fall of 1986, though, I was treated to something new: a whole endcap packed solid with a bizarre box of five figures. The set hadn't appeared in the catalogs for that year. It was completely new. Of course, I immediately picked it up and found that the set was actually four repainted figures of 1986 characters along with one "new" figure that I recognized as repainted parts from prior figures. The colors on the figures were different and not really in line with the standard retail line of that year. And, my first impressions of the set were to leave it behind and focus on other things.
In our repeated trips to the store, though, I kept going back to the Mission to Brazil set. Each time, I'd take a box down, read over all the text and the thoroughly review the figures as best I could through the plastic. I'd stare at it for longer and longer each time. But, I never actually asked for it. I've talked before about how the fall of 1986 is this weird missing memory for me. Usually, I was all in on the newest, biggest Joe playset that was supposed to be found under the Christmas tree. But, I have no memory of ever really wanting the Terrordrome. It might have been fatigue and lingering disappointment at not getting the USS Flagg the prior year. I might have known there was no hope in getting the Terrordrome. So, it was futile to ask for it. But, this leaves me a hole. I have no recollection of what my big gift for my birthday and Christmas in December of 1986 actually was. It might have been a new dirtbike. I got one somewhere between 1985 and 1987. But, I paid for half of it and it seems out of character for my parents to have left the other half of an item I'd been using for a while as my holiday gift. It's a mystery that I'm not sure I'll ever unravel.
What I do remember, though, was the other gifts under the tree. Among them were the Dreadnok Ground Assault, a couple of early release 1987 figures that we had found at the Toys R Us in the days before Christmas (Falcon and Cobra Commander stand out.) and one surprise: the boxed Mission to Brazil set. My parents must have seen me looking at it, studying it and assumed it was something I wanted. So, they got it for me.
With these new figures in hand, though, I had a dilemma. What would I do with alternate colorways of characters that were already fairly new to my collection and still in good shape and complete with their gear? The answer soon came to me. I viewed three of the figures in the set (Leatherneck, Wet Suit and this Mainframe) as nameless troops who shared the same specialty as the Joes from the retail line. I explained that the Mission to Brazil colors were actually the official colors of these specialties. But, the Joes were so good that they were allowed to wear different colors: even though the base uniform stayed the same. So, with this, I added acquatic commandos (Wet Suit), Special Force commandos (Leatherneck) and Science Officers (Mainframe) to my repertoire of figures.
The uses of these figures were varied. Often, they were the ones to die during a battle. Other times, they would be among the few survivors. And, in special cases, some of them were promoted to full fledged Joes. The enduring story from childhood on this theme involves this Mainframe figure.
As a kid, I had Cobra be more powerful than Joe. This was a takeaway from the Transformers cartoon where the Decepticons (at least, ostensibly) were supposed to be more powerful of the two factions. So, for me, Cobra had never ending equipment and troops and always had Joe on their heels. With the arrival of the 1986 figures, though, the tide was turning. Joe was getting better and Cobra was losing ground. So, I came up with a story where Cobra could gain back their edge.
I had long neglected the 1985 Sears SMS. I had never found the missile launcher to be all that much fun since figures couldn't really interact with it. (Though, the red Hiss Tank was a staple of all my battles.) But, when I found it, I had an idea. Cobra could now launch massive missile strikes from far away on Joe bases. The first few attacks completely destroyed the bases and resulted in the deaths of countless commandos that were represented by the Mission to Brazil set. As Cobra got closer to Joe's main HQ, the Joes had to find a way to protect their bases. So, the bases became nothing more than a battery of guns and anti-missile defenses designed to stop an attack. And, in a few cases, the Joes were successful in fending off a small strike. But, Hawk knew it was only a matter of time before their defenses were overwhelmed with dozens or hundreds of missiles and the base would fall and many Joes would die.
It was then that Mainframe discovered a hidden secret in the missiles: they had an activation code. This numerical code armed the missiles and kept their flight path true. But, if you could broadcast the codes, you could disarm and deactivate the missiles. It was an astounding discovery. But, one that was practically useless because the sheer volume of numbers necessary to find the right code for every missile was impossible to broadcast in the short attack window. The Joes needed to get their hands on an actual missile launcher unit and grab the software that generated the codes. They could then use that to render the entire Cobra missile launch operation moot.
It's here that I'll interject. When I was in middle school and junior high, I was a huge nerd. I was a voracious reader and devoured information from any source to which I had access. In 1986, I wanted to do a science experiment showing that chlorofluorocarbons would eat the ozone layer. I even looked in science catalogs for ozone as a way to prove out a story I had seen on 60 Minutes. I actually had notebooks by the TV to write down dates and addresses so I could send away for transcripts of shows that had stories I had found interesting. And, because of this weirdness, I also had very few friends. So, I spent most of 1986 and 1987 upstairs in my bedroom each day after school and on weekends: playing with my Joes in more and more complex stories. I also listened to the local top 40 radio station. To this day, many songs from that era bring back vivid memories of specific battles or adventures I was having with my figures while that song played in the background.
The result, though, is that I had a lot of things that were incorporated into my adventures that were surprisingly ahead of their time. Some of this was from the Joe comic, of course. But, my eclectic interests brought some fun ideas to the stories. Regardless, Mainframe had a plan. But, the Joes had to find an opportunity where they could capture one of the missile bases. For several weeks, the Joes had near misses. Sometimes, Cobra would just get away, pulling the launcher behind a Hiss Tank. Other times, the Cobras would destroy the launcher, or just erase all the data on it and render it useless for the Joes' purpose. Eventually, though, everything went right.
On this adventure, an unlikely group of good guys were in the right place at the right time to find a launcher. They quickly attacked. Among the group was a nameless Science Officer portrayed by this Mainframe. Along with his bulky computer equipment, he also carried a Low Light Uzi from the 1987 Battle Gear pack. In fact, the backpack and computer he carried were also Battle Gear because it was just different enough to make the army building figure be a bit more distinct than the actual Mainframe character. Many of the good guys died during the battle. But, the Science Officer displayed immense bravery and managed to actually get the codes from the launcher before Cobra destroyed it. He and the surviving members of the party returned to Joe HQ. With the codes in hand, Cobra's missiles were rendered useless. For a short time, they would try to launch them from very closely proximate locations to the Joes and just hope that the short window was enough to get a hit. But, the Joes were able to constantly broadcast the codes and that put the SMS back into a box where it would sit for a decade before I recovered it in the mid 1990's.
The Science Office was then promoted to become a full time Joe. Back then, I would take apart all of my brothers' figures and make them into new, custom characters. I had an old Mainframe head that would have been the basis for this new character. But, I don't recall the character ever going anywhere. I suspect that using Mainframe's head made him too similar to Mainframe. And, the computer hub in my HQ was already manned by the carded, grey Mainframe and this red and tan version from the Mission to Brazil set. So, the actual character who grew from this adventure was lost to time. But, that's kind of OK. Really, some heroes are entirely forgotten. So, to have someone who was so vital to a key part of my childhood story end up an anonymity is probably more true to life than any heroic deification.
In the early 2000's, I tried my hand at a dio-story. They were the rage of the time and I wanted to tell the story of this code adventure. I changed it up a bit. And, I used the 1986 Mainframe instead of a nameless character and the Mission to Brazil paint job. I went to shoot it one afternoon. And, I quickly realized that doing a dio-story was hard. Trying to get the shots to tell the story was tough. I found staging some of the scenes overly tedious. And, adding the dialogue was just a nightmare: even with a full version of Photoshop on my computer. I have a couple of photos left from that shoot that appear here and there. But, they are mostly lost. Somehow, they never made it into any of the various backups that I had built. It's not really a loss. The photos weren't great. The dialogue was cheesy and disjointed. And, I relied on every hackneyed cliché in the books to move the story along since my photography had so many gaps. But, it was an homage to a vivid childhood memory. A memory that I feel, now, is better captured in narrative text than any image based story could ever hope to be.
The Mainframe mold had its share of uses. Hasbro used it for these two figures in 1986. From there, it was sent to Brazil where Estrela released it as Mainframe, too. This figure is nearly identical to the Hasbro release. The mold then went to India. There, Mainframe was a staple of the early 2000's Funskool line. The carded figure is similar to the Hasbro Mainframe in coloring. (Though, is microphone is a different color.) This Mainframe appeared in various promotional incentives that Funskool produced, too. There is even an atrociously colored Halibna promotional figure that features a blood red chest with a huge black ink stain in the center, olive pants and helmet, grey boots, and the horrible straight arms that define Halibna releases. The mold's final appearance occurred in 2009/2010 when Funskool included it in the final run of Funskool Joes that coincided with the G.I. Joe Movie's release in India.
All of the Mission to Brazil figures are now expensive. They're really not that rare. I'd say they're much more common than 1988 and 1989 Night Force figures. But, as vintage Joes go, they are on the lower end of the production number scale. Since Mainframe utilizes gold paint, finding a truly mint figure isn't easy. But, Mainframe is also the least popular of the Mission to Brazil figures. So, that helps temper his pricing a bit. Still, though, dealers will ask for $100 or more for a nicely conditioned, complete figure. Left to his own devices, he's about a $60 figure, though. It helps that his accessories are the same as the much more common grey, carded figure. The difficult find is the filecard. All the Mission to Brazil figures have unique filecards that are tough to find. You'll probably pay $30 to $35 for just the filecard. But, filecards aren't something that I feel are necessary to enjoy a figure. But, this guy is still an expensive purchase for what he is.
The figure in the photos of this profile are my childhood figure. I've never bothered to upgrade him. Mostly, it's because I don't much care for the figure's coloring. And, even when Joes were cheap, Mission to Brazil figures were more expensive and I'd always opt to get something new than upgrade something that was good enough since I didn't really care about him. And, to be frank, the sentiment of knowing this is my childhood is enough for me to hold off on an upgrade. I'm not usually the sentimental type and have long sold off my childhood Joes who were replaced by higher quality specimens. But, this Mainframe is a figure that makes sense to remain in my collection for, at least, a little while longer.
