Last week, I pulled out my drawer of 1991 Cobras. I wanted to get some photos of the Crimson Guard Immortal. But, all 7 of my figures had a bad o-ring. When looking through the 1991 Cobra drawer, I found that most of the army builders had loose o-rings. My collection is from multiple sources and spans three decades of acquisitions. So, finding such a concentration of bad o-rings made me wonder if there was something about 1991 figures. It's weird, though, in that my Joes from that year are all still good. And, the Cobra characters stored in the same drawer seemed to be OK. It was just the army builders. So, I spent an hour or so changing out all the bad o-rings and that got me on a 1991 Cobra kick.
The BAT has been a long favorite of mine. When I got my first one back in the late 1990's, I viewed him as the new generation of named Cobra pilot who made his name flying the Firebat. Slowly, this idea faded away and the BAT just became the robot he was meant to be. All of this, though, is odd as I am NOT a fan of the BAT character. I think they are a poor replacement for the horrors of war. The notion of replacing humans with robots was just a way to sanitize the Joe cartoon. Plus, I never found the 1986 BAT all that cool of a figure.
The 1991, though, is a different story. The sleeker design and amazing orange and green color combo make for a striking figure. From the minute I saw him, I was hooked. And, I slowly built up a small army of the figure just due to the great colors. Bizarrely, though, I'm not a huge fan of this color on other figures. I was greatly looking forward to a 1986 BAT using the 1991 colors. But, when a factory custom of this became available, I was underwhelmed. Turns out, it's the combo of colors and mold that make the 1991 BAT so compelling.
I don't use these figures as much as I should. There was a short time where I paired them with Flak Vipers. I really liked that combo. But, I stopped doing it after just a couple of integrated photo shoots. I need to get some ideas for the BAT going now that my contingent have good o-rings and will stand up to be posed. Until then, here's some random photos of the BAT to tide us all over.
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