2024 Sgt. Slaughter

I was wrong.  Back in July of 2024, I wrote up a blurb about the recently announced Sgt. Slaughter and Leatherneck Transformer Cross Over.  I was not overly kind to the announcement of the new figures.  The initial image of the figures made them look like barely repaints that offered collectors nothing new.  As more, clearer images appeared, the Sgt. Slaughter figure looked like it might have something more to offer than my initial impression.  And, as collectors began to get the figures in hand and actually photograph them, I realized that there might be some value to the Sgt. Slaughter figure.  He was a lot more different from his vintage counterparts than he had first appeared.  And, while he still didn't fundamentally change the character's appearance, the figure ended up being the best Sgt. Slaughter that any company has ever made in o-ring form.  And, he might be the best figure of the Pulse era.

The one thing I did do with this Sgt. Slaughter set was wait for discounts.  Unlike the Hiss Tank, which dropped in price by almost 75% for a while, the AWE Striker and Thunder Machine never dropped below about a 30% discount in any sales.  (Though, cheap Thunder Machines were available at Ross around Christmas in 2024, just in limited quantities.)  I waited through the holidays of 2025, hoping that the Triple T set might show up at Ross, too.  Instead, they appeared, for full price, at Wal Mart stores for a collector's promotion.  Not all stores got it.  But, many previously internet exclusives were dropped into these endcaps that encompassed many collector friendly brands.  My local store didn't get any, though.  Not that it mattered.  There were no reports of widespread clearance on the items.  Online, the Triple T dropped to about $60 on a couple of occasions before it would return to full retail.  Finally, it dropped back to that price and I decided to bite the bullet and add the final Pulse o-rings to my collection.   

In hand. the Sgt. Slaughter doesn't disappoint.  He's got several points working in his favor.  The first is just that he's got a flesh colored plastic head.  Gone is weird head paint that's ruined so many of the Pulse figures.  In fact, all of his flesh is the plastic.  So, all his various flesh tones match up.  There's none of the mismatched skin colors we saw on the Baroness or Zartan.  It's amazing how much this helps make a figure work.  It was such a simple idea, too.  I still can't wrap my head around Hasbro's fascination with fully painted heads...especially on figures like Duke or Ripcord where they are supposed to wear helmets.  I'm glad they finally got it right.  It just sucks it was so late in the process and so many figures were lessened by it.

Sarge's colors are also vibrant and powerful.  The browns are rich in a way that we haven't seen since 2005 or so when they were used to simulate leather pieces on Toys R Us figures.  The green color is deep and isn't a common hue we seen on Joe figures.  It's all offset by a flat black tank top.  And, the final palette is accentuated by a white belt and a golden whistle.  The color additions allow this Slaughter to transcend the vintage versions.  He features a full 7 different colors.  Even when compared to figures from the height of the vintage line, this is an abnormally high count for different colors used on a figure.  The fact that they are both a combination of accentuating and contrasting colors shows a level of design that was missing from most figures.  And, again, it's those little details that really allow this Slaughter figure to stand above his contemporaries.  Even more than a year after his release, you still see this Sgt. Slaughter figure used in photos and dioramas.  He appears far more often than "more popular" characters...a testament to his quality.

Slaughter's only accessory is his eponymous baton.  This version is larger than the vintage versions.  It also features a string on the end.  It's closer to the accessory used in the Anniversary era than the vintage.  But, it works well for Sarge as you expect him to include it.  Had this version been released with the vintage figures, it would be less rare than those '80's versions are now just due to the larger size.  It's actually a little big for his hands.  But, the larger size of the figure allows the bigger scale of the accessory to still work with the figure.  I wouldn't have minded an M-60 to be packed in as an homage to the comic.  But, we did get a spare one with one of the other Pulse releases.  (I think it was in the Cobra Trooper/Officer pack.)  So, I've got some spare weapons with which to outfit Sarge when the baton isn't appropriate.

As a kid, I used Sarge's baton as a cross between Captain America's shield and Spiderman's webshooters.  He could throw the baton an incredible distance and it would always return to his hand.  I imagined it had a rope inside that pulled it back to him after every throw.  This allowed Sarge to scale buildings, take out far away enemies and grab onto fleeing vehicles as they sped away.  It also was the also humiliation for the BAT.  I hated BATs, even back then.  I thought robots were dumb and the figure was lame.  The BAT filecard mentions they burst into flame when hit from behind.  So, when Cobra would deploy them into a battle, Sarge would just sneak around behind the line of BATs.  He's then run down the line of robots and tap each of them gently on the back with his baton.  They'd then burst into flames and be instantly eliminated without doing any damage to the Joes.  It was the most degrading way for BATs to be defeated.  And, was the main use I found for Sgt. Slaughter when he wasn't manning the gun tower on the HAVOC.

With the Pulse era of o-ring figures now over, we can assess each figure against his peers.  When doing so, it's tough to place this Slaughter anywhere other than near the top.  I'll argue that the Ramp Rat is a better character and a more useful figure.  But, he features almost no paint applications.  And, his overall appearance is definitely below this Slaughter.  The Cobra Commander from the Duke/CC two pack is the only real contender against Slaughter.  He features the paint applications, brilliant colors and needed update that are tough to beat.  But, Sarge being firmly in the top 3 is pretty impressive.  Especially when he beats out stalwarts like Duke, Zartan and Stormshadow.  Again, I got this one wrong from the get-go.  But, I'm not going to let my initial mistake hold me back and prevent me from liking one of the best figures we've seen in the past decade.

You all know that I'm not a fan of the Transformers Cross Overs as a product.  I won't beat that dead horse.  The one thing I do wish, though,  was that Hasbro had been more creative in their vehicles.  The Triple T isn't really a collector favorite.  It's easy to acquire and cheap on the second hand market.  Really, it's not that interesting.  Instead, I imagine a world where the Transformers had turned into the Earthquake, Bugg and the Skystorm.  I doubt those products would have fared worse at retail than the classics.  And, collectors would have gotten some vehicles that were outside the standard molds Hasbro has reused many times since 2008.  I'd have even liked something like a green and purple Hiss Tank or a bright yellow AWE Striker to match the Transformers characters.  Anything to have made these products a bit more appealing.

With o-ring Joe production shifted to Super7, there is a very real possibility that this Sgt. Slaughter and Leatherneck are the last o-ring Joes that Hasbro will ever produce.  The Pulse era of o-ring Joes has been interesting.  It lacks the total duds that we'd get all too often in the repaint era.  But, it also lacks the sheer home runs that the repaint team would trip into every now and again during that time.  The figures are solid.  But, they lack any flair.  The best new figures are safe.  And, that's fine.  During the repaint era, there was a type of fan who believed we should "love" everything Hasbro made and buy it to support the brand to keep it going in hopes of, eventually, getting something good.  I was the opposite in that I was overly critical of Hasbro in hopes of holding them to a higher standard.  Neither approach worked.  I had high hopes when the first Pulse two packs of figures were showcased.  The Skystriker lead me to dream that we might get two or three of the vehicles of our fantasies from childhood.  Those hopes were unfulfilled.  Instead, we got a solid crop of figure updates.  That's not terrible.  It's just that we wanted more.  It does seem that Super7 is starting to get it, though.  And, their first showcases for 2026 show a lot more promise than their 2025 figure lineup.  So, there's still light for collectors.  Just in a different format than we'd have ever imagined as recently as 3 or 4 years ago.

If you go back to the 1995-1998 era of G.I. Joe collecting, Sgt. Slaughter was equivalent to the Fridge in terms of Joe fans' affections.  Both were considered joke figures that somewhat sullied the brand's reputation.  Over the next decade, though, perception of Sgt. Slaughter changed.  Part of this is that the 1985 and earlier die hards began to lose ground to fans who grew up on the cartoon.  To them, Slaughter was a key part of the team.  Even Larry Hama treated him well in the comic.  The real turning point, though, was that Slaughter embraced his G.I. Joe roots.  While I'm sure that the appearance fees at conventions were a big draw for him, he also seemed to genuinely embrace the sheer silliness of his cartoon persona.  And, this endeared him to fans.  By 2006, he got a convention figure and was the headliner for the entire show.  He began to engage with fans on old Twitter and would follow most Joe focused accounts.  He's call people "maggots" for their birthdays.  And, the photo of an out of shape Joe fan trapped in a Sgt. Slaughter headlock became the staple of every Instagram account who attended a toy show.  Sarge just seemed like a guy who got the joke and really appreciated that so many people had grown up with him.  You can now make an argument that Sgt. Slaughter is one of the top three or four characters most associated with the G.I. Joe brand.  That's quite a turnaround.

Above, I mention "any company" for versions of Sgt. Slaughter.  The reason for this is that are quite a few different Sgt. Slaughter releases from all  over the world.  The mold upon which this 2024 is based originated in 1986.  Here, it was first released as a mail away.  And, later in  the year, as the pack in driver for the Triple T.  Slaughter appeared in a new mold in 1988 as the Warthog driver.  (I'd have loved the 2024 color scheme on the 1988 figure.)  Then, things get more interesting.  In 1989, the Slaughter mold went to Brazil.  There, it was painted in the Slaughter's Marauders paint scheme.  Some of those figures were exported to North America and released.  Others were released in Brazil.  The figures are the same.  But, the packaging is different.  The timeline is murky.  But, I suspect that Slaughter then went to Argentina.  It's possible the Plastirama figure pre-dates the Estrela Marauders.  But, Argentina release years are tough to pin down.  Regardless, the original mold was released in Argentina as Sgto. Slaughter.  This was the best paint job of the original Slaughter mold.  The mold wasn't done, yet, though.  It then made its way to India.  Funskool released Sgt. Smasher (a Slaughter mold done in colors based on the 1989 Slaughter's Marauders version) for a while.  They also used the head to great affect on the Supercop figure around 1994.  The mold then disappeared.  The club resculpted a head based on the original for the 2006 convention set.  But, it was given an entirely new body.  So, there's a LOT of Slaughter figures for any fan to track down.

The Triple T set with Slaughter is still widely available for retail pricing.  Dealers have tried to split the figure out and you'll see a lot of them for sale in the $45 range.  But, they just don't move.  At that price, you're much better off just buying the whole set when it drops to $60.  Pulse figures just haven't taken on any aftermarket appreciation.  If we look back at the repaint era of 2002-2006, the o-rings from that time didn't really start to gain any traction until over a decade after their release.  Now, some are very desirable.  I doubt the Pulse figures will follow the same trajectory.  But, I also predicted the TRU figures would never experience great demand, either.  At the end of the day, this is the best Sgt. Slaughter figure.  If he's a character that matters to you, buy one at retail and call it a day.