The Top 10 - 2021

 2021 has been an interesting year.  We've seen massive amounts of factory customs.  There were a few "retro" items available.  And, most importantly, Hasbro is bringing back some vintage Joe style figures with commemorative releases and the Haslab Skystriker.  2022 has much for Joe collectors to look forward to.  Promises of a variety of products that should hit everyone's collecting niche abound.  

Looking through this year's top 10, it's an eclectic mix.  Numbers 2 and 3 are really surprising.  But, in general, the popularity seems to be all over the place.  The site saw a massive uptick in visitors as both the pandemic raged and the Snake Eyes movie drew close to release.  Even after the movie's disappearance from popular culture, though, the traffic has remained high.  The site got 189,000 page views this year.  That's a substantial increase from years past.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 posts in terms of pageviews that were released in 2020.  I put that caveat on there because the most viewed post on the site in all of 2021 was, once again, the 1984 MANTA.  I don't know why.  But, it more than tripled the number 1 post that was new in 2021.

10. 1986 Claymore 

Claymore is a "rare" figure who's price has far outstripped his value to a collection.  As I got him for Christmas in 1986, though, he's somewhat important to me.  And, his rarity always attracts eyeballs.

9. 2017 Commando 

Red Laser Army figures tend to do well.  Snake Eyes figures tend to do well.  So, combined, they clocked in as the 9th most popular new post on the site this year.

8. 1983 Hawk 

Hawk is kind of a surprise.  I looked at the MMS last year, too.  And, it was one of the worst performing new profiles of the year.  So, to see the Hawk included with the vehicle get so many additional views just goes to show how valuable the inclusion of the drivers really was.

7. 2020 Black Major Bonecrusher 

Bonecrusher was my pick for the best figure of 2020.  I still maintain that it's an excellent design that brings some needed life to the 1985 Snake Eyes mold.  It showing up there is no surprise.

6. 1987 Crystal Ball 

Crystal Ball really shouldn't be among the most viewed profiles of the year.  But, I can also see how he does belong.  Everyone knows him.  And, sometimes, people just can't look away, even at something that's goofy and silly.

5. 2021 Zica Toys Riot Commando 

To be honest, I thought the Riot Commando would have done better.  It's an awesome figure and I got him within days of his 1st release.  But, it seems this figure hasn't really caught on in the vintage Joe world.  I expected lots of photos of him to appear in the months after his release.  That hasn't happened.  And, the Riot Commando seems to be fading into obscurity.  That's an unjust fate for a solid figure with amazing paint applications that's priced right.

4. Chinese Toxo Zombie

This one kind of makes sense.  The Toxo Zombie has become a popular figure.  Obscure carded figures tend to perform well.  And, this is a relatively unknown foreign variant, too.  It all added up to a well read post.

3. 2001 Crossfire

Ugh.  Crossfire sucks.  I despise this figure and have since his release 20 years ago.  Yet, I must not be in tune with the community on this one as here he is, the third most viewed page on the site in 2021.  Controversy gets clicks, I guess.

2. Stargate Lt. Kawalsky 

This one is surprising.  Stargate figures get zero mention in Joe groups.  And, while these figures include Joe accessories, they aren't all that exciting to anyone but variant nerds like myself.  But, I suspect the offbeat nature of the figure and the loose connection to Joe brought in many casual readers.

1. Haslab Skystriker

No surprise that the biggest Joe news of the year lead the site in traffic.  It wasn't a huge advantage, only about 30% more than Lt. Kawalsky.  But, nothing beat out the Skystriker announcement.  The night the Haslab funded was one of the most fun Joe collecting nights in my more than two decades of being a member of the online collecting community.  Here's to another one in 2022.

Thus ends another year of Joe fandom.  We know we're getting o-ring figures in 2022.  We just don't know who and when.  But, it will happen.  And, assuming they aren't impossible to get, you'll probably see them here.  The night of the Skystriker funding was one of the most fun Joe world experiences of the past 20 years.  It's my hope that Hasbro can strike that kind of magic more often.  

As 2022 is the 40th anniversary of the vintage Joe line, I'm going to take a different tact for the first part of the year and profile something each week in chronological order starting with 1982 through, at least 1994.  (I'll see how I feel about touching on post '94 years.)  It will follow my personal chronology with the line, how I grew with the line, abandoned it and then came back.  

I hope you and yours have had a solid 2021 and wish you a better 2022.  We have much to look forward to this year and I will enjoy sharing it with you!

2001 Crossfire

Taste is subjective.  All collectors have irrational favorites.  And, everyone has one figure that just bugs them for some reason.  I do not like Crystal Ball.  But, I do see the quality of his overall sculpt.  Big Boa is the worst figure in the vintage line.  But, I also acknowledge that I feel that way because he was such a good character and I was super disappointed that his figure didn't live up to his filecard.  There are, though, a select few figures that are objectively bad and have no redeeming qualities at all.  20 years ago, Hasbro released one such figure.  I was shocked to find, though, that, at the time, a lot of other collectors loved him.  And, even two decades later, people rush to defend a figure that has no intrinsic value whatsoever.  But, I will remain steadfast that the 2001 Crossfire is just a terrible figure and, subjectivity be damned, anyone who likes him is just wrong.

The A Real American Hero Collection (ARAHC) started off with a bang in the fall of 2000.  Joe returning to retail was huge.  But, Hasbro went a step further to find some favorite molds and characters, paint them well and include all their original gear.  The second wave was even better as it expanded the mold library and brought in some later figure sculpts that followed the same formula as Wave I.  But, a troubling pattern started to emerge with Wave II.  Too many of the Joes used the same color palette.  Gone was the retail visual complement that Hasbro strove for with the vintage line.  Instead, all the figures looked the same.  And, when Wave III debuted, the pattern continued into a full blown issue.  Wave II was starting to stagnate at retail.  (Though, that was all the fault of packing 4 Big Ben/Whiteout packs per case.)  Wave III, though, saw a lower production run and, generally, sold through just due to lower numbers.  But, Wave II had done in the line and the banality that was Wave IV heavily found its way to discount and closeout stores.  Hasbro listened too much to some people who had a very limited and narrow view of Joe.  And, the sea of olive green was just too boring to sustain a line at retail.  In 2002, Hasbro moved more towards a vintage Joe approach with coloring and the line was hugely successful for a couple of years.

Backing up to 2001, though, Wave III was actually pretty well anticipated by the collecting community.  It featured two new army builders (always welcome in those days!) as well as a redone Cobra Commander and Destro.  On the Joe side, we saw a repainted Low Light, Wet Suit and Torpedo.  The classic 1984 Roadblock mold returned.  Though, with a new name.  Also in the wave, though, were two "new" figures.  One, Sure Fire, used the amazing 1992 Shockwave body.  (And, kind of sullied that mold for a long time.)  The other, Crossfire, was an amalgamation of parts.  But, like Sure Fire, he included a newly sculpted head to denote the new character.  Sadly, both these heads were just terrible.  Both had receding hairlines and while Sure Fire's head was too small, Crossfire's was too big.  Both look out of place with the rest of the parts and stick out as a newly minted part created by sculptors less talented than those who worked on the vintage Joe line.  

Crossfire suffers from many ailments.  His pasty, balding, middle aged white guy head has always sucked.  In fact, it's kind of embarrassing.  Hasbro designers completed failed on all the new heads in the ARAHC line (We'll toss in Volga from 1998 as well as most of the Comic Pack heads, too.)  If the rest of the figure was good, then the new head could be somewhat overlooked.  But, the rest of Crossfire is just as much a mess as is his head.  His chest and arms are from the 1990 Big Ben.  Remember, at the time, the 2001 Arctic Big Ben was pegwarming all over North America.  And, the colors chosen for Crossfire were reminiscent of the 1990 figure while also being worse at the same time.  He was also given flesh colored hands.  The fact that Big Ben has gloves sculpted onto his hands didn't seem to bother the Hasbro team of the time.  They're not as bad as Dialtone's hands.  But, it is still noticeable.  Speaking of Dialtone, Crossfire uses his legs and waist.  The slim 1986 sculpt is not a good match for the 1990 torso.  So, Crossfire appears off balance.  The legs are also nearly the same green as the 2000 Dialtone figure.  So, again, the entire ensemble just felt tired.

Crossfire's torso and legs are different shades of green.  They are not complementary shades.  They are just different enough to make you think that the top or bottom has discolored from the sun.  He also has gold bullets with silver belt details.  Again, this is a color contrast that makes the whole figure look confusing.  Lots of color is usually good on a figure.  But, when it's clashing colors that simply distract from the mold's details, you realize that this wasn't a figure with a lot thought put into his design.  It was a cheap way to reuse parts and create a "new" character without trying too hard or blowing the budget on a lower production wave of figures.  

The final indignity of Crossfire was his complete lack of weapons.  He didn't include a helmet.  His only gun, the 1991 Dusty rifle and stock, had become commonplace and even overused by 2001.  Personally, I use it exclusively as a Cobra weapon after the 1998 Cobra Infanty was released.  So, it was good to have a spare of two when Hasbro stopped giving Vipers decent weapons in 2002.  Crossfire didn't even have an obligatory backpack.  Supposedly, Crossfire had all sorts of specialties.  But, he got no gear to prove that out.  His pack mate, Double Blast, got a lot of gear.  And, it wasn't uncommon for one figure to have a large amount of gear in the ARAHC packs while the second figure got barely a pittance.  But, with Crossfire, it just stung since the gear added nothing to the figure.  The 2001 Leatherneck's Richard Nixon head was saved by including a helmet.  Crossfire just gets to look like a guy who's slowly drinking himself to death with cheap gin.

Despite three plus paragraphs describing just how terrible Crossfire is, collectors somewhat liked him.  Some used him as a Greenshirt.  Others found use for him in various dio stories of the day.  All of these people were wrong.  Crossfire is a figure that deserves to be ridiculed and should be forgotten on the scrap heap of terrible Joe ideas.  But, things like this are what make collecting fun.  I can jest about others being wrong in their opinions of this figure.  But, it's not malicious.  At the end of the day, I own this figure and am publishing an article about him more than two decades removed from his release.  Those who like him can still like him.  The things about him that bug me may be endearing to others.  And, remember, my favorite figures tend to have neon colors.  So, how valid can my opinion be, anyways?!?  My biggest issue is, knowing the molds that Hasbro had available to them at the time, we got Crossfire instead of Mutt or Bullhorn or Salvo or Rock and Roll.  Any of those figures would have been preferable.  But, in Hasbro's feeble attempts at something "new", they created something completely forgettable.

Crossfire's code name didn't help.  The Crossfire was an obscure 1987 radio controlled vehicle that is most famous for producing Rumbler.  On top of the reuse, though, Hasbro wasn't overly creative with names in the early 2000's.  In short order, they released Crossfire, Surefire, Crosshair, Sideswipe, Side Track and Sidetrack.  The names all blended together into a cacophony of banality that made all the characters lamentable.  

Dealers try to get $20 for mint and complete Crossfires.  But, they won't sell until the price drops to around $10.  Left to the open market, he's a $5 or $6 figure.  You can get carded versions of he and Double Blast for under $20 still, too.  (Dealer pricing hovers around $30, though.)  At $5, I guess this guy's an ok addition.  I paid $4 for him at retail in 2001.  I felt ripped off back then.  And, there's not really a circumstance where I'd have actually bought a Crossfire figure had I not wanted the Double Blast and been a completist two decades ago.  But, your mileage may vary.  Lots of collectors still enjoy him.  And, figures for $5 are almost unheard of in this market.  So, if you're missing Crossfire, it's as good a time as any to acquire him...even if he has no use.