2004 Night Force Short Fuze

In 2003, Hasbro continued their successful partnership with Toys R Us in regards to the G.I. Joe line.  TRU had been the savior for the 15th Anniversary figures in 1997.  And, they had managed to gain a few exclusive products as Joe expanded to full retail based on the success of the short re-launch.  The two partners found a successful formula releasing packs of vintage figures that were repaints of classic molds, but bundled into a theme.  Tiger Force and Python Patrol were the first two attempts to re-capture the magic of the late 1980's and both were relatively successful.

As 2004 neared, Hasbro found that its plans for mail away and internet exclusive army building sets had failed.  So, they moved those planned offerings to TRU exclusives.  Hasbro also then moved to a strategy where they would release both a Cobra and a Joe set at the same time.  To match the first Cobra army building set, Hasbro resurrected Night Force (itself a Toys R Us exclusive last seen in 1989) and created a new design for the members that first began appearing at retail in January of 2004.  The set featured 4 molds recently returned to Hasbro's control from Funskool, another paint job of the 1984 Roadblock and a figure mold that hadn't been seen in 14 years: Downtown.  Only, this Downtown repaint was not the Downtown character.  Instead, it was a re-imagination of Short Fuze.  The Joe team's original mortar soldier had returned.

Short Fuze is, arguably, the most forgotten original Joe.  Grand Slam will come up from time to time.  But, his relatively hard to find Silver Pads figure gives him some collecting cachet.  It's rare to find someone who really views Short Fuze as their favorite character.  He had little relevance in the comic and didn't appear again as an action figure in the vintage line after his original release.  Collectors' focus on the original 13 Joes during the early 2000's, though, helped raise the profile of even the most obscure characters from the line's earliest years.  This helped get a new Short Fuse to retail stores in 2004 and another in 2005.

I will argue that Short Fuse is the best figure from the Night Force set.  That is based, though,  on the criteria that this is the best use of the Downtown mold.  Flint, Beach Head, Roadblock and Tunnel Rat all had better paint jobs in the vintage run.  Action Man/Tracker is the only contender.  I degrade him, though, because Action Man cost us a proper Night Force Tracker that would have been the jewel of the set.  So, Short Fuse is left as the de facto winner.  But, that's bittersweet because no one cares about getting the best Short Fuse.  And, without proper gear, the figure loses much of his value.  And, with that, you have the problem with the Night Force set as a whole: it didn't really offer anything to collectors.  Some figures were nice.  But, they all had a litany of problems.

One of the main criticisms of Hasbro's attempts at making o-ring figures in the 2000's was that they didn't go with anything. The 2004 Night Force set is unlike the 1988 and 1989 sets in nearly every way.  The figures neither match nor complement each other.  So, each offering has to stand on its own.  In some ways, this isn't a bad thing.  And, it has allowed certain figures from the 2000 to become relatively popular as their own thing.  But, it was a detriment at the time of the release.  Collectors had accepted the new look for Python Patrol because it did match the vintage Python Patrol vehicles.  And, few people really collected Python Patrol in 2003.  But, Night Force was a different animal.  Even collectors who had sparse collections often had a couple of vintage Night Force figures.  They were the most popular vintage subset.  So, getting a new team of them that didn't match the originals was a let-down.  

Despite selling rather briskly upon its release, the Night Force set quickly started to languish.  Despite showing up at brick and mortar Toys R Us stores in mid January of 2004, you could still buy all the set you wanted come December of that same year.  2003 had ended with G.I. Joe as one of the most popular retail toy brands.  But, all that momentum was lost with the advent of 2004.  There are reasons for that which were far beyond Hasbro's control.  The result, though, was that Night Force rotted on the shelves for a full year.  Collectors had ample opportunity to acquire it.  And, most collectors of the time did buy one.  But, without the army building aspect and with a couple of figures that collectors didn't really care for, there was simply no reason for anyone to acquire additional sets...especially since pretty much every Toys R Us in the country always had ample options of Cobra sets also available at the same time.  

The reported production run of the Night Force set was around 20,000 sets.  That far outpaced the collector base of the time.  But, the scarcity of available sets now is a function of the set's lackluster popularity among collectors of the day rather than any actual rarity.  There are the same number of Night Force sets as there are Cobra Infantry sets who were released at the same time.  The disparity in individual figure pricing is a function of every collector buying as many Cobra Troopers as they could afford while leaving spare Night Force sets behind for someone's grandmother or uncle to buy as an unwanted gift for a child in their life.

The Night Force accessories were atrocious.  In many ways, this set was the beginning of Hasbro just not caring about figure's gear.  We had seen some of this with the 2003 Tiger Force set.  But, it was forgiven since the important figures had their original accessories.  Night Force did not.  And, this Short Fuse, despite being 100% associated with being a mortar trooper, only included a black update of the 1991 Big Ben's rifle and a pistol originally released with Tomax & Xamot.  I'll argue that the Tomax pistol is the 2nd worst weapon from the 1980's era of Joe behind only the 1984 Baroness rifle.  But, it's also iconic to Tomax and Xamot.  So, Short Fuse's gear was absolutely worthless.  The only upside is that 1989 Downtown gear was cast in black and was relatively available in 2004.  So, it was easy to get proper gear for this figure...even if that was an unnecessary burden from Hasbro.  Frankly, the poor gear kind of ruined the set.  The figures included needed their basic gear to really make sense.  And, Hasbro stripped away much of the characterization of the included figures by giving them generic accessories.

Despite all these misgivings, though, this Short Fuse is still really nice.  On his own, he works as the best mortar trooper in the entire Joe line.  You just have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get him there.  But, the presentation, colors, paint masks and quality are all close to excellent.  If this figure existed as a stand alone figure, everyone would have loved it.  And, despite collectors tending to punish Hasbro for good figures that were of minor characters and obscure molds, sentiment regarding Short Fuze in 2004 was generally positive.  The colors were nice and the overall package was nice enough that collectors could recognize quality: even if the figure was never used and didn't appear in many photos or dios of the time.

In writing this profile, I realized that I harp on the negatives of this figure.  Yet, overall, I still have a favorable impression of him.  In the early 2000's (and, to a lesser extent, today) collectors fell into 2 large camps: "haters" who hated anything Hasbro did and "suck-ups" who believed Hasbro could do no wrong.  The ration middle ground didn't exist in significant numbers.  Because of this, Hasbro simply didn't listen to collectors or try to engage them in any way.  Neither Hasbro, nor the few people they did interact with, really understood what collectors wanted.  And, they never asked in any meaningful way.  In fact, the few times they made comments that they thought were absurd proposals, they found themselves quickly backtracking when collectors actually liked those ideas.  It scared the Hasbro teams of the time that they were so out of touch with their consumer.  But, by 2004, the writing was on the wall that the line was dying.  And, the revolving door of brand managers proved that Hasbro knew it was a sinking ship.  I often wonder what would have happened if there had been, at the time, a real fan club capable of communicating with Hasbro.  The answer is we'd have probably seen figure designs and releases more like the Anniversary offerings starting in 2007 instead of the haphazard and unrelated toys we actually got.  I don't know, though, if that would have extended the brand's retail life.  But, we would have gotten a lot more figures and vehicles that would be held in high regard today.

The 2004 Night Force flows in and out of popularity.  If you time it right, you can snap a figure or a set for a good price.  But, that's getting harder to do with  tight supplies still holding over from the pandemic collectors retaining their now-forgotten acquisitions.  As such, this figure is a whopping $30+ purchase these days.  Dealers and open auctions seem to be in line with this price.  Personally, I find that ridiculous.  But, until supply loosens up, we're going to see premium pricing on superfluous figures from the post-vintage era.  I find this the best paint job of the Downtown mold.  But, he's certainly not worth current pricing and will  be an underwhelming addition to your collection for that price.  I do wish we'd seen more molds like Downtown's used in the 2000's.  But, collectors both then and now value the repaints of classic characters far more.  So, you can't fault Hasbro's logic...even if I don't agree with it.

1983 Battle Gear #1

After Christmas of 1982, I owned four G.I. Joe figures.  But, between Snake Eyes, Clutch, Hawk and Breaker, I had just one gun.  Three of the four figures did not include weapons.  This greatly limited my play options.  I went so far as to find an HO-scale coupler for train cars that kind of looked like a pistol and used it for Breaker.  I desperately wanted additional accessories so that all my figures could not only have at least one weapon, but even a choice of some of my favorite weapon designs.  My wishes came true one day when we were in Buffalo, visiting my grandparents.  We were there for a short trip early in the year.  We hadn't taken many toys, confirming the trip was shorter than our normal week.  But, when out shopping, I found a new pack of G.I. Joe accessories at a local store.  It was the original Battle Gear pack.

The pack was cheap enough that my mother bought one for both my younger brother and I.  With these weapons, I now had the ability to give Clutch a visor as well as offering a spare Uzi to Breaker.  I could choose any weapons I wanted for Hawk and Clutch, too.  Of course, Clutch got Stalker's M-32.  But, I also added some accessories to the VAMP.  The new Breaker headset would fit behind the seat with the wire tucked into the seam between the seat and the bottom of the vehicle.  So, this allowed for anyone riding shotgun in the VAMP to be able to communicate with the rest of the team.  I also placed a spare Uzi on the same spot.  This way, the VAMP had a backup small arm if it crashed or just ran out of gas.  Hawk, well, I learned a hard lesson with him.  I tried to get Grunt's M-16 into his hands and it immediately snapped his thumb.  That was the end of that Hawk figure.  And, it's part of what pushed me back to Star Wars figures as 1983 crept on.  

The odd thing about the Battle Gear pack was that the accessories were colored differently from those included with figures.  The weapons themselves are a lighter grey color than the original gear.  Even in 1983, I could easily tell the difference between the Battle Gear and original weapons.  But, the weapons are close enough in color to be useful.  The visors are identical to the originals, though.  The helmets and backpacks, though, were very different.  The helmets were dark brown and did not match any figure.  The packs, though, were worse.  They were a tan color.  Again, they matched no figures until the 1983 Falcon Glider Grunt was released.  There was no explanation for the color changes.  In fact, the 1983 promo catalog showed original gear in the set.  So, the color change was a later decision that was never explained.  

The 1983 Battle Gear set includes every accessory from the 1982 line.  There are 4 visors, two Uzis and even Snake Eyes' ammo pack.  There were three exceptions, though.  Short Fuze's mortar and stand were omitted as was Zap's bazooka.  These three pieces would later show up in white in the 1984 Battle Gear set.  But, again, there was no explanation as to why they weren't included.  It was made weirder by the fact that their shared backpack was included with the 1983 set.  The fact that both those accessories underwent design changes could explain it.  But, both the 1982 Snake Eyes Uzi and Stalker M-32 are different from the 1983 releases of both accessories.  So, other weapons were modified, too.  The exclusion of these weapons remains a mystery nearly 40 years later.

The biggest new feature of the Battle Gear set is the battle stands.  These little rectangles of plastic brought a whole new element to Joe collecting.  The stands allowed kids to pose their figures and stand them up in any pose they desired.  The Battle Gear included two stands.  Starting in 1984, differently colored stands would be included with several small playsets.  By 1993, every figure included a stand on their weapon tree.  This ingenious idea allowed kids to display figures.  But, it also allowed them to put their toys away on a shelf using vertical space and keeping their gear on.  

In the early days of Joe collecting, the ubiquity of 1983 Battle Gear weapons allowed customizers to accessorize their creations with great aplomb.  They were free to paint, slice up and otherwise modify the Battle Gear weapons without worrying about their original accessories.  For dealers, though, the 1983 Battle Gear provided a great way to bilk unsuspecting collectors out of their hard earned money by offering them as original gear with original 13 figures.  Even today, you'll see many seller "mistake" Battle Gear weapons for the original.  But, the colors are blatantly different and there's no excuse for any mistakes by a seller.  

The value to a collector today is that this Battle Gear is an excellent option to properly outfit factory custom figures.  Many of Red Laser Army's figures are obvious homages to various foreign and unproduced characters from the Joe line's earliest days.  They, though, lacked gear that was a perfect match for them.  Battle Gear allows you to give these characters the weapons they deserve.  And, while the 1983 helmets and packs aren't great for many figures, the weapons are a great way to update the homages.  Having some cheap alternatives for that purpose is a definite plus.

Back in the early 2000's, before people got stupid with Joe prices, it was relatively easy to put together a small team of original 13 figures in a tan style.  With Grunt, Clutch and Doc bodies, you could make a tan Breaker, Hawk and Stalker.  If you were handy with a little paint, you could put together a decent Snake Eyes, too.  And, the Battle Gear weapons are a perfect match for this set.  To this day, I store my Tan Grunt with the Battle Gear backpack and M-16 since they are so closely aligned in color to the figure.  The tan works with Scarlett, too, as a way to better accessorize her.

For me, the real value of the Battle Gear came many years after its initial release.  In 1986 and 1987, I often had third faction terrorists or freedom fighters (really, they're the same thing just with different marketing depending upon which side they battle against) who would interject into the Joe vs. Cobra conflict.  My favorite was having them drive up to a ceremony in the A-Team van, open the door and pop out with small sub machine guns and mow down the dignitaries in attendance.  As small weapons were not overly common in the Joe line (and, most of the ones that did exist were in use by their original owners!) the Battle Gear Uzis were a great means of making these civilian fighters a more formidable force.  I'd toss in some of the larger rifles, too, as part of their getaway plan.  

My other random memory of the Battle Gear weapons comes on a cold winter's day, probably in either 1984 or 1985.  It was a Sunday and I had been playing with my Joes in the garage.  (It was warmer in there than outside, but still counted as outside play.)  I picked them all up and took them in.  A few hours later, right before dinner, I went back out to put away some bikes or balls and happened to find a Battle Gear M-60 on the floor.  It wasn't part of my team that had been in the garage that day.  And, it was a neat find as we didn't have a regular Rock and Roll and this Battle Gear version was the only copy of his weapon in our possession.  I took the weapon inside.  Really, though, it's not finding the weapon that was memorable.  Instead, it was the feeling I had as I picked it up off the floor.  For some reason, I got an overwhelming feeling of sadness that it was Sunday night and I was back to school on Monday.  To this day, I get the same feeling on some Sunday afternoons as the sun goes down.  Every time I do, I think back to that day in the garage, finding Rock and Roll's gun and then being saddened by the fact that my fun was over and it was back to work early the following morning.

You'll see some dealers command premiums for various accessories in this set.  The Uzi tends to command the highest price and sells for around $7, even as dealers ask double that.  But, the real value in the set is the visors.  As such, you'll usually find sets that are sold sans visors.  A whole loose set with no visors will run about $20.  On their own, though, visors sell for around $20.  So, getting the visors, too, will be expensive.  You can get carded sets in the $85 range.  Which, with 4 visors is a little lower than the loose price.  For just the weapons, the price is probably decent.  Original Uzis aren't easy to find and this is a cheap way to get them.  My only real lament is that the other Battle Gear packs in subsequent years didn't follow the close coloring of the originals like this first attempt at additional accessories did.

Rarities - JC Penny Breaker, Zap, Short Fuze 3 Pack

When the Joe line launched in 1982, catalog sales were still a dominant retail force.  For a toy line to maximize sales, it had to offer some form of product that was more conducive to mail away sales.  JC Penny picked up the Joe line for its Christmas catalog in 1982.  Below, you can see the catalog page with all the Joe offerings.  Here, the retailer offered several different three packs of figures.  The most famous it the set of Cobras due to the exclusive accessories.  But, there were Joe three packs, too.  Oddly, Stalker, Snake Eyes and Scarlett were offered together...long before we really knew about their connection.  But, in this case, here is the set that featured Breaker, Zap and Short Fuze.

The figures arrived in a box featuring the assortment number of 6195.  Each figure was individually bubbled and attached to their red back filecard.  The only way to remove the figure was to leave a scar from the bubble on the filecard back.  

The figures themselves are not distinguishable from the standard carded Joes of the day.  Zap does have an accessory variant, though, that will be discussed later.  The fact that the figures were packed with their gear in the bubbles made for a tight fit as both Zap and Short Fuze included the largest accessories in the original 13 lineup.

Of important note is that this Zap included either a B1 or a B2 bazooka.  The only other appearance of the B1 variant was in the JC Penny Cobra Trooper pack that was released in the same catalog.  This makes the B1 bazooka more common than the A1 exclusive in the Cobra set.  But, it's still a tough item to find.  And, it can be used to complete a legit JC Penney Zap figure.  Be sure to check out this list of Zap bazooka variants.

Below are the filecards for the figures.

There are a few items of note on the filecards.  First, is the assortment number.  It is 6195, which matches the assortment on the box and from the catalog.  This identifies the figures as being from the JC Penny set.  Second, you see that each filecard still included the flag point.

The JC Penny offerings are an interesting historical piece to remind us of the demise of the catalog sales model business.  The Internet has consumed all that business these days.  And, retailers like Penny's are just holding on for dear life and hoping that consumers still find value in a brick and mortar presence.  Finding Joes from these old mail away sets still in attached to their cards is nearly impossible these days.  And, even just the loose filecards with the flag points cut away will command substantial premiums.

Rarities - 1997 Short Fuze (Brown Pants & Alternate Accessory Colors)

We all know about the black skinned 1997 Rock and Roll variant.  But, the set that included the most famous variant in the repaint era also included several other variant figures and accessories.  These have not gotten the press of the race changing figure.  But, they are equally frustrating to find. Below you will see a Short Fuze figure with much darker (nearly brown) pants and his cream colored weapons.

The cream colored bazooka and pack are the most distinguishing features of the figure.  They are an easily recognizable tip to help identify this figure.  You see that the entire pack is painted.  But, just on the front.  It seems very much like these weapons were meant for a paint application that was just removed to save cost by casting the gear in the proper green color.

The figure itself is definitely darker than the production release.  It was noted that there is a Breaker variant in the black Rock and Roll sets.  This Short Fuze adds another.  It's likely that many of the figures feature some type of production change just due to the continuous quality changes that the 1997 line underwent as it was rushed to retail.  

As variants go, the bazooka is interesting.  But, the figure is pretty banal.  But, it's also the type of thing that few people know about and you can track down just by perusing various Short Fuze figures that might be available.  But, if it exists in similar numbers to the Rock and Roll, that could still take quite a while.

2005 Comic Pack Short Fuse - By Past Nastification

 A swing and a miss!  That’s the best way to sum up the 2005 Short-Fuze, a comic pack figure.  It’s one of Hasbro’s re-animated uses of the ARAH molds to create figures directly inspired by their comic book appearances.   

Some of the figures done in the sub-series (for lack of a better word), were pretty decent.  Stalker really captured the look/feel of the early Herb Trimpe artwork.  Short-Fuze is a good effort, but a low reward.  

Short-Fuze’s head was new.  After not having his spectacles for 22 years, Hasbro finally decided to set this right.  The headsculpt has a center-part haircut, a somewhat pensive facial expression, and the glasses.  Two problems plague the head, though.  First, it’s underscaled.  If it were 15% larger, it would be perfectly scaled to the ARAH body.  Secondly, Short-Fuze’s glasses are painted as sunglasses, not regular glasses.

The glasses could have been sculpted “clear” like those of the Baroness, with no actual lenses, way back in 1984.  Or at least colored in a “clear substitute” color, like sky blue or dove grey. 

Problems aside, this is still the best original/un-shared Short-Fuze head.  It might be the only original head Short-Fuze has had.  The original ARAH head was the Hawk/Steeler/Flash/Short-Fuze head.  In the mid 2000’s, both Downtown and Blizzard heads were used.  Poor Short-Fuze didn’t even show up in the New Sculpt era.  In the 25A line, Doc’s head was used.  At least he’s not Grand Slam, the only OG13 figure to never have an original head.   

The body is a retread of sorts of the ’82 body (with the larger belt) paired with ’83 swivel-arm battle grip arms.  The uniform color is green, but it is a forest ranger green, not olive drab.  Admittedly, it’s close to the green used by Marvel for the OG13 uniforms, but it manages to somehow look very… plastic, if not waxy.  The chest harness, belt, and boots are painted in a wonderful dusty tan color, and it somehow offsets the badness of the forest ranger green.  Hasbro earns big points for painting the turtleneck red.  Good work, H!   

By the way, yojoe.com says that the body (except for the head and lower arms) are resculpts based on the ’82 figure.  Hasbro did a good job on this.  I didn’t notice and probably never would have.  Yojoe.com also put a sidearm in the package (shared with Flash and Rock ‘n Roll) as belonging to Short-Fuze.  I must not have agreed at the time, although looking at the package it clearly was intended as for Short-Fuze, because it didn’t make it to the storage tray. 

The obvious accessories I was smart enough to properly retain were the backpack and the mortar.  These pieces are frustrating.  In 1997, the correct ones were released in the Stars and Stripes Forever set.  Seven or eight years must be a long time in toy world, because this Short-Fuze came with a Roadblock backpack and a mortar.  I had always assumed it was a Downtown mortar, but it’s not.  It’s also not a Sub-Zero mortar.  Was it a new one made just for this Short-Fuze?  I don’t know.  I would have preferred the ’82 gear again, but these are acceptable. 

 Speaking of accessories, Short-Fuze didn’t have a helmet/visor.  This figure was obviously designed to showcase its headsculpt, but that shouldn’t have precluded a helmet/visor.  

After 1983, Short-Fuze didn’t see much comic book usage.  One of his few additional appearances was in issue #25, when he was part of the transport team that took Storm Shadow to Alcatraz.  That uniform featured a collared button-up shirt with pockets.  Given that Hasbro made some obscure comic pack versions (karate gi Scarlett or astronaut Flash or undercover Grunt), this might have been an interesting choice.    

Instead of nailing Short-Fuze’s comic book look, Hasbro took small missteps.  Sadly, they’re ones that add up and detract from the figure’s overall quality.  

 

1997 Short Fuse

Some characters just get short changed.  Short Fuse is one such Joe character for me.  In 20 years, I've looked at one Short Fuse figure from the 2005 Comic Book Pack.  I like the character so much that I not only misspelled the title of that character in that profile, but I also misspelled it 22 additional times in the body of the profile.  It's not that I hate Short Fuse.  It's just that the character and his various figures over the years really haven't resonated with me.  While a mortar was a useful idea in childhood play, the practicality was limited since it was tough to use the weapon in close quarters that dueling action figures require. So, Short Fuse never much mattered to me.  And, while this 1997 repaint is a solid upgrade from the original, it's also somewhat uninspired and hasn't helped the character catch on with me.

As a figure, Short Fuse suffers from his introduction to my collection.  The original Short Fuse was owned by my youngest brother.  As he was four at the time, any figure that was given to him was quickly destroyed.  Somehow, he received both Short Fuse and Zap in early 1983.  And, with both figures, their thumbs were destroyed even before the figures really entered in our play rotation.  So, Short Fuse was really never part of those early Joe memories.  At some point, the same brother got a swivel arm version of Short Fuse.  This figure was better cared for...I pulled him aside to save him.  But, by the time he was introduced, 1984 figures were on the shelves and Short Fuse seemed dated and relatively useless.  As he wasn't much of a player in the comic, Short Fuse never really mattered much to me.

So, upon finding the Stars and Stripes set at a Toys R Us in Scottsdale, Arizona in December of 1997, I still paid Short Fuse little attention.  I was enamored with Stalker and appreciated the Snake Eyes figure.  In time, Scarlett and even Zap would find some use in my collection.  Short Fuse, though, remained forgotten.  Even though the new red hair gave Short Fuse some characterization that separated him from the other blonde uses of his 1982 sculpted head, I didn't have much use for him.  I found one photo shoot from the fall of 2001 where he appeared.  But, that was about it.  (It's the photo below with Short Fuse on the Swampmasher.)  The figure just didn't catch my eye and he remained packed away until it was time for photos for this profile.

All of which, though, isn't to say that this is a bad figure.  Aside from the red hair change, this Short Fuse is pretty much the same as the original release.  His upper body coloring is close to that of the 1983 Zap figure...further tying these two together.  But, the lower body is a lighter green with a slight cammo pattern that gives this Short Fuse far more depth than the original 1982 figure.  He has both black and brown accents.  This breaks up some of the cohesion of the figure.  But also allows for more colors in the palette.  In short, this is a better Short Fuse than the original.  But, he's still kind of boring and not visually interesting enough to overcome his lack of characterization or difficult to use specialty.

I've long felt that Downtown was meant to be a Short Fuse update.  In 2004, Hasbro agreed and brought around the first appearance of Short Fuse since 1997.  This repainted Downtown that was released in the 2004 Night Force set was a good way to breathe some life into the Short Fuse character.  Alas, while that figure is excellently painted, his gear is atrocious and that lessens the value of him quite a bit.  So much so that not even that solid take on the character was enough to get him to crack into even some of the lesser used figures in my collection.

Short Fuse's gear is fairly well done with a few caveats.  First off, he includes a retake on his original mortar and stand.  The mortar is the thick 1/2 handled body and the stand still works perfectly.  He has his classic pack in a green color that matches the figure's body.  The rockets are painted black, though, to give it much greater depth.  He includes the clearer 1997 visor and a green take on the classic helmet.  Alas, the 1997 helmets are crap and don't really fit onto any of the figures in the set.  So, Short Fuse is doomed to an eternity of awkwardness.  The one fun update to Short Fuse, though, is that he also includes a green bazooka from the the original Zap.  The practicality of carrying both a mortar and bazooka into battle is nil.  But, from a toy perspective, the inclusion of this extra weapon brought a great deal of playability to Short Fuse that his original release was missing.

Short Fuse traveled a bit.  After the figure's Hasbro release, the swivel arm mold went to India.  (The straight arm mold was released in South America.)  There, Short Fuse was released in a few major color variants as well as several minor green shading differences.  Some, like the blue Short Fuse, command high prices.  Others will sell for less.  But, Hasbro got Short Fuse back for the Stars and Stripes set in 1997 and the figure was never released again with the full body or complement of vintage gear.  Hasbro could have gotten more mileage out of this mold (and the other Stars and Stripes figures) with a few creative repaints.  I'd have bought any original 13 member in desert, Night Force or even Tiger Force paint schemes.  But, we're just left with this 1997 version as an update to the original figure.

1997 Short Fuse figures aren't terribly hard to find.  Many dealers carry them in the $15 range...selling quite a few.  Left to the open market, it's about an $8-$10 figure.  That's not too bad for something that's more than 20 years old, is colored nicely and includes a ton of classic gear.  For the price difference between this figure and a 1983 version, the 1997 is definitely the way to go.  I've found time to be kind to the 1997 series of figures.  It wasn't well liked upon its release.  But, when considered against all that came after it, the 1997 figures have held up far better than many of their post vintage contemporaries.  For me, this figure is still Short Fuse and I don't have much use for the character.  But, this 1997 version gives me an appearance that's more interesting than the 1983 and is also far less brittle.  That's not much value that he brings.  But, it's enough to justify owning one, for sure.

Rarities - 1997 Stars and Stripes Rock and Roll Skin Color Variant

Originally, the 1997 series of figures was planned to include a repainted Breaker and a repainted 1983 Rock and Roll figure.  Handpainted samples were shown on the back of the Star and Stripes set.  But, the molds for those figures were "lost".  Hasbro resorted to some quick replacements and both characters were released in 1997 as repaints of the 1986 Roadblock body with different heads.  Somewhere along the way, though, there was a miscommunication.  Somehow, Rock and Roll was given black skin.  This may have been a holdover from the Roadblock color templates that were used.  But, a good amount of the mis-painted figures were packaged into Stars and Stripes sets and sold in Toys R Us stores across the country.

Today, this variant is rather tough to find and is worth a couple of hundred dollars.  But, in 1997, the figure was findable.  Anecdotally, collectors of the era estimated that about 1 in 30 Stars and Stripes sets had the variant.  As the production run for the set was believed to be around 30,000 sets, that would place 1,000 Rock and Roll variants into the collecting community.  Of course, that "back of the napkin" estimate could be wildly off.  But, the variant was quickly discovered by collectors of the time.  However, the figures weren't overly desirable and you could easily trade a spare 1997 Alley Viper straight up for one. 

The variant set that includes this Rock and Roll also contains a significant Breaker variant.  But, since it's just a color hue change, no one cares about it and it lacks the cachet and value of the Rock and Roll.  It was extremely rare for Hasbro to race change a figure mold in the US.  So, in the cases where it did occur (either intentionally or by accident) the resulting figures have found great collector interest.  You used to be able to find sealed Stars and Stripes sets with the variant figures in mislabeled online sales and could get deals.  But, it's been more than a decade since those dried up and this figure is now well known and accordingly priced in the community.  It's safe to say that almost all of the variants ended in collector hands due to the rapid identity and communication of the variant.  But, it's still one of the rarest and most significant retail variants in the history of the G.I. Joe line.

2005 Comic Pack Short Fuze

The original 13 G.I. Joe figures had a lot of common parts. As such, to an outside eye, many of the figures appeared to be very similar or the same. Hasbro went to great lengths to differentiate the common parts by using different hair colors or uniform styles. But, at the end of the day, Breaker looked like Clutch who looked like Rock and Roll. In the Marvel comic, though, the artists were not constrained by such cost cutting. On the drawn panel, each character was allowed to take on his own look and personality. Rock and Roll had longer blonde hair. Clutch didn't have full beard, but a few days of scruff. And, Breaker didn't have a beard at all and usually had his face obscured by a ubiquitous wad of bubble gum. The Short Fuse character was similar. Sharing a head with Flash, Hawk and Steeler, Short Fuse had the misfortune of also sharing a hair color with the Joe team's leader. To give him more uniqueness than just his shoulder harness uniform, the comic artists drew Short Fuse with glasses. In time, these became the character's signature look, even though they were missing from his figure.

23 years after the release of the original Short Fuse, Hasbro revisited the character and sculpted a new head for him. Finally, Short Fuse had his trademark glasses and a head that was more unique to the character. The head is a great piece of work, too. Short Fuse has flowing 80's style hair with peaks that perfectly frame the tightly sculpted glasses. The black spectacles bring some character to the figure without making him too geeky. The rest of the face is full of detail and stands far above offerings like Zap or Flash that were fairly boring. Unfortunately, the rest of the figure is boring. The odd green color meant to be a comic book homage is less useful than most collectors would like and the rest of the body is nothing more than the same Short Fuse mold that was released in 1983 and 1997. Instead of adding some new cachet to the mold, Hasbro did a straight homage to the original. The result is a figure that starts off exceptionally well and then quickly fizzles into mundane repetition.

The comic pack figures had some shortcomings. The most glaring for Short Fuse is his inability to wear a helmet. In their zeal to sculpt different hair for the character, Hasbro removed the ability for a Mortar Trooper to wear protective head gear. Sure, the hair is nicely done. But, having a bunch of bare-headed homages to the original line seems half hearted. Near the end, Hasbro brought in a helmet for Breaker. But, figures like this Short Fuse and Zap were left wanting by not having the helmets and eyewear that were in line with their character's original appearance. It was little details like this that kept the comic packs from ever reaching the heights of collector popularity that they should have. Sure, they were enjoyed at the time. But, there are few figures from the packs that have sustained any long term collector appeal...mostly because the figures had small or glaring flaws such as the accessories, colors or mold choices.

One of the frustrations I had with the comic packs was the lack of original accessories. In some cases, Hasbro included some decent new weapons (The resculpted M16 you see below was one such nice inclusion.) but basically all of the original Joe accessories had been seen in 1997. Had figures like Short Fuse, Zap and Flash included their original weapons, the figures would have been more memorable. This Short Fuse does include a newly sculpted mortar, but he also has the recast Roadblock's backpack that was all too common during this timeframe. As such, while Short Fuse retains some tie to his speciality, the reality is that some of the character that were brought by his unique accessories is now lost in banality of modern, ubiquitous resculpts. At least the new mortar was well done and this time, Short Fuse included a pistol for a short range, anti-personnel weapon.

Short Fuse, like many of his contemporaries, is actually a mostly new sculpt. Hasbro had used the Short Fuse/Zap chest in 1997. But, rather than resurrect that mold, they resculpted all of the figure with the exception of the upper arms. Again, this was a huge frustration during this time period. Hasbro would not resculpt excellent figure molds like the V2 Snake Eyes, V1 Alley Viper, V1 BAT, V1 Cobra Commander or V1 Destro but they did resulpt figures like Short Fuse, Lady Jaye and General Hawk whose molds had been used less than a decade before. To me, this showed a great disconnect between Hasbro and the Joe collecting community and was part of what lead to the great amounts of distrust and ultimate abandonment of the line by both parties in 2006.

If you really want this figure, he is dirt cheap. He's not common, but the comic pack figures have basically become worthless in recent years, even the harder to find characters. Carded versions can be more expensive, but loose figures can be had for under $5 if you can find them. It's not a bad price to pay. The head is worth having for the character and has some potential for use even on the vintage mold. But, the original Short Fuse figure is still superior to this one. So, if you only want one version of the character, I'd go with that one. At the core, that was the issue with the comic packs in general. There were too many remakes of characters that simply were not better than prior versions. As such, collectors were left with unfulfilled promise. At least the prices of many of the figures now bear out the lack of long term collector interest.