Rarities - General Patch Tank

Not too many people remember the General Patch line.  It was an obscure G.I. Joe knock off produced by the Galoob toy company.  The figures in general were pretty terrible.  The face sculpts were awful.  And, the quality wasn't great.  But, they made some vehicles, too.  And, one of them is pretty awesome.  It's also pretty famous.  But, the fame comes from a later repaint of the mold in the A-Team line.  In that line, the tank, missile launcher and trailer were redone in black.  

As a kid, this was the way that I knew this tank.  We got the A-Team tank one Christmas.  At first, I tried to integrate it into my Joe team.  But, in time, I realized that the tank worked better as a Cobra vehicle.  For one, it was a nice complement to the Hiss Tank.  Secondly, I didn't have tons of Cobra land vehicles at the time.  So, having a new tank was nice.  And, finally, the tank fits well with 1983 Cobra Officers and Troopers.  And, as our Stinger had been beat up and wasn't really useful any longer, the Stinger Driver joined the team, too.  With these figures, the tank became a tough opponent for Joes.

As a kid, I removed the cannon from the A-Team tank and managed to put the twin gatling cannons from the Thunder Machine into the slot.  With this, the tank became an incredible anti-infantry tank.  Cobra finally had a weapon that was more powerful than any Joe counterpart.  And, since the tank was armored, it would stand up to VAMPs and AWE Strikers with ease.

I had no idea, though, that the tank also existed in green as part of the General Patch line.  In fact, I had no idea there was a line called General Patch.  It wasn't something I had seen.  And, I didn't tend to look at any toy lines aside from Joe, Star Wars and, from time to time, Masters of the Universe.  So, things like this tank tended to fall under my radar.

The green on the tank, though, is pretty nice.  It would work well with Joes along with many of the Black Major Cobra Trooper repaints that have come out in recent years.  But, the tank is hard to find.  You don't often see it, even today.  And, because of that, it can get pricey.  Heck, even the A-Team repaint has gotten expensive in recent years.  So, tracking one down is a pain.  But, it's neat enough that it will fit with 1982 and 1983 Joes.  

Rarities - 2004 Comic Pack Hawk - Unproduced Head

In 2004, Hasbro came up with the idea of Comic Packs.  This alternate selling method would offer consumers three vintage style Joe figures with a comic book featuring those characters for the whopping price of $9.99.  It seemed like a great idea that was certain to pave the way for the future of retail action figure sales.  And, for a short time, it kind of was.  But, as was common with alternate G.I. Joe retail products, the Comic Packs quickly stalled out at retail and were gone just a year later.  While they offered a nice variety of relatively unimpressive or memorable figures, the Comic Packs also had a few pre-production pieces that featured some oddball coloring.  One such example is this 2004 General Hawk.

If you're a fan of this site, you've seen this head before.  It's the head I put on a 2004 Comic Pack Cobra Officer body for my character Skeres.  I thought the head was distinctive enough to create a new character.  So, this set was the first of the alternate Asian figures that I tracked down.  Originally, the figures were sold as a set of three figures and accessories: all still in their tray from the Comic Pack.  I paid about $33 to have the three figures shipped from China.  Quite a stretch from prices today.

There are no other major changes to the figure aside from the head.  But, the head's distinctive coloring was what made it stand out.  And, even as more and more uproduced figures from Asia began to appear, this Hawk kept his status.  But, he did lose his popularity.  With many more figures that collectors desired, these early oddballs like Hawk fell into obscurity.  And, as alternate Anti Venom and unproduced Wal Mart figures became common in standard collections, this Hawk never appeared.  

It's very unlikely that this figure is anything more than a plastic test.  Since the Stalker in the pack featured pale, white plastic for the skin on the head, it could be that a run got the plastic colors for each mold wrong.  Regardless of how this figure came to be, it's a fun piece of Joe history that was a member of one of the hallmarks of the early 2000's Joe community.

Rarities - Plastirama Cobra Adder

Plastirama produced a large number of figures and vehicles for their exclusive Comandos Heroicos line in Argentina.  The figures were almost exclusively repaints of 1985 and prior molds.  But, there were a few oddballs (like Sgt. Slaughter and Crazylegs) who broke that pattern.  The same was true for their vehicles.  The majority of Plastirama vehicles were released in the earliest years of the Joe line by Hasbro.  But, Plastirama did have a few vehicles from later in the 1980's that saw a production release.  One is the 1988 Cobra Adder.

The Adder is odd as it's one of those vehicles released in 1988 that looks like it would have been a 1986 release.  The design is sleek and fun and the colors match up with more traditional Cobra vehicles and figures.  The 1988 line was bizarre for a lot of reasons.  So, the Adder being more in line with earlier releases has left it a vehicle that collectors tend to enjoy.  How it ended up in Argentina, though, is anybody's guess.

As for the vehicle, it's not materially different from the Hasbro release.  There are slight nuances to the colors that make the vehicle distinctive.  But, it would easily integrate with a group of Hasbro Adders or other vehicles of similar colors.  This is likely why it was largely ignored when Plastirama vehicle overstock was widely available.

The Plastirama release uses the same box artwork as the Hasbro release.  So, kids in Argentina could buy a vehicle that showcased a character (Road Pig) that was not released there.  This wasn't the first time this happened.  And, it doesn't seem to be too big of a deal.  However, in 2022, Hasbro can not put any figures on their Star Wars Vintage Collection boxes that they have not actually released.  So, in the modern context, showcasing characters that consumers could not buy is a bit of a novelty.  But, the box art was likely reused to save money.  The main difference, aside from the crappy cardboard, is the Plastirama logo on the box.

The toy itself isn't that far removed from the Hasbro release.  Plastirama didn't tend to radically repaint their vehicles like they were wont to do with figures.  So, while this exclusive Adder does have a color variant from the Hasbro release, it's not drastic enough to really attract collector attention.  The Plastirama version is a slightly lighter blue than the Hasbro toy.  

Overall, the Plastirama Adder isn't the most interesting piece.  But, it shows some of the oddity of the Plastirama line since it's such a late mold for them.  

Rarities - Funskool Rock and Roll

As Funskool figures become famous in the early 2000's, it lead to a trailblazing group of collectors whose mission it was to track down earlier Funskool releases.  In their acquisitions, it appeared that an unpopular repaint of the 1989 Rock and Roll was one of the more difficult figures to track down from India.  In the ensuing decades, the figure became more common.  But, it has remained a mostly obscure pre-mass import Funskool offering.

This figure is based on the 1991 Super Sonic Fighters repaint of Rock and Roll.  It has a few key differences.  First, the backpack does not create sound.  Second, the figure's weapons are a lighter tan color than the Hasbro figure.  And, finally, this figure also includes the Shotgun that appeared on the Hasbro card art in 1991 but, was completely missing from the actual figure release.

We'll start by looking at some carded figures of the Rock and Roll.  As you can see, the packaging art is the same as the Hasbro release of the figure.  However, the artwork is cropped differently so that it fits on the smaller cardbacks that were Funskool standards.

 

Below are some close ups of the figure and his accessories.  The actual figure is fairly similar to the Hasbro release of the same figure.  This is likely due to the cartoon reruns airing in India during the time of this figure's release that featured this look for the classic Rock and Roll character.  Of course, the figure is slightly different from the Hasbro version.  And, it's likely there are slight color variants among Rock and Roll figures released in India over the various production years.

The big difference is in the figure's gear.  While this Rock and Roll does include the sonic backpack from the Hasbro figure, the electronics and sound from the pack have been removed.  So, you get all of the size of the buffoonish pack without that pesky extra weight.

Rock and Roll includes the large machine gun, weapon stand and mortar from the Hasbro release.  They are in a nice, medium brown color that's probably preferable to the Hasbro colors of these stronger than you might realize weapons.  However, the figure includes one other piece that was included with the Hasbro mintings of this figure: the 1989 shotgun.  This weapon appears on the Hasbro card artwork.  But, it was not included with the Hasbro figure.  But, it is here on the Funskool release.

What's also odd is that the other weapons that were included with the 1989 Rock and Roll were also released in India with other figures.  The twin gatling cannons, backpack and ammo belts were used on various figures through the years.  They were continued on figures produced in the 2000's and not returned to Hasbro with this mold.

Below you will a couple of cardbacks for this figure.  One was made in 1996 and other in 1997.  This was kind of a dark period of Funskool releases when modern collectors started to chase down Funskool variants.  It has since become more understood.  But, this Rock and Roll was discontinued in the 1990's.

And, that leads to the most interesting part of the story.  It seems that when Hasbro recalled molds in 1997 or so, this Rock and Roll was among them.  With the mold in hand, though, Hasbro didn't rush to use it.  (Which is odd considering how terrible the 1997 Hasbro Rock and Roll figure is.)  They did, though, finally plan to use the mold with the 2001 HQ.  The figure in the set is even called Rock and Roll.  However, Hasbro returned the mold to Funskool before it could be used.  With the mold back in hand, Funskool planned to release a new paint job on Rock and Roll as a brand new figure for their line in 2003 or 2004.  But, the Funskool line was cancelled before it came to be and this 1990's figure remains the only Rock and Roll released in India.

Today, this figure remains expensive, especially if you want him complete.  But, he is findable and the days of there being only a handful of them in the collecting community are two decades in the past.  As an oddity, this figure is fun.  His gear is better than Hasbro's.  So, that's something worth tracking down.  But, really, no one cares much for this look for Rock and Roll.  So, the figure remains fairly obscure, even today.

Rarities - Brazilian Hydro Viper (Estrela)

Estrela produced about 140 unique figures in their Comandos Em Acao line.  While collectors really focus on the amalgamations and drastic repaints, the bulk of the Brazilian line was figures that were produced in colors very similar to their Hasbro counterparts.  In general, it seems that the figures were meant to copy the original Hasbro colors.  But, nuances in plastic coloring between China and Brazil lead to slight differences in all of the figures that Estrela produced.

At first glance, you might not notice that this Brazilian Hydro Viper is different from the Hasbro version.  But, put side to side, the figure's brighter colors stand out.  Aside from that, there aren't many other differences.  What is interesting is that the Hydro Viper and Toxo Viper both were produced by Hasbro, Estrela and Funskool.  And, both figures remain very similarly colored across all three countries.  The Brazilian Toxo and Hydro Vipers are brighter colored.  The Hasbro figures are in the middle.  And, the Funskool figures are much darker purple.  So, there's a level of consistency there.

To me, the slight nuance of Estrela figures makes them collectible.  And, in recent years, the more mundane Estrela figures have become much more common and available.  Sadly, though, they haven't come down in price and the heyday of cheap Brazilian figures from the early 2010's is just a fond memory.