Friday, June 14, 2013

Dollar General GI Joe figures - Running Changes

The much rumored '2nd wave" or running changes of the Dollar General $6.00 GI Joe figures are finally beginning to show up in my area. There are tons of Dollar General stores in my area, so this should be a fun hunt.
I only saw four of the six figures at one of the DG's that I stopped by yesterday. I only picked up the Shipwreck and Stormshadow figures. Snake Eyes and Cobra Commander were also available, but I passed on them because they suck so bad. Snake Eyes is done up in shades of green and looks really awful. The first wave's Cobra Commander was marginal at best and really doesn't need to be seen again in this format.
  
 I'm quite pleased with these two figures. The blue version of Shipwreck was pretty decent, but I really like this color change on Shipwreck. I don't know if the greens work with Shipwreck's naval aspect, but he still makes for a decent figure. 
Again, like the blue version, he comes with some pretty useless accessories. Scuba pack, mask, and a Renegades pistol.
The most important element of this figure is the potential for customizing and troop building.
More on that later.
 Same situation with Stormshadow: same figure, same gear, just new colors. The sword, bow, and sash are molded in a dark blue. The most striking change is the uniform color. Going from the black with white highlights to white with orange highlights, this Stormshadow figure becomes a new character. Or actually an old character. The orange highlights bring to mind T'Gin-Zu,Stormshadow's team mate from the Ninja Force from 1993.
While not officially T'Gin-Zu, most fans agree that the orange coloring is close enough top consider this guy as someone else besides Stormshadow. Again, T'Gin-Zu is just a complete reuse of the Stormshadow figure mold.

And it works. the original T'Gin-Zu figure only had an orange hood and belt, so this new version includes much more color. plus, the orange is much darker and just seems to work well on this figure.

With the first version of this figure, I saw the potential for the black and white version to become a troop builder. One can never have too many ninjas

But with this new orange and white version, I can only visualize this guy as a specific ninja. I don't know if I can get behind a clan of orange and white ninjas.

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