50th Anniversary Leatherneck

I got lucky...

I've seen some absolute horror stories regarding the paint apps for Leatherneck. I've seen some pictures where half of his hair on the back of his head is missing paint. Ugh!

No horror stories here, though. My Leatherneck came in pretty decent condition. A bonus since I bought him from BBTS and, of course, didn't have a chance to look at the package. It's too bad that this has become an issue with this line. Usually, paint app screw-ups are a little more rare than this. I guess the Quality Control department at Hasbro doesn't much give a crap right now. 

Enough about Hasbro and their shitty attitude towards GI Joe. Let's talk about Leatherneck.

The design team that developed Leatherneck a few years ago did a helluva' job. The figure just looks amazing. The only real drawback that I've heard about from collectors (besides crappy paint) has been his size - he's a beast!

There's some great detailing on the vest and the paint apps look pretty decent to me. I suppose it helps that my near vision gets a little more blurry every year.

Here's my only paint app issue with my Leatherneck - right around the back of the head. There are bits of missing paint here and there around the back of the head. I'm sure that a black paint marker could take care of those spots quite easily.

The design team used the body from Roadblock (v2) from Retaliation. The only really new items are the head sculpt and the vest. He towers over the standard GI Joe figure.

And then there's Tollbooth - using the 25th style body with much shorter legs, he's really quite short compared to Leatherneck. Still okay, though, since real humans are extremely varied in height differences.

I'm not really thrilled with the weapons that came with Leatherneck. He comes with an M-16 with a grenade launcher as well as the big 50 cal machine gun that came with a RET Roadblock figure. The big gun is pretty cool, but it's a bit fragile. I've got to find my other 50 cal from Roadblock and probably super-glue them together and then mount them on my new Tomahawk. 

I think Leatherneck needs a decent sized gun like the M-249. I've got a couple different versions from various vendors, so my bigger Joes can carry some serious firepower.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the end result of Leatherneck. Sure, he's very tall and I'm okay with that. In my opinion, he's one of the few shining stars in this overall dismal 50th Anniversary of GI Joe, the best damn action figure line ever. Yeah, I'm biased.