FSS 8.0 Line Up

The final line up for the Figure Subscription Service has been released! I'll try to update as the Club releases their reveals.

Code Name: CAPTAIN GRID-IRON
Looks good! Great parts choices. I wasn't sure how they could pull of an update, but he looks decent.

02. G.I. JOE MOBILE MISSILE SPECIALIST

Code Name: FAST DRAW
This guy was going to be tough. Most people figured that the Club would go with the rocket backpack from the PoC Duke figure. Makes sense. I'm not really crazy about the use of the Blowtorch vest and helmet. Not terrible though.

03. RED SHADOWS WEAPONS TECHNICIAN

Code Name: RED LASER
I don't know much about the Red Shadows and the various characters associated with them, but I do like the way the Club is reusing the Cobra Commander build. Looks good!

04. G.I. JOE BATTLE CORPS COMMANDER

Code Name: BULLET-PROOF

OMG!!! He doesn't have a removable helmet!!! Deth of teh line!!! Oh, my childhood!! Oh wait, I was in my 20's by the time Bullet-Proof came out. I think he looks pretty dang good. It's a decent reuse of the Dodger head sculpt and works just fine. Sure, there are other heads that may have worked, but did the Club have access to them? I don't know and most of the critics have no clue either. 

05. COBRA SHOCK TROOPS COMMANDER
Code Name: LT. CLAY MOORE
Yeah... not so much with this character. Not one of the better builds from the Club. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but this one just isn't working. Interesting choice of parts that seems to be eliciting a strong negative reaction from the fan base.

06. G.I. JOE V.A.M.P. DRIVER

Code Name: LANCE "CLUTCH" STEINBERG 

Oooh, let the butt hurt flow! It seems as if the Club tries to reproduce the vintage figure by using modern era parts. It doesn't always work out that way. First of all, the 1st wave of GI Joe characters, in terms of sculpting, were crap compared to later figures. Sculpting just improved throughout the history of the brand. In trying to replicate that original look, the Club chose some interesting parts. I think Clutch turned out just fine. He's not one of the strongest designs of this wave, but he'll do.

 

07. G.I. JOE ARCTIC ATTACK SOLDIER
Code Name: GREG "BLIZZARD" NATALE
A decent update to another snow trooper. Oh, the amount of butt hurt in regards to the choice of the head is breathtaking. OMG!!! Why didn't they make this or do that? Here's the deal, at least in my opinion. The Club is heading into being shut down at the end of 2018. The only thing they'll have left to do is to ship out the remains of FSS 8.0 and liquidate whatever inventory they have left. There's probably no time or money left to be put toward new tooling. I have no clue as to how the crew at the Club runs everything, but they've done it out of a genuine love of the brand. I think Blizzard turned out just fine. I suppose if I didn't like it, I could out to Walmart and buy GI Joe figures. Oh wait... #casuals

08. G.I. JOE DEFIANT SHUTTLE PILOT

Code Name: PAYLOAD (this guy is going to be a tough one to recreate)
Yup, Payload proved to be a tough one to do. Again, the amount of butt hurt has been near epic proportions. Quite a few folks actually like the design. I'm one of those who likes the design. Oh, but Payload is a pilot, not a space marine. Shut the hell up, he's a GI Joe, he's a soldier. Get over it.

09. COBRA B.A.T. LEADER
Code Name: OVER KILL
Based more on the VvsV version of Overkill, this design is well done. I'm not too crazy about the web gear, but I'm sure that I've got other pieces I can switch it out with. I'm really digging the robotic skull!

10. G.I. JOE L.R.R.P. TROOPER
Code Name: RECOIL 
Interesting design for Recoil. Thankfully, the Club didn't go with baby blue weapons that the original figure had. I'm guessing the Club couldn't do a new head sculpt to match the original hat, but this version with the removable helmet looks just fine. The camo pattern is nicely done!

11. G.I. JOE NINJA COMMANDO
Code Name: BUSHIDO (the snow ninja... oh boy...)
Well, yeah, this is certainly Bushido. One of the more goofy looking of the Ninja Force members, the Club did a decent enough job on him. Predictable build. Decent job on the helmet. I'm wishing I had jumped on the Zombie Initiative set when it was being clearanced by the Club. I've had a weakness for the modern era ninja figures, so he works for me.

12. COBRA MERCENARY
Code Name: MUNITIA
I don't really know much about the character, but this is a solid build. Well done by the Club!

13. XXXXXXXXX??? No hints yet as to yet about who this might be.

Jurassic World Indoraptor

I'm a sucker for dinosaur toys. Can't help it. I've loved dinosaurs since I was a kid. Dinosaur toys or GI Joe? I don't know which has been a part of my life the longest.

I probably had plenty of cheap plastic dinosaurs when I was a kid. I remember having a bag full of brightly colored plastic dinosaurs that I apparently had prior to a long airline flight. Yellow, red, green... all extremely bright.

Nearly everything I've encountered with dinosaurs, I have wanted to be a part of it. My childhood dream was to be a paleontologist. That didn't quite work out.

When the first Jurassic Park movie came out 25 years ago (what the?), I was thrilled to see how well the dinosaurs were done. I've continued to follow along with the movies and have bought a few of the dinosaur toys along the way.

With the new Jurassic World movies, I wasn't as impressed with the dinosaurs that were released for the movie. I did buy the two Jurassic Park sets from Toys R Us a few years ago. Each had a human figure to go with them. One was an allosaurus; the other was a pachyrhinosaurus.

 

The interesting thing about these two sets is that both of them were missing the human figures from the sets. They really weren't packaged very well and were easily stolen. That really didn't matter to me, I wanted the dinosaurs.

Now up to the current movie, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. Mattel took over the license from Hasbro and they have really done an amazing job with the line. The human figures are decent enough and most of the dinosaurs are well done. Of course, that's with the understanding that these are toys, meant for children, not grown-ass adults.

After looking through the line up of toys, there were really only two, maybe three creatures that interested me. One was the super mega massive Tyrannosaurus Rex. This thing is huge!! It's around three feet long! But that's my problem with it, it's just way too big for my collection.

The next item from the line that caught my attention was the Indoraptor. The indoraptor is a Jurassic World hybrid creature and loosely based on a mix of different actual dinosaurs. 

I really like raptors and this beast just works for me. Plus this indoraptor has some of the most amazing articulation for a dinosaur toy that I have ever seen. I'm sure some company out there somewhere has done something like this, but this thing is amazing.

Starting at the head, its jaws open (of course) and the neck has two pivot points. One is right at the base of the skull and the other is at the bottom of the neck. Each arm has a swivel, pivoting shoulder joint. The elbows and wrists both swivel and pivot. The legs have swivel and pivot knee and ankle joints. The cool thing about the legs are the hip joints; they turn but also swivel inward and outward. I've never seen that done on dinosaur hip joints. The tail also has two swivel joints as well. This beast has an amazing amount of articulation!

I highly recommend the Indoraptor. If you like well made dinosaurs. If you like well made toys. If you want something to chew up your action figures, DO IT! Get one! It's a fantastic toy!

GI Joe Club Membership Figure: Rock n Roll

It's been a great week or so for new figures from the Club! The last figures from FSS 6.0 have arrived and now, this year's membership figure has arrived in mailboxes as well! The Club had already revealed that Rock n Roll, based on version 2, would be this year's membership figure. Last one? I believe so.

There's been a few comments across the fandom regarding this figure. The original announcement from last year's JoeCon referred to RnR being based on the version 2 figure. As usual, there was plenty of butt-hurt regarding the initial design. I didn't see any problem with the design as it first appeared. As the design turned into an actual painted sample, RnR looked even better.

 

It looks like the Club used the entire body from the PoC Dusty figure. It's a good design and works well with RnR. The torso was also used with the Renegades Cobra Trooper.

The gear load out from the Club is decent enough. Interesting choices. I'm glad that the Club was able to reuse the original mini-gun from the v2 RnR. Oh, the butt hurt that arose since he didn't come with two of the guns. There's an issue with the choice of accessories that complement the gun. The peg on the backpack is a bit too long and needs to be trimmed. The ammo belt fits into the backpack but doesn't fit onto the gun.

Since the modern era figures first showed up, I've wanted to update Rock n Roll, especially with the weapon system of version 2. Rock n Roll only came out as a part of the initial 25th anniversary figures and was a remake of his version 1 figure. There's been a concept figure from Hasbro that was showcased a few years ago. Back when version 2 of Rock n Roll first appeared, I bought a total of three of them, so I was well stocked on his weapon system in order to update it for modern figures.

The first step for this project was to paint the vest from a Renegades Cobra Trooper. I had an extra carded figure, so I freed him from his plastic bubble prison. 

The next step was to figure out how to attach the backpack to the vest. I had already trimmed off the peg in earlier attempts to adapt it for modern gear. I finally came up with a pretty easy solution. I drilled a hole into the remains of the backpack and inserted a screw in through the hole in the vest to attach to the backpack. A gentle, slow speed was needed for the drill.

The result turned out nicely. I can easily load up the gear onto this new RnR. The only real problem with this gear, like with the poriginal figure, is that he really can't hold it very well. The stocks on the guns are a bit too short to fit under his arms and keep the guns straight.

Plus the swivel wrists don't help much either. I think that one possible solution would be to use a couple of those tiny rubber bands looped into the ends of the stocks of each gun and then loop them around his upper arms.

I'm pleased with how the vintage weapon system is progressing and I'm pleased with how Rock n Roll turned out.

The Best of the GI Joe Club Membership Figures!

I still think that Cross Country is the best membership figure that the Club has released and a strong contender to be one of the Top Ten of all of the figures released by the Club!

Roadblock Returns!

The mystery 13th figure came to me with a bit of an issue. He had two upper right arms! Thankfully, the Club's customer service is top notch and they took care of the issue. I had emailed them on the day that he arrived and shipped out my wonky Roadblock on the following day.

In just a little over a week, a new Roadblock was sent back to me and he's in great shape!

Well, almost. That left knee is a little wonky, but I can live with that. Some repeated, careful bending will take care of that problem.

Now that I've got him back in hand and I've had a chance to look him over, I think that the Club did a fine job with him. There always sees to be an issue with nearly every Club figure and,, unfortunately, Roadblock does have an issue. The skin tone on his head and his body are two different shades. Just barely. Enough to notice, but not terribly bad.

Oh that head sculpt. I don't know the story, but the head sculpt is supposed to be from a cancelled Hasbro release of Roadblock. Such an amazing treat that Hasbro was able to make this mold available for the Club to use.

Overall,, he's a fine figure with decent accessories. There are issues with the gear that actually go all the way back to the original TF Roadblock. I've seen a comment about how the helmet doesn't really fit that well on Roadblock. Yeah, so what? The original Roadblock couldn't wear a helmet either.

I've always had an issue with the huge 50 cal machine gun that Roadblock carries around. Yeah, i get it, he's a big dude. But seriously, how long could anyone continue to carry that beast around? Plus the rate of fire and maintaining adequate ammo supplies would be additional issues to deal with.

My next issue is which figure becomes my "default" Roadblock? I really really like the Renegades Roadblock and this Club version is also so cool! 

Hey, maybe one of these guys is a dimensional crossover from another reality, thanks to Dr. Mindbender's failed dimensional travel experiments.

I think I need to do a post on all of the "big guys" from the past few years of GI Joe figures. Starting off with Rock/Roadblock fro Retaliation. Then from the Club and Hasbro, there's Leatherneck, Repeater, Salvo, Big Lob, Heavy Duty... anyone else? I've done a custom with Gung Ho, increasing him to the "big guy" scale. Could be an interesting post!

Random Photos: Destiny Edition

I really didn't want to get involved with another toy line. I'm really hoping that the end of FSS 8.0 wraps up much of my toy buying and collecting. I mean, damn, I'm 55 years old! Whatever, I still like toys...

Anyway, my son is a huge Destiny fan and has amassed a decent collection of the Mega Construx Destiny figures and vehicles. They just look so freakin' cool! I wound up buying a few of them at Target last year post Christmas, when the stuff was marked down tremendously. Who can resist coll toys marked down to ridiculous prices? Not this 55 year old kid!

I love taking pictures of figures inside and outside, so I thought that I would share a few.

FSS 6.0: Tiger Force Roadblock

The Club hit a home run with their  mystery 13th figure for FSS 6.0. I don't know if anyone predicted that it would be a new version of Roadblock. Plus the Club got to use an unused original head sculpt of Roadblock from Hasbro. Using Rock/Roadblock body parts, the Club did a damn fine job and he's awesome!

Well, not quite. Unfortunately, I fell victim to a random factory error.

 Roadblock's right arm, no problems, great sculpted musculature.

Left arm, straight out of the package. Something is looking a bit odd. That's his triceps on the front of his arm and there's that muscle that connects to the back of the elbow. Initially, I thought that the arm was just positioned incorrectly and just needed to be twisted around on the shoulder joint.

Nope, it didn't work out that way. This is an upper right arm part on his left side. You can see the exact sculpted details like the other arm.

An attempt to flip the arm around shows the less detailed underside of the arm. It doesn't looked near as good as the detailing of the right arm.

Plus, the arm construction allows for it to fit closer to the body. It doesn't work out that way once you flip the arm around. Crap.

I posted a few places on Facebook, mainly to see if this was a common error or did I just get a factory error. It seems like it's just a factory error and no fault of the Club. Shit happens. 

I guess I can't go off on an awful tirade against the Club. 

"Deth of teh line! The Club sux! Hasblow ruined my childhood!"

I emailed the Club and after a couple messages, they let me know that I could send in my Roadblock and they would send me a new one. Awesome customer service! Yeah, I'm still a Club supporter and truly appreciate all that they have done to support the love of such a great toy line!

Looking forward to Roadblock returning to me, fit and ready for action!

FSS 6.0: Vorona, WORMS Officer, Windmill, & Ghostrider

Big review time here on this ridiculous blog. Four figures for the price of one! Well,that's mainly because I'm a lazy ass and just haven't felt like writing much.

Anyway, since I have delayed so long in reviewing Vorona and the WORMS Officer, I thought that I would write up a quick review of the last four "revealed" figures from FSS 6.0.

Vorona is the code name of the October Guard member known as Daina. She was one of the original members introduced early in the GI Joe comics. I believe that Brandon Jerwa actually created her Vorona code name and used her quite a bit during his run on the Devil's Due GI Joe comics.

The figure turned out well enough. That harness across her chest is a bit bulky for her small frame, but it works out okay. Overall, Vorona turned out just fine and it's always good to have another female figure among the ranks.

Next up is the WORMS Officer, based on the WORMS driver of the MAGGOT. I always thought that the original figure was very well done by Hasbro and I think that the driver was sought after quite a bit to fill the crew of the MAGGOT. Was it ever re-released through mail order? I don't remember.

Decent job by the Club, but definitely not one of the best from FSS 6.0. The vest/jacket piece comes from a previous Club release or two. The name escapes me right now. A General from Destro's army? I don't recall, I'm too lazy to look him up. General Blitz? Anyway, the jacket portion is a bit too large for the torso and arms and it just doesn't look good. Plus, the helmet, while faithful, is a bit too large and wobbles about on the head. 

The Club went a different route with this guy and gave him a distinct personality on his file card. Decent idea and with the head being masked under the helmet, the figure could still be a troop builder. I originally planned on selling this guy to someone else, but ultimately decided that since the FSS waves are heading to the end, I'm going to keep all of the remaining figures through wave 8.0.

Next up is Windmill, originally the pilot of the Skystorm "x-wing" helicopter. The original figure was bright green and orange and the the Funskool (India) version was even crazier in color. The original Photoshop mock-up of Windmill was a bit bright than the final result. The head is a reuse from... Dodger from BF2000? Maybe, I'll check later.

Overall, I like the figure. The choice of vest isn't that great, it's a bit bulky under the arms and doesn't allow for his arms to come down to his sides. But who cares? He's piloting his cool heli-pack! Uhh, what are the brake handles for on the control sticks?

Finally, I come to "##########."  Uh who? It's Ghostrider, damn it! I think that the name Ghostrider was perfect for the pilot of the Phantom stealth fighter. But Marvel has this other character, some sort of blazing skull dude, and they had to knock down Hasbro's use of the name, at least in the comics. Trademark issue. Whatever. I don't give a crap about Burning Skull, I like this guy as Ghostrider!

Anyway, the Club did a helluva' job with Ghostrider. I'm not sure about all the parts used. I know that's Blaster's head. There's an armored chest under that bad ass red scarf and I think the legs came from POC General Hawk. Whatever. The original figure was simple in design and the Club captured the basic design quite well.

Ghostrider is easily one of the best figures from FSS 6.0. Is he the best? Not sure, I've got to look each over to get my rankings together.

So what about the mystery 13th figure? Who made that slot? Well, I'm sure you know who he is, but I had a minor issue with my figure. If you've read my posts on various Facebook GI Joe pages, including the pone for this bit of nonsense, you know the story. Stay tuned!