Really? Can we ever be done with ninjas? Not with the GI Joe line. Especially not when one of the coolest characters is turned into super-bad ninja mo-fo. Sometimes you just got to get sick and tired of all these damn ninjas!
Unless the toys are really bad-ass! As my ninja collection began to grow, I thought about uses for these different colored ninja uniforms. I thought about each "color" representing a different ninja clan. The first picture is just a quick and dirty idea of Stormshadow gathering members of the three most powerful ninja clans in an attempt to join together against a common foe. But is that common foe GI Joe or Cobra? Time will tell, loyal reader. (yeah, both of you!)
The red ninjas from the Retaliation toy line turned out fantastic. I don't really care about the string-things and they could have used more gear, but they look pretty damn cool. Based on the awesome Renegades/30th version of Stormshadow, they only varied in lower leg construction, allowing them to have rocker ankles.
Supposedly, there is a "movie accurate" red ninja on the way in a few months. We'll see. I wasn't too impressed with the preproduction pictures.
Next up in the Retaliation line were the "dark" ninjas. Oooh, scary! Clothed in dark gray and black uniforms, these ninjas are straight repaints of the Stormshadow molds. I don't even remember the gear that they came with. But they still look cool as crap!
The last set of ninjas in the above picture, besides Stormy, are the "Ninja Force" versions of Stormy found at Dollar General stores. I know, you question my sanity. That's a picture with three Stormshadows in it. Nope, not to me. The Dollar General version of Stormshadow uses basically the same body as Renegades Stormshadow, which is just so damn cool, I couldn't buy just one and quit. (hoping to see orange sherbert Stormy soon!)
So I twisted my sanity a little more and now consider these guys to be another ninja clan. I really had to force myself to stop at just five of these guys because they are so damn cool. I didn't let myself get psycho about them like the DG Blackshirts. (12!)
The guy in the center has "Kamakura's" head from that lame-ass three-pack movie version.
Damn, that figure sucked! I know, the head originally came from Stormy version 67 or 93 or whatever. I don't get that picky.
Ninjas do have a place in my twisted Joe-verse, mainly as a different entity in the battle between GI Joe and Cobra. At least they don't suck as bad as Drednoks.
