G.I. Joe is my jam. My earliest memories of playing with action figures are Star Wars-related, but G.I. Joe is the immediate follow-up, which surpassed my interest in all other toys. Sure, there were occasions when something rose to the top for a short time, ToyBiz X-Men for instance, but the Joes always found a way to take point.
While I do love and appreciate the 1960s/1970s era of G.I. Joe, I will be skipping over that stuff simply because I wasn’t around for it. Since 1982, however, G.I. Joe has existed in many different iterations and, whether I liked them or not, I at least dabbled in every one! I’ve been through A Real American Hero (1982-1994), Sgt. Savage & his Screaming Eagles (1994), G.I. Joe Extreme (1995), Joe vs. Cobra (2002-2005), Sigma Six (2005-2007), the 25th Anniversary Collection/”Modern Era” (2007-2017, I’m lumping about 5 different lines of the same format here), and finally the outstanding G.I. Joe Classified (2020- ). Sheesh! Talk about an identity crisis! To my fellow Joe fans, I’m sorry I mentioned G.I. Joe Extreme. I know we don’t speak of it, but it happened. At least it gave us a little more Sgt. Savage!
… Ok, yeah. It sucked.
If I could do it all over, I’d maybe skip the Joe vs. Cobra era and focus on Sigma Six! Although they were vastly different with their 8” scale and cartoony appearance, they were really great toys! They were also pretty expensive for the time! You know what else is expensive? TROOP-BUILDING! Yep! All of that, just to get to this.
If you follow G.I. Joe at all, you know that the evil Cobra organization depends on hordes of faceless troopers to aid Cobra Commander in his goal of ruling the world. As the years have gone by, these troopers have become more and more specialized. As a child, I dreamed of having more than one of each of these trooper figures to make squads and make my Saturday afternoon battles even more epic! Of course, when I proposed this idea to my mother, she simply said, “No. Why would you buy something you already have?” I mean… It was my parents’ money! I was already kind of spoiled as it was, honestly!
Anyway, by the time the Joe vs. Cobra line came around, I was in my 20s and working full-time. This series of Joes was released in 2-packs. You probably guessed it; you got a Joe and a Cobra in each pack (with an occasional exception). I enjoyed running from store to store, hunting these figures down, but I did wish Hasbro would go back to single packs.
Sure enough, one day it happened. Now this was well before toy companies were all over social media letting us know every time Cobra Commander farts! You had a few online news sources posting info about Toy Fair, and other than that you had to hang out on message boards and wait until someone “heard something,” or—SURPRISE—just find new stuff in a store! Hisstank.com was THE place for new G.I. Joe information. At some point, the new information was that someone was finding single packs of Cobra troopers from the Joe vs. Cobra line! They seemed only to be available in weird places, CVS, and Dollar General, but they were soon fairly abundant and about four dollars a pop! Within a few months, I had 3-5 of every trooper, and I fell in love with the habit of troop building until this line ended.
Hasbro even started to lean into the idea by giving us 2-packs, and even 6-packs of various Cobra Troopers. The 25th Anniversary series made this a little more difficult by putting many of the cooler troopers in fairly pricey 7-packs. To further complicate things, they often included one or two unique individual characters in such sets. In this case, it was an evil scientist (and former dentist) Dr. Mindbender. Thankfully, there were deep-pocketed people who bought this particular set and sold the individual figures on eBay or traded them online because this was around the time I was learning that Range-Vipers are my favourite Cobra Troopers! They’re heavily armed “wilderness troops” with creepy skull & brain helmets, and I can’t get enough! I was generally dead-set against paying more than retail price for action figures at that time, but this was one of those exceptions that unfortunately made it easier and easier over time. Oh, standards and principles! Where hast thou gone!?
The excellent Pursuit of Cobra line—part of that “modern era I mentioned way back in the second paragraph—also made troop building a little easier! Highly regarded by fans, these single-packed figures were about $6 – $8 at the time, so troop building wasn’t really breaking the bank. Now if only I could say the same for the Classified line! With a near-50 % price increase over the last six years, I’ve had to be a little more selective about how I do this. Hasbro’s surprise re-release of the Range-Viper yesterday didn’t exactly help! Maybe I’m just a hoarding bastard?
Now here’s the twist: my favourite troop builder of the moment isn’t even a G.I. Joe figure at all! No, right now I’m a little obsessed with the Skel-Knight! Based on the Masters of the Universe movie, the Skel-Knights serve as fodder for Skeletor’s army and exist only to be mowed down by He-Man and friends! Remember, kids, heroism is all about beating ass! … Wait, no? Did I get the film’s message wrong? Oh, well! There are currently two versions—technically three, but I’ll get to that—of the Skel-Knight available, but I’m talking about the Core line version.
The Masters of the Universe Core line is a budget-friendly line aimed at kids. That said, this 5.5” (13.9 cm) line seems to push what a kids’ line can be! For $11, these figures boast good sculpts, decent paint apps, and eighteen points of articulation! And yes, for that price I just haven’t been able to leave a Skel-Knight on the shelf. I told myself I was done with Masters of the Universe save for a special figure here or there, but this smaller, cheaper Core line just won me over!
Now, upon my last purchase of a Skel-Knight, I noticed there is a variant! As you can see, some have darker blue-grey armour, while others have an almost lavender-hued grey. I have noticed fewer of these on store shelves as of late, but they are widely available at online retailers such as BigBadToyStore. While the black plastic “skirt” limits leg movement, the plastic is a little more pliable than that of many other figures designed this way. You can still hit some pretty cool battle poses with these guys!
That’s it for now! I’ll be back in a fortnight to talk about five of my recent purchases! Now go forth to find your Range-Vipers and Skel-Knights, and have fun storming the castle!
