Since its Joe week here, I’ve got three Joe mini-rants to share…
1. I get that kids enjoy firing missile launchers, but can we make them a little more sensical? There are a couple of good ones like the Ice Viper’s (best one ever) or Sgt. Stone’s which looks like a remote control missile launcher. But then there are strange ones that make no sense at all. A missile launcher you hold with one hand like a revolver? I’m sure that wouldn’t rip your arm off. Or how about Helix’s absurd satellite dish missile. Is that for when you need great reception, only way over there? Then there’s the Para-Viper’s strange helicopter-thing that he can’t hold onto correctly without being cut to ribbons. Hope Cobra has a good health plan. Don’t even get me started on the suction cup that Duke can hang from. What kid hasn’t wished for one of those?
2. Ugly girl faces. I don’t think the sculptors at Hasbro hate women, but it sometimes seems like they do with the mongoloid dog-faces that I see on the pegs. The first movie Baroness figure looked like it was contorting its face. Cover Girl, who is supposed to be on par with a supermodel, looked more like a Cro-Magnon with that huge forehead. And what the hell happened to Scarlett? In the movie, she was hot. The toy, with that pasty white complexion and blank stare on her face, looks more like an understudy for the remake of Nosferatu. I will give Hasbro props for Helix and Paris Pursuit Baroness though. Even though neither of them are perfect, they are at least decently good looking and, most importantly, recognizable as women.
3. This year, the GI Joe Fan Club is doing something extra cool with the old-school Adventure Team being remade in 25th Anniversary style. They were even cool enough to throw in Dr. Venom and some cool AT vehicles. Sounds like a winner all-around right? Well, kinda. Sure, we get four of the original Adventure Team members, all with those cool Chuck Norris beards, but guess what we don’t get? The black guy. You see, back in the far off land of 1970, when the Adventure Team first debuted, it consisted of nine figures. Two of those figures were African-American. There was the regular Adventurer, and the Adventurer Team Commander (with talking action). Now don’t get me wrong, I love the 25th Anniversary Adventure Team. I will buy all of them. I just wish there was a little more diversity in the group at the onset. Especially since even the four we’ve seen so far aren’t guaranteed to be made. It would have been awesome to have a bad-ass black Adventure Team Commander, with an equally bad-ass afro, leading the charge against Dr. Venom.
At Adventure Team is gonna rock!!
It really will.
I don’t thin the ROC girls are that bad.
I’m not as harsh on the hair-down Scarlett or the Covergirl. They’re not terrible.
1) I kinda want the suction cup thingy.
2) They’re not that bad. Have you seen some of the Star Wars figures?
3) Adventure Team will indeed rock. I hope they sell will enough to get us more. I know we have Snowjob fulfilling it kinda, but I’d love to see an Arctic Adventurer, Foreign Adventurer, Urban Adventurer… Yeah, I’m gonna need some extra money.
I’ve never been a fan of the Adventure Team figures. Back then, I preferred Hasbro’s Defenders.
Ha. The Defenders? You mean when Hasbor was afraid to make military toys and made unbranded joe merch?
hasbro hates black people… there, i said it.* the proportion of black and latino soldiers in Joe hasn’t been representative of the actual diversity of the US military like ever really. and this latest push to make anglicized joe folk is just par for the course. you only really had what, two black guys? are there any latinos at all? and where’s the gimp? as a disabled person myself, i’m appalled we haven’t a tech geek character in a wheelchair yet or some poor schmuck missing most of his fist… where are the amputee joes? or at least a club foot?
* hasbro does not actually hate black people… that i know of. they just tend to pick up properties that are a lot more Fargo than Atlanta, if ya get me. 😉
The toy industry as a whole is that way. I remember the big push to make more black dolls in the 90s which resulted in tons of clearanced black dolls.
It’s not like toy collectors or comic nerds are making a huge demand for more black or latino characters in the stuff they buy either.
it’s a question of how germaine they are to what’s being done… if a minority character comes up and is central to the mythos, he’ll move just fine… it’s when they do token characters w/out depth or character that they peg warm. and i personally know of at least one latino RAVENOUS for latino action figures. why can’t he get his people represented in more plastic? and don’t get me started on cripples, we don’t get JACK for action figures… we have professor x, that wheel chair barbie whose wheelchair wouldn’t fit in any of the vehicles or playsets (no joke) and gothmog. in the entire history of toys.
Hasbro does make some of the ugliest lady figures around.
WORD!