{"id":20935,"date":"2012-09-18T00:40:40","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T05:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=20935"},"modified":"2012-09-18T11:18:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-18T16:18:55","slug":"poeghostal-com-review-g-i-joe-zombie-viper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=20935","title":{"rendered":"PoeGhostal.com Review:
G.I. Joe Zombie Viper"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> For years, I was strictly a toy forum guy. It was great for news and interacting with my fellow collectors. PoeGhostal.com changed that. Poe\u2019s great reviews & insightful commentary helped inspire me to follow in his footsteps and strike out on my own. I can honestly say there\u2019d be no IAT if not for Poe!<\/p>\n

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Please note, the photos for this review were taken by toy photographer extraordinaire Ed Speir IV. You can see more pics of many different toy lines at his Flickr page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Poe Ghostal here. Due to what I can only assume was some sort of head trauma, NoisyDvL5 seems to be under the impression that you faithful IAT readers are interested in a guest review by yours truly. But I know better. A guest review is like a less-famous artist doing a fill-in issue of a popular comic – it\u2019s just not the same.<\/p>\n

However, the only fill-in issue of a comic I can ever remember off the top of my head is X-Force<\/em> #8, which was drawn by Mike Mignola instead of regular series artist Rob Liefeld. Even way back then I was drawn to Mignola\u2019s work, which of course is now universally acknowledged as the artistic antipode to that of Liefeld. And so, I strive to be the Mike Mignola of guest reviewers.*<\/p>\n

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This is also a preview of what I have planned for PGPoA next month. In October, in celebration of All Hallows Eve, I\u2019m doing a \u201cCreature Feature Month,\u201d with reviews of monstrous action figures throughout the season.<\/p>\n

The subject of my review today is, somewhat unusually, a G.I. Joe figure. While young Poe went through most of the big toy fads of the 1980s, I somehow was just never interested in the Real American Hero. However, I\u2019ve been impressed by Hasbro\u2019s recent efforts for the current G.I. Joe line, beginning with the \u201c25th Anniversary\u201d branding in the mid-2000s through to today. And when, out of the blue, Hasbro produced what amounted to a zombified Joe figure, even a non-Joe collector like me was powerless to resist.<\/p>\n

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(Before we go any further, big thanks to Richard of Planned Banter<\/a> for helping me find this figure.)<\/p>\n

First off, the card art for this figure is fantastic. There\u2019s a great image of the Zombie-Viper in all his blue-blooded glory, and a full-body version of the same image can be found on the back.<\/p>\n

Not knowing much at all about G.I. Joe, I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t speak to what parts of this figure, if any, are re-used from previous figures. Fortunately, yojoe.com<\/a> can: \u201cZombie-Viper was created using the torso, waist, upper arms, and upper legs of Shock Trooper<\/a>, with a new head, upper arms, two sets of hands, lower legs, and feet.\u201d <\/p>\n

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I can say that for a 3.75\u201d figure, I found the sculpt quite impressive. It reminds me a bit of the zombie pilots from the animated movie Heavy Metal<\/em>. The body sculpt has a ragged, bedraggled look, befitting his zombified status.<\/p>\n

The paint work is interesting. The exposed parts of the character, such as the tear in his skull and along his arms, reveal blue instead of the expected blood red. The in-story explanation for this is that these Zombie-Vipers are being controlled by a substance known as Compound-Z, which evidently turns their blood blue in addition to all the other damage it causes. The paint apps are look great, though it\u2019s hard to go wrong when the goal is to make it look sloppy and ragged.<\/p>\n

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I imagine the real-life explanation for the blue blood is that Hasbro never thought it would get a red-bloodied zombie past the parents of its Ages 4+ target demo…but what they did apparently think they could get away with is its disgusting tendril arms. <\/p>\n

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The Zombie-Viper comes with a \u201ccontainment helmet,\u201d a plug for said helmet ending in a Compound-Z canister, the two sets of human and tendril\/tentacle arms, and a stand. The tendrils are creepy, ending in leaf-like stalks, but let\u2019s face it – they\u2019re pretty damned derivative of the Flood from Halo<\/em>. Still, they\u2019re wonderfully gruesome accessories and add a ton of value to the figure. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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The interchangeable \u201cnormal\u201d arms come with small patches of clothing that have to be popped in between the elbow and the forearm – they\u2019re tiny, but if you lose them you\u2019ll have a gap between the elbow and forearm, so be careful.<\/p>\n

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The Compound-Z canister plugs into a hole in the harness, and the end of the plug can be plugged into the back of the helmet. There are two additional holes for each, so either Hasbro once intended to include three and then production costs forced them down to one, or they were expecting people to army-build these figures (which I suspect many would have, had they not been so damned hard to find).<\/p>\n

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Articulation is typical for a current G.I. Joe figure: a ball-and-socket head, ball-and-hinge shoulders, ball-and-hinge elbows and wrists (no wrist artic on the tendrils), swivel forearms, what I think is a ball-jointed torso (hard to tell, it\u2019s very constricted by the harness), ball-and-hinge hips, double-hinge knees, and ball-and-hinge ankles. It\u2019s plenty for a figure of this scale, though I\u2019ll admit that being used to swivel thigh articulation, I miss it here.<\/p>\n

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The bio card for the Zombie-Viper seems as whitewashed as the figure\u2019s blood is blue-washed. Most of the bio is taken up explaining that Compound-Z has turned the Cobra troops into \u201cdrones.\u201d There\u2019s no mention of the gross tendril arms nor the obvious physical deterioration they\u2019ve undergone. And the last sentence is just lame. It appears Hasbro was very concerned that parents would find this figure inappropriate for children. Wasn\u2019t there a toy line based on a cartoon based on Tales from the Crypt<\/em> in the \u201880s that had a zombie figure? Hell, there was a zombie in Kenner\u2019s Real Ghostbusters<\/em> line.<\/p>\n

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Evidently aware of the figure\u2019s crossover appeal, Hasbro sculpted a whole slew of zombified Joes<\/a> for an unproduced \u201cZombie Invasion\u201d concept. All I can tell you, Hasbro, is that this non-Joe collector would be tempted to buy every one of those figures based on the awesomeness of this one.<\/p>\n

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*Which is not to say NoisyDvL5 and\/or Vault are Rob Liefeld! Far from it; to the best of my knowledge, neither of them has been in a Levi\u2019s commercial or appeared on The Dennis Miller Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Check out more from Poe at PoeGhostal.com<\/a>!<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, I was strictly a toy forum guy. It was great for news and interacting with my fellow collectors. PoeGhostal.com changed that. Poe\u2019s great reviews & insightful commentary helped inspire me to follow in his footsteps and strike out on my own. I can honestly say there\u2019d be no IAT if not for Poe!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[32,34,10],"tags":[2568,33,1705,24,1714,1706,1712,1713],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-5rF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21228,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21228","url_meta":{"origin":20935,"position":0},"title":"September Review Index Update & Top Reviews for September","date":"September 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another month has come to a close here at IAT and that means it\u2019s time to update the Review Index with our September articles (& to update Battlegrip\u2019s Review Index too). In addition to the updates, I also thought it\u2019d be fun to look back and see what the top\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21336,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21336","url_meta":{"origin":20935,"position":1},"title":"Review Round-Up (September 24th-30th)","date":"October 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"One thing I\u2019m always looking for with IAT is ways to help draw the toy blogging community a little closer together and this week I was reminded of a former great site that used to have this really cool feature: a weekly round-up of reviews. That\u2019s something that should come\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22138,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=22138","url_meta":{"origin":20935,"position":2},"title":"Review Round-Up (December 3rd-December 9th)","date":"December 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s finally happened! If you want a TMNT review, this round-up isn\u2019t for you! Someone call Playmates, it\u2019s time for Series Three! All kidding aside, we\u2019ve got a good crop this week. DC has more reviews than Marvel for the first time, Halo\u2019s on the list, and yes, there are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26734,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=26734","url_meta":{"origin":20935,"position":3},"title":"Poe Ghostal’s NECA Battle Armor Lost Predator Review","date":"January 31, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Film & TV"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22279,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=22279","url_meta":{"origin":20935,"position":4},"title":"Year-End Review Round-Up (December 17th-31st)","date":"January 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I know the site updates have been spotty first with the holidays and then the \u201cGreat Toy Move\u201d, but I\u2019m getting back in the swing of things. Next week will see some checklist updates and a guest review, but we need to wrap this week up first with a year-end\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24885,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=24885","url_meta":{"origin":20935,"position":5},"title":"September Review Round-Up (Sept 1st-15th) 107 Links!","date":"September 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20935"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20935"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20954,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20935\/revisions\/20954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}