Lifeline

Do you remember your first G.I. Joe? Frequenting Joe boards as I do, I realise a great deal of fans do remember. For me, it’s between three figures. Iceberg. Monkeywrench. Lifeline.

That old-skool Lifeline was easily my least favourite figure. And being one of the oldest, he was pretty beat up. No thumbs, O-ring hanging by a thread, screws rusted beyond recognition. He had the distinction of being the only figure I had for a very long time that included a pistol. And I did love that pistol intensely. Some irony there, of course. I remember clearly hiding it in his Rescue case and closing it up. Even more irony. It was not to last though, the pistol was the first to go. Then the gas mask. At the time, I never knew that it was meant to plug into the hole on the side of the case. I guess the ‘administer oxygen’ playpattern was not a popular one. The aerial on the backpack snapped off while it and the case spent a few weeks lost in the garden mulch heap. Maybe that’s where the pistol came to rest? That part of the garden has since been dug out and bricked. So I’ll never know...

By complete accident (read: seller fuckups) I came into possession of the pistol and gas mask again. The pistol was included with a Mint, Complete Hawk (1986), and the gas mask with a similarly Mint, Complete Ripcord (1984). So I had a complete Lifeline again!

Not really.

In the interim, I decided that Lifeline needed to be sacrificed so that a Sky Creeper figure of my friend’s could have a back screw. You may remember me saying that Lifeline’s screws were rusted beyond recognition? Well, a combination of that and my 8-year old total lack of mechanical skills meant that the most efficient way to get the screw out would be to completely smash the figure that enclosed it. So one afternoon, Lifeline succumbed to a combination of being hurled at the concrete and caved in by a brick.

Writing those words was a little painful. While he certainly met his end as an action figure that day and went into the bin, he fought bravely to the end and did not surrender his rusty screw. So Sky Creeper got the Presstick treatment.

Several years later Rob located a Funskool India Tiger Force Lifeline, so we had a medic on the team again. As I recall though, in spite of his newness, he was just a necessary figure to have riding in the back of the Warthog, and was never featured or spotlighted in our games. Lifeline was still not the cool figure everyone wanted to be.

Not any more.

I can’t be more enthusiastic about the 30^th Anniversary figure of Lifeline if I tried. The more I look at him, play with him, marvel at what Hasbro have done with him, the more his importance is elevated in my Joe-verse. Just look at that coolly-sculpted face. The T-1000-esque glasses mask the eyes of a man who has seen the worst conflict has to offer. This is not the face of a preachy pacifist. He’s out to save lives. 

The card art is also phenomenal at capturing this character, adding so nicely in ways that the sculpt leaves open to our imagination. By that I mean his five o’clock shadow. This man doesn’t soldier for show. He’s not on parade. If you are in the shit, he will get you out and keep you breathing. Contrast this with the goofy grin of the original. Subliminally this must have knocked the medic character down a few pegs in my child-opinion. But with his newly stern expression, I’m thinking of elevating this figure to a more leadership role. I mean, back in ’83, the next highest rank down from Hawk and Ace was in fact Doc. I think this makes perfect sense, as the ultimate aim of an anti-terrorist unit is to save lives right?! Since I have no Doc figure, and have no intention of getting one I think I might hybridise Edwin Steen’s dossier, opting to make him a corpsman instead of a former fire department member, and elevating his rank to Lieutenant. And what the hell, a pistol marksman.

Enter the controversy. Both Doc and Lifeline were quite famously penned as pacifists who would under no circumstances use weapons or even offensive hand-to-hand. I read somewhere on the net that this is not entirely accurate, as US armed forces require their corpsmen to carry a sidearm. How does that affect the Hippocratic Oath? Well, I guess it would break down like this: if you can shoot to incapacitate, do so. But if it comes down to the terrorist’s life or the lives of say, a busload of innocents, that terrorist made his decision. He’s going in the bag. Ironically, it was the old skool Lifeline cardart that depicted him wielding that enormous silver pistol. The new cardart leaves to your discretion. My Lifeline is a marksman who regularly competes with his buddies Lowlight and Wetsuit on the pistol range.   

'I can help you or hurt you, your choice...'

I do however prefer Lifeline to be a ‘righty’ so he holsters his pistol across the chest; the hypo goes in the left leg holster. Doubt my correctness? Then feast your eyes on this. The pistol was always intended to go in the chest holster, the holster just was inactive and empty on the original, as it was with 1986 Hawk. The two holsters on nu skool Lifeline really are interchangeable, the holsters are simply the reverse of one another. And with the added wrist articulation, Lifeline can pretty convincingly grasp the pistol butt across his chest. I do have one criticism of the new articulation – it does leave Lifeline’s palms pretty swollen. He doesn't hold the pistol fantastically well, but a sight better than 30^th Snake-Eyes weird grip issue. On that, I find few if any fans share my dislike for those hands. They have seen reuse on the Cobra Troopers and Stalker, and in each case I’ve swapped them out for appropriate fodder hands. Why do I hate them so? After all, they have superior articulation. I hate them because they don’t fully encompass the weapon grips. Contact is made between the forefinger and thumb and nowhere else, particularly with those included silenced pistols. It really bugs me, and seems to be apparent on all reuses of those hands, so they had to go. Snakes got the hands off of a ROC Paris Pursuit Snake-Eyes, and Stalker got his hands from the Ultimate Battle Pack Stalker.

Ham hand. And the knife is on the opposite boot to the original, but who cares? I love that the straps have a paint app. I had to do the honours on 30th Stalker. Even his belt was unpainted. Laziness!

What more can be said about the Lifeline figure? Paint apps are crisp, spot on, and frighteningly faithful to the original. Tooling reuse with a few new touches accurately reproduce the busy sculpt of the original with flourishes like the pouches on his chest, thigh, that silver instrument also mounted on his thigh, the (now active) chest holster and knife sheath, the ‘RESCUE’ paint app. Glorious when so much effort is made to recreate something as opposed to assembling parts that could pass and selling off a frankenjoe. Yes Hit & Run, Shockwave. I’m looking at you.

Accessories. Some pretty inspired work here Hasbro, I salute you. Newly sculpted pieces all, save for the pistol and knife. Starting from the top, the helmet is a perfect reproduction with the bonus of it being fully removable. It fits snugly, yet not so tight that it’ll give Lifeline a bald spot any time soon (by that I mean rubbing off the painted hair). The chinstraps dangle realistically- on the original they ran under his chin, the sculptors could have omitted them. But instead they went one better. Great Job.

Gun and knife we’ve seen before, but they are great inclusions that increase your Lifeline options further, something I wish we had on a figure like Airtight, whose ultra vintage-accurate approach misses some opportunities to improve on said vintage.

Defibs and IV totally removable. But the case doesn't look quite as jazzy without them.

The case opens and is fully sculpted and painted with details like vials, a hypodermic needle, aneroid blood pressure monitor, sculpted slots for the removable IV bag and defibrillators. The dainty, but very accurately scaled defibrillators have sculpted cables running to the charger; the IV bag has simulated print on it and a hole for a clear tube to connect. A pony bottle of O2 attached to a face mask via clear tube is included an everything can be wound up and stored in the case. Magnificent. So you can do everything and more than the original, and that’s before the stretcher!

A picture is worth 1000 words, and since this article is getting very word-heavy, I give you:

THIS! 'cos I'm lazy, my stretcher is 1500 kilometers out of reach (no joke), and I want to get this article out. So thanks, Planned Banter!

Do I miss the vintage backpack? Not really. Lifeline’s MO was never communication specialist, and while it made some sense for him to carry the radio, please bear in mind he was released in the same year and Mainframe AND Dial-Tone. Overkill on the radiomen! The old case was a bit more filled in, there was clearly a non-functioning first-aid box within it, whereas the new case has a lot more empty space, allowing you to cram it with the loose goods. Or whatever you will. I still have love for the old one, but I love the new one too. I just hope the clasps and spine have the same longevity as the vintage. My vintage is still unbroken, I shit you not.

High praise for a job well done, Hasbro. This is the classic case of a truly bang up job elevating a character I had no love for and making him the star of the show. Lifeline is now a primary character for me, all thanks to this fantastic presentation. 

Happy Birthday, AREALSOUTHAFRICANHERO

Nostalgia Trippin'

Only one child in that photo got a G.I. Joe from Santa on break-up  day. The rest had a festive season of 100% suck. Look at skater-kid-on-the-left's unashamed envy. Yeah he's smiling. But inside he wishes he was clutching that 1989 Stalker and his oh so epic included kayak. That figure was a ton of bang for your buck. Oh, and you guessed it, that lucky bugger in the middle holding it is me. Girl to the right can't stand it. 

Yes, Christmas of '89 was to be a good one. Got that sweet Stalker in the buildup, and Snake-Eyes on the big day. I didn't know it then, but I now know all too well how fitting it was to have those two figures united. Original team members, Vietnam buddies, essential core characters. But it was not meant to be. Tragically Stalker perished in the perilous jungles of the front yard, shredded to bits by a ferocious giant lawnmower attack. Snake-Eyes went the way of any sought-after, highly prized toy. Somebody nicked it. Children are ruthless. 

Flash forward to 2003, something new and exciting was happening in the world of G.I. Joe. Two new and exciting things in fact. You could order them from Amazon. Well, not if you were South African- for some reason Amazon wouldn't ship toys internationally at that stage, so an American friend of the fam sent the box on. The other new and exciting thing was NEW JOES! The new era of Joe sculpting and articulation had landed. My friends and I rejoiced...

...for a little while. It soon became evident that the new-sculpt era of Joes were a little more durable but horribly inferior to the old skool toys in every other way. Yuck. But it didn't stop us from celebrating the arrival of new toys. And bonus! My brother found a DVD of the '87 G.I. Joe animated movie. You can spot it in the bubble envelope on the bed, top left corner. I hadn't seen it since I was the age I was in the top two pics, and my buddies Al and Rob had never seen it. COBRALALALALALALALAAAA!
 

These were the offenders, left to right: Flint versus Baroness; Blowtorch versus Snow Serpent; Beachhead versus Dr. Mindbender; Duke versus Cobra Commander; Stalker versus Zartan.
It was a groundbreaking buy at the time. Up until then, I never had a Baroness, Blowtorch, Snow Serpent, Beach, Mindbender or Zartan. Much needed hole-filling. And I had some fun with them, before finally realizing that they were very much the ugly duckling of the Joe line and making them 'disappear'. 

Skystorm X-Wing Chopper

This article is dedicated to an odd person called Icebreaker who I do not know. I read his blog. It is equally as odd as mine. But where I ask for comment and have provided the appropriate box for ya'll, he makes a habit of asking for his readers thoughts but has no comment box, provided email address - nothing, zilch, nada, niks. So when he asked the internet denizens whether he should add a Skystorm to his collection, our pleas were never heard. You fool! Well read on, Icebreaker. This one's for you.

Joe attack helos 1983-1988 and beyond. Clear evolution from evoking Vietnam, to a splash of creative license, to complete science-fiction. If there is one design gripe I have with the Skystorm, it's that I wished the guns were more flush with the fuselage. 

The Skystorm X-Wing Chopper is a personal favorite of mine. Of course it's been elevated by having a cool story attached to it. I couldn't afford it on my pocket money back in the day, in spite of the fact that it wasn't a rarity. Okay, if I saved up, it could have been mine. But who was gonna save their bucks when there were so many Joes to buy? That and the fact that as a child I couldn't get my head around the extending blade thing. So I passed it up. Flash forward 10 years and I find it at a beach flea market. Guess how much it cost?

R50! MISB. I shit you not friends.

I must admit at the time it felt like the find of the decade. It quite possibly was. I frantically opened it up in the company of my bud Alastair, assembled her and applied the decals. Marveled at the loud colours the accompanying pilot rocked. And the fantastic size of his included revolver. It became Rob's weapon of choice, with Al and I jokingly calling it the elephant gun or 'boom-boom' gun. Windmill, the pilot got far less use. I recall my mainstay hero figure, Shockwave was at the controls of the Skystorm. SWAT operative you say? No way, Shockwave could fly/drive/do anything. And did. Regularly.

Captain Edward J. Roth. I always thought that was a cool name. And that name plus a gun like that stops anyone from questioning his choice of wardrobe.

This vehicle was a whole lot of fun. It could lift off, hover and maneuver like a chopper but - and I quote Windmill's filecard, '[it] clocks at 345 mph in its stopped rotor mode and can carry a bigger payload than a Dragonfly'. I guess since it's on the filecard, it's canon. To the casual observer the Dragonfly and Skystorm are on par re: payload. Six pieces of ordinance each. But the Skystorm's two air-to-ground anti-tank missiles are larger than any of the Dragonfly's weapons. Dragonfly has more gun and cannon but I imagine the Dragonfly to be more of an endurance air support provider, able to loiter in an area for a while pouring on the pain; whereas the Skystorm's role is to get in, deliver its payload and get out. The fact that the Skystorm has two guns is really just for show. This is G.I. Joe, kids. Too much is never too much. And I'm glad they did it, nothing's more fun than a good ol' strafing run.

Comparison between the Skystorm's payload (left) and the Dragonfly's (right).

Another element of supreme fun is that the Skystorm is allegedly a stealth helo. '88 was the year stealth became a G.I. Joe priority. I guess they were sick of losing to the Cobra Night Raven, so they started operating the Phantom X-19. And to take care of them pesky Mambas, Fangs and Rattlers, the Skystorm X-Wing project got green-lighted. You doubt its stealthiness? Check this panel from G.I. Joe #119.

This appearance enhances the Skystorm in two ways and I dare say they are the two things that I wish reflected in the toy. The overall size is increased, allowing Windmill to sit more upright in the cockpit; and the blades are fully extended when the knob is down. On the toy, the knob is raised when the blades are extended and flush when the blades are retracted. Nothing is perfect, right?

That issue wasn't even written by Larry Hama. It and #9 (also not a Hama) are two of my favourite G.I. Joe issues. Does that make me a blasphemer? In the issue Windmill is tasked to track a Cobra seaplane to their secret island base without being detected. Sadly it happened between the pages -  could have enjoyed a bit more of the issue detailing his mission. But the issue was killer nevertheless. But for the Skystorm to fly after a big cargo plane, it must have pretty outrageous range too. I can dig it. I mean, if you can accept the Sky Hawk or Tubble Bubble have more than ten minutes of flying time, anything is possible.

Engine detail. I never can get enough of it. While I agree it could do with a splash of paint, I do love the minty minty whiteness. And don't knock it. That is one super economical hi-tech engine, friends.

So what can't the Skystorm do? It can engage infantry with guns, structures and armor with missles, aircraft with missiles, it is a perfect stealth infiltrator able to approach quickly and then observe in chopper mode for what seems like a good long while. I absolutely love it and have a blast playing with it. I think it's the speed. I love the idea of a chopper, but sometimes I just need to kick it up a gear. The Skystorm delivers the kick.

VOOOOOOOSH!

And if you think the stopped-rotor concept is sillyness, I give you:

Yes friends, this could have existed. For whatever reason, it didn't. Personally I would be very interested to see the conversion from helo to stopped-rotor mode and back again. Thanks to Icebreaker for uncovering this pics. But I hope you return the thanks when you get your hands on a Skystorm and realise how much she rocks.

Comparison between the extended and retracted blades. Not much of a difference. To be honest, I could do without this feature, and I typically ignore it. But it's a toy! It needs a fun feature! The tradeoff is that the blades bend as they get pulled into the housing, making them either saggy or broken. Take care! Leave them extended, or modify your Skystorm. If I had the guts, I'd crack mine open and detach the blades from the shaft so that they can be extended with the knob down and flush. Maybe if I pick up another. Come on Hasbro! Re-release this!

The Barracuda gets deep sixed

I tried 'Baking Soda' (by that, I assumed the instructions meant Bicarbonate of Soda); I tried Grandpa. No sign of the Barracuda returning to the surface. I need something fizzier. So I found a tube of Vitathion tablets and gave that a crack. Saw a mess of bubbles rising so something was happening. But the bubbles needed to be trapped in order for the 'Cuda to become positively buoyant and rise to the surface. So I sealed up the top portion with Presstick and presto! Such fun! Now I need more Vitathion.