The Mobile Command Center will fuck your shit up.

With the current wave of Retaliation movie toys not exactly blowing my hair back, I decided this would be the perfect time to add another large vintage item to my motor pool. Presenting the largest beige sowing-box the GI Joe line ever produced, I give to you the Jawa Sandcrawler.

Take note how that bumper almost scrapes the ground? Criticism forthcoming!

It was 1987, I imagine the already scarce Flagg playsets from two years prior were slipping into mythical status. Hasbro decided it was time for another crowd pleaser. They provided in the form of the massive Defiant Launch Complex. But what's better than one enormous rolling Joe playset in a year? Two of course! So sneaking out of the Defiant's shadow, we have the MCC.

It's a big 'un. 70cm in length, 25cm in width and a massive 40cm tall. But what the hell is a Mobile Command Center anyway?

In terms of continuity at the time of it's release, GI Joe had ditched their original PIT location on Staten Island after numerous security leaks and attacks at the hands of Cobra. Relocating to the expanse of desert in rural Utah, the Joes began construction on an extensive underground location, the PIT III. I can only imagine during this period, the need had arisen for a mobile fortress crammed with sophisticated electronic monitoring gear to maintain security on the surface. It would be the base of operations for scout patrols, act as air and ground traffic control for incoming aircraft and a staging area for missions carried out in this interim.


How does the toy 'stack' up to the task? Well in spite of its size, it is a little on the small side as a mobile base. Nowhere is this more glaring than with its first floor repair bay.












The box art displays a Triple T in that bay, which makes sense since it shared the same year of release as the MCC. But the bay really shines when you put an AWE Striker in there, as the MCC includes a spare engine one can replace the Striker's with. Or so I've heard. To date, I have yet to get an AWE Striker. Getting the MCC is probably the large, beige straw that broke the camel's back for me on that score. The point is, the bay is small. Put anything larger than an Armadillo in there and you battle to place figures around it. A Desert Fox or even VAMP is too large to fit all the way in... Optimally I'd say this vehicle would have crushed my criticism if a Rolling Thunder could snugly fit in. But then this would be as large as a Flagg. Cramped as it is, it boasts plenty of features with a very nice crane that feels sturdy and moves smoothly with great range. There are two lube points with flexible hoses and a fuel nozzle who's hose winds nicely into its retainer.









The front wall has very spacious storage slots, a feature I am always fond of as I constantly need plausible places to keep weapons, packs and gear. The sculpt is busy, with plenty of unpainted pop. A custom paint job begs, but I love the mintiness of this specimen too much.









Next level! A sticker proclaims that this is level number '2'. This is the Command Center portion of the MCC. With that said, the mandatory brig-in-the-most-sensitive-location is present, as it was in the 1983 HQ. This time it is a cramped steel box for our captured baddy. No cushy beds, just a ledge seat in the one corner. He has slitted vents on side, and above his head. Water torture, anyone?






Couldn't resist. With Dark Knight Rises opening here next week, it's Batman season again.

There is some old-school techno-detail in the front end, with screens and a reel-to-reel computer of absurd dimensions. The bank of monitors on either side have some ill-fitting decals that clearly ignore the ridge lines on the mold that separate the two screens. Perhaps I will peel and cut the decals to fit if I feel up to it.









Need a guy like Mainframe to tend to that vintage computer. I mean, his included hardware had two floppy drives.


The sweetest detail has got to be the clear display board. Now this is tech that is not yet dated and redeems the command center with some touch screen, multi-function display shit. Some criticize there being only one chair back there, there is of course a simple solution, short of picking up another chair from a scrap lot. See the picture above? Lady Jaye's chair courtesy of Playmates Star Trek line.






Aw naff! I just discovered that the decal should be applied to the frame and not the bunk! The cost of buying loose 2nd hand stuff. It's gonna be a bitch to correct.


There are a pair of fold out bunks, and I have not yet decided how I feel about them. It seems odd for a pair of Joes to be napping in the nerve center of the vehicle. Then again, with a round the clock vigil, a nearby area for an off-duty techie to rack out might be very apt. I propose they also help to vary the kind of functions level 2 can have. For instance, remove the screen and put in a table from a complimentary line, re-imagine the brig as an ablution area/shower and you have a handsome living quarters. Throw in some extra bunks and you have an enlisted quarters.










Creating a medical bay is also childsplay - it would go some way to explaining the technical detail on the decals applied to the sides of the fold out bunks. Very sci-fi. And if the MCC was indeed large enough to accommodate a Rolling Thunder in level one, this is exactly the type of variation we would expect to see with all the additional space on level 2. The sculpt is less busy, but this only helps in making the space convertible, and not really a criticism.




Level 3 serves two functions: an anti-aircraft missile battery complete with additional missiles and a landing pad, which is barely large enough for a Sky Hawk.






In my imaginary upsize, you could land a Tomahawk on that pad. Don't hate on my imagination. But the pad is not really supported well, so it is ill-advised to try and put anything too hefty on there. The SAM launcher is fun, it flips out from concealment, encloses the operator, has a full range of motion and even slides forward or backwards on a rail system. The top level also boasts a sneaky escape chute that allows Joes a quick egress to the desert floor if the evacuation is called for.


















The final play area is the cab which holds three Joes on rather reclined seats. I'm never much of a fan of driver positions that aren't upright, and it's not like the MCC's cab isn't spacious enough for proper seats, but what the hell. Can't have it all right?





To help the crew fight off their drowsiness, a Head-Up Display is provided in the form of a very sexy decal, and I really do love the large glass panels that the MCC boasts. This is not a front line vehicle by any stretch of the imagination so I won't begrudge the glass as I usually do. The cab has a large dish/missile launcher adorning it and two dual .50 caliber coaxial guns. The missiles pivot up and down and 360 degrees around and, rather surprisingly, the guns have some limited side to side motion. I did not expect that.



Fending off attacks from the rear there is an automated missile launcher which boasts the same type of missile that the front launcher and the Snowcat from '85 do. There are a handful of machine guns and spotlights which mount on the walls when the MCC is splayed out in base mode for you to largely ignore.




And when in vehicle mode you can take the lift! Gets you from the bottom to the top easily enough, and I do like how the gate swings open when it reaches the bottom floor.




So what criticisms can I level at the MCC in one fell-swoop? It gets a bad rap for being frail. Setting my expectations to egg-shell, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the air-mail box (originally used for a vacuum cleaner) and found it intact. Well, reasonably. One of the side glass panels from the cab was snapped, but the seller wasn't too pedantic in how he packed it. The panel had loosed itself and was crushed under the vehicle. I don't suppose he consulted his magic 8-ball, so I gave him a perfect score on the 'bay anyway. But everything else was in good nick, clean, and the transformation to fold-out base mode is not jarring. I don't think anything is likely to break. It's sturdy, just don't stress it by say, rolling it upside-down when converted and you should be okay.


Wasn't I trying to crit the toy? Here you are. The conversion does have a few bogus side effects. 1) The elevator has to be removed and placed on an alternate location. Why? If it were on the other side of the MCC this would a)be unnecessary and b) not get in the way of the service bay door. It could even have replaced one of the support pillars; 2) the machine guns and searchlights can only be implemented plausibly in base mode. Clearly the intention by the designers is that it actually rolls into the desert and unfolds, it's not merely a mechanism to allow access; 3) There are two gaping holes in the starboard side of the vehicle when it is folded up. Practical hatches would have cured this famously. Like the ones in the Flagg's tower perhaps?

The front end has a cow catcher that rides really low. Sure, you don't want to attempt rolling up a mountainside in this beast, but this bumper barely clears the ground and is a bit of a hindrance. On smooth surfaces and shallow carpeting the MCC rolls nicely. This surprised me most, especially after learning that the huge hunk of plastic rides on only four teeny rollers. Forget about cruising on grass, brick, concrete or asphalt. The nose, or something else will snag.

So yay or nay on the MCC? Yay. A base is so fundamental in my typical Joe adventure. One that is mobile is a huge plus. It is a smaller representation of the real thing in my mind, so landing Tomahawks on the roof and parking the Rolling Thunder down below is all part and parcel of this monstrosity's many functions. It can fight the good fight if Cobra mount an attack on it and has a goodly amount of internal play value. AWE Striker, here I come at long last. And the MCC is tougher than most let on, so don't let the hype get you down. I must add though, that I bought the Spy Troops re-release, so it doesn't have quite as many years on it as the original and that might help the overall sturdiness. But the $75 I paid couldn't be argued with. An original would have easily been upward of $120. I thought I had really scored, until the $90 shipping quote arrived. Whatever. It's a big toy. I live in Africa. Fun purchase. Happy boy.

Cobra HISS II

Cobra HISS. Two words that should have no logical connection to an armored fighting vehicle. But to a fan of GI Joe, these words should spark images of an angular, black, tracked vehicle. The HI-Speed Sentry was Cobra's first entry into the ground vehicle category. It had a solid helping of armor, firepower, mobility, versatility and capacity. It also had an iconic look that entrenched Cobra's flair for the unconventional. As a solid workhorse of the Cobra arsenal, it served with distinction in every major medium. But there was of course room for improvement and six years after the first HISS tank saw combat, the second generation of HISS tanks arrived.


The HISS II is beefed up in every regard. Where the original was piloted by a single operator, it's successor seated two. The cannons were enlarged and a third barrel added. Additional weapons such as coaxial machine guns and missiles were added, as was a rear hatch with capacity for four troops. All welcome changes that continue the legacy and adding to the versatility and capabilities of the HISS. All changes for the good. But here's the rub. The colour. Opting to ditch the original black in favor of a blue-grey, we have red accents in the form of the canopy and weapons. Basically we see the seeds of the poor toy coloring choices that dominated the nineties. Toxic Crusaders anyone?


Colors aside, other oddities to this design are the fact that the pilot egress is via a lowering 'jaw', for lack of a better word. It's a bit finicky in toy form. In reality I can only imagine it's a maintenance nightmare. The pilot seats are pretty spartan, but then again, Track Vipers look more like robots than humans. How a human head fits into that helmet I will never know.

 The tank has teeny tiny (red: why?) roller wheels and not the functioning treads reserved only for the zenith of Joe armor - the MOBAT, Mauler and Patriot Grizzy. Okay, not the last one. But bizarrely if you take the rollers away the universal joint between the treads doesn't clear the ground!

Silliness! And if you are cruising thru moderately long grass, forget about the missiles. They ride so low that they snag everything. With two crew up front, the tank has a tendency to be front-heavy and can flop forward. The barrels of the gun are quizzical in a number of ways. How are they loaded, where is the ammunition stored? The gun mold is hollow and as you tilt the guns up, you get a big ugly eyeful.

But the guns do have a pretty solid range of movement and look like they could do some damage. In addition to the standard armament, the crew portion has slits side and read to poke rifles through if the opportunity should arise to ward off infantry. The rollers move well, while I do always prefer functioning treads, they never give as good a roll as the lil' wheel approach, so the compromise brings advantages. The tailgate mechanism can be a little finickity as it drops and slides out, but I praise it for allowing one to access the troop section simply without, say, something as phony as the roof splitting for instance. And it is vital that you access the troop section. Placing figures in their cramped seats would be nigh-impossible otherwise. In a nod to the original there are footpegs on the tailgate, but it would be in those troops' best interests to disembark before the gate drops on their shins.

 So in closing, what are my thoughts on the HISS II? In every respect an improvement on the original. It retains the Cobra eccentricity, adds new capabilities and yet is not dramatically larger. Aside from the red, I'm fond of the colouring, as I say, my only criticism is it being out of place next to the other Cobra vehicles. But then again, for every HISS, Stun or Ferret, there's a Maggot or Rage. You are not spoiled for choice when it comes to Conra armor, but you can do no better than the HISS II.