The Find

So the story goes I was visiting a buddy who was serving time in the Goodwood Correctional Institute. Yes, I do that sort of thing all the time. But the powers that be needed to conduct some kind of roll call that day and none of the prisoners were available for visitation. With Goodwood a stone's throw away from Parow (not really, but any excuse will do), I decided to make a pilgrimage to the main branch of Factory Toy Shop.

Back in the day, but definitely post '94, Factory Toy Shop was the last place surviving GI Joe stashes could be found. Celebrated items like the Thunderclap and Sky Raven, and not so celebrated items such as the Radar Rat and the entire Battle Corps line from '92 could be found there, typically at dirt cheap prices. I only wished as a 13 year old I had the financial clout I now have as I would have bought up everything that bore the letters 'GI JOE'. Hindsight=20/20. But on this fine Saturday morning on the 20th of March 2010, I went into the store knowing full well that even Factory Toy Shop's backlog of old stock had been depleted over a decade prior. I was just going in for old time's sake really, not expecting to buy anything at all.

In the boys' action toys isle, on the floor beneath baskets of old Mighty Max stock lay a dusty old box. Emblazoned on the black top flap was the word: Tomahawk. I wished I could have had an out-of-body experience at that point to note my reaction, and the overt double-take as the realization dawned. At first I thought 'empty box'. And then I picked it up. At second I thought 'repackaged box, filled with broken bits of junk'. And then I saw the once-familiar factory tape intact. At third I thought this is too good to be true while noting that they were asking for a paltry R230 for it. Needless to say I did not let it out of my grasp until she was paid for and resting on the passenger seat beside me. On the way home I kept fondling the box in disbelief. Sure, she had seen some sunlight in her 22 years of shelf-life, but the box was in an acceptable condition with no bumps or dings or scratches or scars. With any luck, that held true for the contents as well.

I think long before I reached home that day, I had decided not to open it. Not only was it a killer find, it is also my favourite GI Joe vehicle ever produced. I obtained a loose one in my early 20's and, love it as I do, I still have no desire to troop build the vehicle.And yet, they were typically featured in pairs... This just brings me to the conundrum: To open or not to open?

I do not collect Mint in Box toys. I can think of nothing worse than owning these fantastic toys, but at the same time not. Owning the potential of toys, if you will, but in reality only owning a collection of colourful boxes. Crushed under the weight of not being able to open them for fear of ruining the commodity. I suppose it's different if you have loose specimens to enjoy and play with, and hell, if you have the means, why not? Curate your own museum of boxed items, celebrating exactly how lucky we were as children to have this stuff in the kind of abundance we did. It's not within my financial reality to do this however, and so the one Mint in Sealed Box Tomahawk in my collection begs a whole host of questions: Do I open it? If so, under what condition?  My unconceived  son's thirteenth birthday, assuming he digs Joe? My deathbed? Am I being a little too dramatic? Should I even care? Would the maximum joy to be had from the damn thing be for me to do it now, while I live for my hobby, before my life gets swept up in real world concerns? Should I just forget about it, push it to the back of the cupboard and forget it ever happened? Should I make a Youtube video of me backing a car over it?

Chap Mei, you biscuit.

Hasbro make the best figures. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, even their less celebrated entries into the GI Joe toyline are more commendable than the figures produced by their rivals, or even the figures produced by Hasbro for their Marvel and other properties. The new vein of vehicles have been pretty jazzy too, with some new concepts mixing in with re-decos of old molds and some great new blood too. The new VAMP and HISS are solid vehicles. The Ghost Hawk II, not so much. But gone are the days of the big vehicles. The kind of largess we were accustomed to in the 80's and early 90's is long gone. And even then, every large vehicle was some kind of event. What I mean is, plastic and molding would go into a very specialized large item. A General, a Rolling Thunder, an MCC. Each year had them and they were always hi-lights the more spoiled kids among us got hands on. There was never anything as pedestrian as a large transport plane or chopper. And while we can't argue with the economics of making your big ticket items really pop, it always left big holes in GI Joe and Cobra's operation.

The comics were first to fill these holes by including non-toy vehicles into the Joe and Cobra arsenal. Planes (typically the C-130 Hercules), ships (the 'Jane'), choppers (that fantastic purple Cobra re-imagining of the Sikorsky Skycrane) filled the necessary logistical demands of the forces. But we were fated to never be able to work these into our gametime. We had no tangible versions to cram with Joes on their way to their missions in the far-flung corners of the globe. The door was wide open for one of the competitors to fill this gap. It only took 18 years.

In the early 2000's a Hong Kong based company called Chap Mei produced this.

And this.

And most recently this.

And I was sated. They are not without fault. They are of course 'generic' toys (it seems I use that term to encompass toys that give you more for less, as such it's not meant as a dirty word). The cockpits are vast and lacking controls and glass. The proportions can seem a little dumpy and downscaled. But I am overjoyed to have them. These toys see more action that a great deal of legit Joe vehicles in my possession. They fill a vital role and fill it well. So how do they each break down?

The 'Chinook' is vast. Possessing the biggest interior space, you can drive a VAMP up the gate and into the belly, and still have room for a pair of paratroopers. Functioning side door and winch that ingeniously winds itself back in. The Tomahawk begins to pale in comparison as a transport chopper.

The Chinook has some easily ignored sound and light features. And for offense a port side-mounted cannon. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Why did I paint it black? Because I missed the initial military camo iteration of this toy. I missed the dark blue police version. The red rescue version. I only jumped on the Chap Mei train when this was released in their 'Wild Quest' series. It came with a gorilla in a cage. The gorilla has a chest-beating feature. So much of fun. But the chopper was rendered in a lumo green a la the Badger. It had to go. I think I used enamel wall paint that was lying around so don't scrutinize the job too much. But hey, I was a young teen and didn't give no fuck.

Moving right along then to the Osprey. To date, released only once by Chap Mei in about 2004 if memory serves. It's pretty sought after. I should have bought them up and scalped. Not!

Once again it has mandatory arb sound and light features. I think the one button unleashed a flurry of machine gun fire, the other button a police siren. Odd. So I gutted them and maximized on interior space, because them batteries have got to go somewhere. Since it has no side door, the battery door must of necessity be made functional.

 The sculpting suggests it to get out your damn screwdriver and make it so!

 Easy conversion to dorsal gunner port if you want to risk your Osprey in a close air support role. Hey, the Joes have to be ready for anything right? It is a little shorter than the true V-22 dimensions and will hold fewer troops or equipment. A pair of ATVs are the best I can do, or the equivalent number of troops. The interior is also unsculpted, which is a sad departure from the great texturing they gave the Chinook interior. It mounted a cannon in much the same way the Chinook does, but I chucked that in favour of keeping her sleek.

 As a carrier-based plane, it really functions well. And fits (un) surprisingly well with GI Joe's dumpiest and disproportionate playset, the USS Flagg. It's why I sprayed the Osprey grey. But look how compact it can get with its realistic folding wing. Tiffany Valentine wants to get in on the action...

As for the transport plane? I never can remember the designation they gave it and I threw away the box the second I had taken all the bits out. This happened at a MacDonalds as curious children surrounded me. So it's called 'transport plane' as far as I care. It surprisingly has the smallest capacity. It does however have the best proportions so it is clearly just a victim of simply not being big enough. You can't drive anything up the ramp, even if it does have the hull space enough to hold a VAMP. But it is a meaty toy and one that I have had more fun than I initially expected simulating take-offs and landings. Its nice to play with a non-jet I realise. There's just something about a big rugged turboprop plane that makes it more adaptable to landing on less than perfect runways and there are plenty of those surrounding where I live.

The plane does mark a shift in Chap Mei's vehicle design however. There are more bells and whistles allowing for better interior play. With the Chinook and Osprey, the interior is a cavern with no access. With the plane, the flip of a lever allows the wings and roof to be detached from the belly of the craft to reveal seating and a removable navigator/radioman station. Curiously the panel has no way of attaching so it will tumble if you put the plane through some acrobatics. There are even rifle racks, something I always praise. Bombs and additional guns can be mounted on the wings and even a row of dorsal guns to poke out of the portholes! And a table. With a map decal. A welcome inclusion, but I think more fitting back at base than on board. If I cared to play with the included Chap Mei action figures, I would laud the new knee and elbow joints. But I don't and I don't.

 There is an opening side door and back gate and the standard sound and light B.S. It's a bit more invasive on the plane as there are two light up cannons on either side of the fuselage. In opaque orange. Begging to be painted.

And the lever allows one to do this! Fun!

Bells and whistles abound, you get decals so you can match the one side with the other. Common practice with the window type packaging, Chap Mei would decal the side that faced the buyer and leave the hidden side blank. With nary additional stickers to be found.  They did the same here, but at least they gave you the stickers so you could balance your plane's deco yourself. I'm holding off on doing the starboard side, I have yet to decide whether the stickers benefit the plane or not. Any suggestions?

These vehicles throw me into a bit of a quandary. Okay, because it's carrier-friendly, the Osprey defaults to being a Joe plane. But the chopper and plane? I can hardly decide. I guess they are too standard military to be Cobra... but maybe I like my Cobra operatives to use more conventional military equipment than the flashy, freaky, fang fiascoes? Perhaps because their faction is not printed on the box means both can use them ad infinitum. And that just means I get to play with them twice as much. Awesome. 

Something strange strikes me about the plane. It is clearly too small for four engines. The propeller arcs mesh, and paratroopers deploying from the side door would most certainly receive a close shave. But I do like that with four engines, it emulates the configuration of the Herky Bird. 

I fit a tree in the Chinook. Now you know it's beeeeg, Very beeeeeg. And you can see the original colour peeking out. Great job, Steve.