Custom Dusty mounts the Fridge

Easy custom Dusty.
Recipe: ROC Desert Assault Duke and Backpack
with POC Snake-Eyes hands;
POC Dusty head
POC Dusty helmet with added rag
POC Dusty goggles
Marauderinc modular M4
BBI Marine Grenadier pistol belt

Paint wash with Tamiya paint & thinners

Dragonfly XH-1

This is not the Dragonfly XH-1. No no, this is the year 2k's 'Locust XH-1'. Practically the same vehicle but with a slightly inferior plastic quality and a tan plastic colour that looks a little too close to flesh for my liking. Wanna see what I mean? I love the Dragonfly, and it sees a lot of use (possibly as much as my Tomahawk, since they are normally deployed together) but my 1983 version is a little beat up. I had also never been in possession of a nose gun that elevated as I had the fixed, swivel-only variation. So when the opportunity to own a mint in box 'Dragonfly' for only $20, I bit. Straight out of the box, I sprayed it with a light grey primer. Figured grey would be the way to go for a chopper destined to operate off the deck of the USS Flagg. I was doing bloody well too - successfully masking certain areas I didn't want grey-ed, no fingerprints of clumping, clean work. Then I got it in my head to spray the molded canopy frame. I thought my masking skills were up to the challenge, exposing only the frame and masking the clear bits... I was wrong. But to add salt to the wound, fool child, I thought turpentine would be able to remove the paint.

If it were this colour,I might not have needed to paint it. The prototype seems a bit darker. Pity, it would have fit better with the Tomahawk if the release was the same.

No dice. Not only is mineral turpentine useless at removing Dulux primer, it is very efficient at melting plastic, something I should have remembered from my model-building days. Within moments, a crystal clear canopy had been reduced to a cloudy mess.

Determined to save my 'new' canopy, I was directed to a number of guides on how to sand, buff and polish clear plastic in order to remove scratches and starring and restore its clarity. This involves sanding the canopy with incrementally less gritty sandpaper until you are essentially buffing it. Then you go on to use Brasso (?) and/or toothpaste (??) to get the shine back. Crazy. I sanded that thing for two days straight and presented it in my then severely calloused hands to my buddy Paul who proceeded to declare it a write off. Shit.

But you know what? That just gave me the idea to paint over my fuckup and make this Dragonfly a remote drone attack helo. And I think it looks pretty spiffy. Thanks to Paul's airbrush wizardry, this Dragonfly drone looks very tough indeed. I don't even want to decal it. Nice!

Tales of woe and triumph aside, the Dragonfly must be securely within my top 5 G.I. Joe vehicles of all time. I think I'm a sucker for helos tho. The Tomahawk also has a place in my top 5. I can't decide which is ranks higher. While I love the huge play possibility of the Tomahawk, being both a gunship and a troop transport, the fun of cranking the Dragonfly rotor mechanism is pretty hard to beat. The smoothness of the mechanism and the weight and balance of the blades make for a very realistic rotation, even when you've stopped cranking. I get such a kick out of simulated take-offs and landings, and I dare say I am very proficient in performing them.

She is a light attack chopper, small but devastatingly well armed and crammed with features. Six missiles of anti-armor, structure or anti-personnel use; a cannon mounted portside and a chin gun housing both a chain gun and a grenade launcher. While I choose to ignore it, there is a sculpted detail resembling a gun barrel on the portside nose.

Those sweet guns swivel AND elevate. Wished my vintage could do that. But then where would the gunner's legs go? The non-elevating versions are naturally hollow and I jam the figure's legs into the cavity. Good thing it's a drone! And also pictured is the bizarre extra nosegun. Does the barrel poke into the already cramped cockpit? It's like the Skyhawk... 

As already mentioned, a button spins the blades, very efficiently. Well they do on my original Dragonfly. This 2000 version's mechanism broke on the first day out the box. Sliding the button forward does rotate the blades but the button doesn't return. Very frustrating, made more so by the fact that the mold halves are glued in place and I have no desire to risk separating them. Rounding off the features, the cockpit holds two (when she's not a drone!), and the engine covers are removable. So clever, unnecessary but such vanilla. A mark of a design company that want kids to be able to play the hell out of this toy, and sadly a notion we are unlikely to see again.

Came with this guy. Rehashed Battle Corps Wild Bill.  That's why he stays in the box. Though I must say the colouring trumps the Battle Corps Bill. And he doesn't come with a gun that looks like a log. But I'm spoilt for choice these days. Nothing beats V1 Billy!

 Lastly, there is a winch with a great deal of lead. You spool it out and reel it in manually. I love this feature, and it adds a utility aspect to the Dragonfly and it was used in Marvel comics on more than one occasion. notably in issue 18 where it airlifted a Vamp and five persons out of a pretty hairy situation. Pretty tough bird, isn't she?!

Ya done good Paul, very good. Notice the subtle shading? The weathering? Beaut!

Why does it make the top 5, you may ask? Get one. See what you think. The real-world element is hard to miss, the olive green Dragonfly evokes the Vietnam War era so well, and also works well with all of the initial Joe vehicles being that great, dark hue of green. My grey Dragonfly is a shot at the Huey SuperCobra, still very much in active use by the US Marine Corps. BBI do a pretty nice Cobra, yet it is accurately scaled and HUUGE. The Dragonfly's underscaling is a plus in my book (yeah I'm probably just trying to hard to justify myself). It is small enough to handle and enjoy, it still holds two figures (mind you, not all modern era Joes will fit), and it will still be able to fly through a doorway. But seriously, get one, and let me know what you think. She's a goody.

WHALE versus Hammerhead

Killer WHALE

Cobra Hammerhead


It's on.

 In February 2006 (I think), the G.I. Joe Waterborne Hovercraft Assault Landing Experimental or WHALE came into my life. I bought it as a birthday prezzie for my pal Rob. It's always been a fan favourite, being released in 1984 (a really superb year for the line, and incidentally the year of my birth), and done up in a great scheme of 'Joe' green on a black plastic skirt. I loved this toy, but not being my own I longed for it as much. After five and a half years of Rob's WHALE exclusivity, I decided to get my own.

Normally I'd go into a discussion of the real-world purpose of the WHALE, but this page does it far better than I. Ah the joys of the interweb! The link does the work so well, that I'm going to rather write about a possible engagement between a WHALE and a Hammerhead.

Why those two, you ask? Well the likelihood of them facing each other is pretty great. WHALEs would typically be deployed in an amphibious assault scenarios and Hammerheads are deployed as coastal defenders. The linked article describes a possible mission scenario where a WHALE is used for a clandestine four-man team insertion. On this particular occasion a lone Hammerhead crew discovers the Joes.

Backed up into the treeline overlooking the beach, the Hammerhead sweeps the seas before it with its sensor array. Decimator peers out at the endless blue with his image intensifiers, alternating between night vision and thermal imaging. Two miles out to sea, Cutter, G.I. Joe sailor and skipper of the WHALE performs a similar task from his command station. The hovercraft is in possession of a range of noise-reducing wizardry making it uncharacteristically quiet. They had made good time covering the 90 miles from the Joe mothership, the USS Flagg. The next phase was critical. The craft had to navigate a shallow river leading inland where it was to deliver its cargo. Having spotted the river mouth, Cutter sets a course correction for his first mate, Topside, who swings the nose of the vessel to starboard and opens the throttle. In the guntubs Rampart and Deep Six begin sweeping their sectors of fire even more vigilantly than before.

As the WHALE veers right and races towards the river mouth, Decimator catches a glimpse of the warm speck of the WHALE's hot engine block. To protect the secret of his ward, he has standing orders to prevent any unauthorized landings with deadly force. He wastes no time, briefing his crew that they were going weapons hot and engaging any confirmed target. The trouble was that the target was too small and too quick for a missile lock. Even the sophisticated ordinance of the Hammerhead needed a stronger target than the WHALE was providing, so the order is given to start up the engines and pursue. The Hammerhead springs to life and tears off onto the white sand, reaching a top speed of 40 miles per hour. Decimator swings his command pod to track the WHALE as both vehicles began to close on each other. With less than a mile between them, Decimator satisfies himself that they are indeed tracking a small vessel and fires off one of his surface-to-surface missiles. The missile tracks well, arcing upwards and coming down onto its target, but undershoots, striking the water behind the nimble hovercraft. Witness to the flash of the missile launch, the WHALE's four .50 deck guns clatter into life, spitting glowing tracer fire onto the shoreline. At the wheel of the Hammerhead, the Eel driver whips the vehicle left, ramping it over a dune and putting a wall of sand between it and the incoming fire. By this time, Topside swings the nose of the WHALE towards the shore and begins shelling with the dual 40mm cannons. With shells exploding mere metres away from the Hammerhead, Decimator orders that they escape inland and head for the river in order to deploy their arsenal of attack craft.

What happens next? You tell me. Come on. Comment. I dare ya.

Killer W.H.A.L.E review

Braving one of the smellier parts of Johannesburg, I give you some action shots of this beaut. I still smell like sewerage, thanks.

Here it is dear readers, the Killer WHALE, making boys fantasize about big green hovercrafts since 1984. Based on real-world hovercrafts used in the Vietnam conflict (most specifically this craft), the WHALE became G.I. Joe's most oft used light watercraft and seeing use in most of Joe's naval operations. It's regarded by fans as one of the premier pieces in the line. It can travel on land (practically by use of four trolley wheels beneath its skirt) and water, as it really does float quite well. It crews two, can hold a further two crewmen in two gun tubs, has a troop capacity of four in a cozy concealed cabin, and a compartment for a sled, which I suppose could also contain a sled operator or diver. A push plunger makes the rotors spin providing imaginary propulsion, a lever allows a rack of depth charges to roll overboard one-by-one, another button launches the sea-sled from its compartment in the fore of the craft, it comes with an included scout bike, removable machinery covers, two box launchers with a total of eight missiles, a drop-down ramp for troop deployment, dual cannons, a fantastically molded naval Joe by the name of Cutter. There couldn't possibly be more bells and whistles on this craft. It is an enduring classic and a strong reminder of the heyday of soldier toys.

Torpedo makes a stealth insertion. Smart move since a noisy hovercraft would certainly attract any unwanted attention away from Torps' appraoch, allowing him to get on with the dirty job he's no doubt been tasked with. I don't care what you say, this little thing is hella fun. And it shoots out of the nose of the WHALE at such a blinding speed that it literally falls to pieces. Every time. Fun!

Enough gush. I pride my reviews on pointing out the weakness of a toy. The WHALE's biggest flaw is the frailty of some of it's parts. While it is a sturdy craft in the main, its fan assembly is the big bitch to find in good nick. Each individual vane is made up of two flat portions joined in two places by thin plastic. While this was a design implemented to make them bend realistically, in truth too much bending would stress the vanes to the point of cracking. This is made only more likely by the age of the plastic. Another area of weakness is the box missile launchers. They attach to the craft using three opposing teeth - two face forwards, one faces back and that lonely one has to cope with a lot of strain when detaching/attaching the box. Mine broke somewhere between the ebay seller taking pictures of the vehicle and partial disassembly for packing. It's the risk we all take and I don't begrudge him for not noticing.

It must get really tiresome keeping your knees up all the time. And hitting rocks with your toes must suck bigtime.

The bike is woefully undersized. It reminds me of the vehicle packs of 1988 when you try to place a figure on it. But I think as a child, I could have easily suspended my disbelief and loved it to bits. To think the designers had a spot where nothing much was going on, they could have left it open, or doubled up the depth charges, but instead opted to add some new play value to the toy. Did I say I was going to stop gushing?!

100% stud. And do you know what this skipper's Filename is? Skip A. Stone. Ha ha ha.

As already mentioned, the WHALE enjoyed a great deal of exposure in associated Joe media. It had to. For as long as I can remember it is the only Joe seagoing vessel in its class. And to this day remains so. Sure, the APC and Warthog are amphibious but they can't match the WHALE's speed, agility and firepower. While by no means a ocean-going ship, the WHALE can nevertheless take to the open sea but will primarily shine in swampy environments where conventional hulled watercraft or land vehicles will not be able to move.

Cannons, machine guns, removable covers, missiles. This sucker's got it all. And, fearing the worst, I decided not to put my superglue job to the test - the missile box is stuck on with Press-Stick. Check that sweet Killer WHALE design. I love signature vehicle decals. Especially when the fire missiles out of their blowholes.

In short, if you don't have this vehicle, get it. It is a premier piece in any Joe collection. Beautiful, realistic colouring, a paragraph-worth of features, a great size being large but not obscenely so, and an intricate sculpt full of the little details one can expect from the Joe line's zenith. Did I mention how much fun it is to glide this thing along the floor going 'Vrooom'? Well it is. Very.

Another dawn, another jungle, another mission. Yo Joe!

Regrets

Every bought something and wished you hadn't? I remember thinking that a few times in the Transformers world. I don't know what I was smoking when I got a G1 Galvatron. That toy sucks. Especially the cartoon-accurate one I got. And to top it off, fresh out of the box, his electronic sounds and lights did not work. Fresh batteries ... nada.

In the Joe world my biggest regret? Snake-Eyes. Half a dozen 3rd Generation versions of that guy and my undisputed Snake is the first one I got, 25th version 1. The rest go into the box and never see the light of day.

The Corps!

Poor man's G.I. Joe. Transformers had the Gobots,

The price sticker on the front of the card was R6.99 

Trips me out. 

Note I diligently crossed out the two Gobots I owned at that stage. As if I would one day own them all.

I don't.


and G.I.Joe had The Corps! No, I'm not expressing my excitement. The exclamation point is actually part of the name. They hit the scene in '86, back in the heyday of 3 3/4 inch plastic anti-terrorism. They were and still are made by the company that brought us the original and best Super Soaker - Lanard. While the Joes were always my number one toy, The Corps! had their time in the sun in my collection. I got my first Corps! figure in the late 80's, he was a black-clad ninja with a crossbow and backpack of arrows and molded blades.

Known to me only as 'Black Ninja' this guy was one cold killa...
That is the original backpack by the way. 

It was before the Joe ninja explosion and for a wobbly-toothed five-year old with an 80's hangover, ninjas were the bizness. I played the hell out of that toy for...

... a day. Then it disappeared. All that's left is the backpack.

My next two Corps! came in a two-pack card. Bought for me by my buddy and neighbor, Justin Segers for my 8th birthday. Here are the two criminals:

You know the mark of a knock-off toy is the cardback not having colour. But very impressively these guys did have dossiers. And a two pack? Can't beat that. Interestingly they were carded one on top of each other, so like a 'snip strip' of Nik Naks, you could cut it in half and perhaps give it to a pair of twins for their birthday?! Whew. Long caption

Large Sarge and Hammer. My lonely only Corps! guys. For some reason, I refused to call Hammer Hammer. I guess the compulsion to shout 'Hammer Time' when he was on the job put me off. Whatever the reason, he became remembered as Fox. When I was about 11 or 12, G.I. Joe dried up. The Corps! however, gained momentum. Maybe it was the absence of any real competition, but Lanard started pressing some very decent vehicles.

I longed for the 'Ambulance' and 'Troop Carrier'. Very real world, and quite obviously designed in a later era. But alas, they were the two that never appeared locally

APC's, attack helicopters, trucks, re-release of their original tank and boat from the '80s, and this beaut -

With opening doors and bonnet, and glass windscreens, it was easily superior to my VAMP.

Back then, the closest thing one could get to a Hummer, was the G.I. Joe Hammer. Well, not really. I never saw one on shelves in good ol' SA, and was never partial to its over-designed look with no windscreens. So this toy got a lotta love from me and my pals. But more importantly, it came with three new recruits to give Sarge and Fox some company.

Their names are indelibly burned into my memory. They were the bad guys who gave Joe a decent run for their money. I distinctly remember being very off Cobra for a time. I wanted a believable, real-world group of terrorists and mercenaries for the Joes to fight, not a bunch of weirdos with a reptile fetish. These five hombres were the ticket.

From left to right: Large Sarge, Fox, Carlos Duarte, Boomerang Billy, Razor Ramon. All bastards.

Fox was the sniper; Large Sarge the explosives and heavy weapons guy; Boomerang Billy hailed from Down Under who came with a backpack loaded with his signature weapons; Razor Ramon (another dude I renamed, good thing too. Lanard called him 'Tony Tanner', ugh.) -he was a sadist and master of torture techniques; and finally Carlos Duarte, The Skorpion With A "K". That was his name. He was a South American warlord with ties to all things illicit from arms to drugs to slavery. For warlord with ties to the arms trade, it was most conspicuous that he had no thumbs, but Lanard never did crack robust enough plastic with their o-ring figures...

The thumbs didn't last long. But many good men and women died by those stunted hands. Bastard.

So these figures were the bane of Shockwave, Scoop and M.P. Man's life (see this article).

Then, flash forward a bit and my buddy Rob was tooling around in Tygervalley Mall and found two packs that together held pretty much every o-ring Corps! figure and included a jeep. Probably for less that R80 too. What they lack in thumb strength, they make up for in value! So either Carlos had a bevvy of reinforcements or these figures were my new protagonists. And for a short time, they were. Well, two of them. Before I had a Dragonfly and the original Wild Bill, I had to make do with the horrible blue and white Battle Corps version (Battle Corps was in fact a G.I. Joe subset. Confusing). It was not a very good figure. So a Corps! figure became the gunslinging chopper jockey on my missions. And he even came with a Native American sidekick tracker and co-pilot. And their names? Shooter Sam and Tracker Tom. Uh huh. Good for a laugh for sure.

You can't fight it. Joe had Spirit and Wild Bill, so I guess Lanard had the green light to do some Cowboy and Indian Shit.
And both of them have CORPS! printed on their uniforms. With the '!' . Seriously?!

And then G.I. Joe came back into my life under the guise of the second generation, new sculpt era. I greeted them with enthusiasm and within a year vowed to never buy them again. Not about to be left out of the new wave of action figure furora, The Corps! brought in their new wave of T-crotched badboys.

I often like to touch up figures by painting the or adding a wash or drybrush, these figures had it factory applied. The effect was marked. other figures suddenly seemed very toy like and plasticky. These guys looked grizzled, dirty and fucking hard. They immediately became the principal protagonists at gametime. There were twelve of them, so the no-brainer team name was the Dirty Dozen. Al, Rob and I split the team three ways and set about naming and imbuing the members with life.

Bear, Flash, Kurt and Kite were Al's;

Rob used Eagle-Eye, Howlin' Harry, Paddy and Viper;

And my boys were Dutch, Bronson, Porkins, and Snake.

They were soldiers of fortune, flying around the world dealing death for anyone who could meet their price. Typically their operations consisted of ambushing armed convoys, or sneaking up on fortifications and... stealing stuff. But they were a force to be reckoned with, and for a good while they held the mantle of the most played-with toys in my collection. Good times.

The Corps! have, like G.I. Joe, ditched their o-ring design, and still put out the T-crotch figures with some retooling here and there, but the bodies of the original twelve are still quite prominent. But no iteration of these figures beat the original, dirty, grizzled ones. I am grateful of the day Rob and I walked up the road to the local supermarket where all four of the original three-figure packs were available. They included tonnes of authentic weapons, including smoke and frag grenades, mortar launchers, pistols, sniper rifles, knives and an offroad bike. Each pack set us back only R20. Unreal.

The sad devolution from awesome to okay to WTF. Glad I caught the A-game before the neon palette started seeing some action

Thoughts on Toys

What to do, what to do? This hobby is so much a part of me. I can't ditch it. But I can't feed it like I did as a younger man. I find myself more often than not thinking up a reason to not buy something. Mentally trying to disqualify a toy from being good enough to earn my hard earned $. Why is that? I used to buy with reckless abandon... well, always within certain financial constraints. But I never used to berate a toy before I even had it. Now I scour the net for pics and reviews, nitpicking everything.

I can think of a few reasons.

1. Overwhelming collection. I have a lot of stuff. My childhood room at my folks place does not contain much in the way of clothing or anything really, other than toys and toy paraphernalia. When considering to buy something, space is always gonna be a consideration...

actually I take that back. Space is never a consideration. I always buy thinking 'I'll find some place for it'. Well, I don't know how much that is going to hold true. A Flagg is stashed between cupboards and drawers, and I have been on ebay looking at Defiants...

2. Been there; got that. I have a problem with the rampant re-release of certain characters. In spite of this, I of course have about five no-ring style Snake-Eyes'. With the greatest of respect to the later, greater versions, my clear and unassailable favourite is still the first one I got in the original 25th Anniversary 5 Pack. And I have justified its superiority over the recent POC wave 3 version many a time before falling asleep. So when new versions of old characters get announced, I immediately try to determine whether it will usurp my current favourite or not. Case in point: POC Stalker. Dreadlocks=fail in my eyes, but the rest of his sculpt (being the same as POC Snake-Eyes) is win. And frustratingly the 25th anniversary Stalker head sculpt fits on the new one's body, so the dreadlocks can easily be dealt with. That leaves two more possible detractors. The crap hands that only grip between the thumb and forefinger; and the loose holster for the silenced pistol. Neither of which have been improved, if the new Cobra Trooper (who also uses those parts) is anything to go by. The hands can be remedied with a parts swap. The holster not so much. But there is I suppose a fine line between too tight and too loose. Yeah I said that. Too tight damages the gun (as it does on the 25th Anni Fireflys and Beachheads), too loose and the damn thing keeps falling out. So do I drop dollar on the toy, knowing full well that if it fails to beat my current fave Stalker, it goes into the box, never to see light of day again.

So what to do...