Thunder Machine is compact!

It fits perfectly inside the Chap Mei Chinook. You need only pull out the antenna. Or just bend it to fit if you like playing rough! In the Marvel Comics series, Zartan had a transport helo which could comfortably fit the Thunder Machine, the Dreadnoks and their bikes.  I wouldn't try to cram the whole gang into my chopper, but it's a start! Incidentally Zartan's copter could also disguise itself as a bus holographically. Wow. I give you the 1980's.

The Flagg must belong to COBRAAAA!

I never can decide what kind of loadout the Flagg should carry. Do you ignore it's scale problems? If so do, do you cram it impossibly or try to maintain some space on deck to land and take off craft? If you like the Flagg to be realistically scaled, ie a micro carrier, what is the most useful purpose to for it to have? I took some (bad) photos of possible Flagg set ups. But I have a startling conclusion. Well, not so startling, if you bother to read the article's title!

Option 1- Amphibious Mission.

The deck has an Osprey, two Seahawks and a Skystorm. I imagine this would make the make the most sense for a Marine-style assault force. I would laden the interior with a W.H.A.L.E and a pair of Warthogs. Everything fits, everything can be expanded for launch, contracted for storage and rough weather. Minimum suspension of disbelief.

Option 2- Air Superiority

With only three Navy aircraft on the deck, she's crowded. One of the three must always be on the launch strip, and in preparation for a landing plane, another (the F-18's, in the picture) must be moved into its place. But it works. Assuming the pilot doesn't overshoot, the arrestor cable will snag the tail of a landing plane before it hits the the rest of the planes. Hard to get your head around. But so much fun.

Option 3- 1986

This setup has one rationale - it's G.I. Joe's 1986 air force. I would perch another Tomahawk on there somewhere, but I do wish the rotor blades would fold like the real thing. The chopper can't be positioned flush against the tower. It's a pain. But the Conquest is a very compact aircraft and works well on the deck of the Flagg. A lot better than the Skystriker, for whom the Flagg was intented. For instance, the wings of a landing Striker just avoid clipping the tower. The Conquest lands more comfortably than anything with a wingspan. I just don't really love the Conquest... never have.

Option 4- Mixed Bag

Here we have a compromise - an Osprey for ferrying personnel, a Conquest and Skystriker for air superiority and my favourite, a Skystorm for close air support. I choose the Skystorm over the Dragonfly because it's faster, able to keep up with the Osprey easily and... well the Dragonfly is green and wouldn't look as good! The Osprey is by far the bulkiest craft, but as you can see, it stores nicely like a carrier-based craft should, with folding wings and blades.

Option 5- Purist Air Superiority

Joe jets only. The pic isn't well enough lit, but the Phantom is on the launch strip. With this line up, the Flagg can carry out air support, bombing missions, surveillance and air superiority. And it's all Joe. Feel the love. And you can land a Tomahawk could land forward of the Skystriker, or aft of the Conquest, but how you would be able to shuffle the craft in order to launch and land the jets? The Tomahawk would have to take off, and then the jets would be jostled for position.

Option 6- COBRAAA!

Cobra's craft are well suited to operating in tight spaces. Everything on the deck is VTOL - the Firebat, Rattler, Hurricane, Mamba all take-off and land vertically. I included a black Chinook to demonstrate its space effectiveness as it crams in there nicely. There is an abundance of remaining space, you could easily throw a handful of Fangs or Fang II's onto the deck. Or a swarm of Firebats. And the cool thing about the Firebats is how you can fit two on the deck elevator. And not many aircraft can succeed in that. I wouldn't land a Night Raven on the deck- it would be difficult to move into position around all the smaller craft. And don't get me started on how nicely BUGGs, Hammerheads and Sea Ray's fit into the bowels of the ship. Morays look pretty terrific too.

So in conclusion: Joe needs to appropriate some Cobra craft. Or Cobra should capture the Flagg.

COBRAAAAAA!

Dreadnok Thunder Machine

The first time I ever heard of the Darwin Awards was when family friends were discussing a guy who apparently wiped himself out by bolting a jet engine to the bed of his pickup truck and used it to propel the vehicle. It and driver got smudged against a mountanside I believe. In the same breath, I now turn to the Dreadnok Thunder Machine.

The Dreadnoks were a group of less-than-conventional Cobra affiliates. They were essentially a biker gang, led by Zartan. Their function is a little less clear. On the odd occasion the were used as intelligence operatives, often in support of Zartan or Zarana - which is odd considering how little intelligence the Dreadnoks seemed to possess. But their major occupation seemed to be mayhem and destruction with no further strategic objective. And I'm sure it was always a device the writers and artists of the comic and cartoon had a great deal of fun with. Comic writer Larry Hama, who cooked up the 'Noks regards them as one of his favourite ideas. Personally I was never a fan, particularly since they were in practically every episode of the cartoon. I often felt that the fight was more one of Joe versus Dreadnoks rather than Joe versus Cobra.

Note the presence of the turbine behind the driver position. That's why Thrasher didn't bother installing a radio. I wouldn't recommend wearing a scarf...

Toy-wise, the Dreadnoks were well represented with a varied membership, added to each year from 1985 until 1989. They had a motorpool of Dreadnok-specific vehicles and a few 'appropriated' ones; but strangely enough, no bikes! Well, no two-wheelers at least. They appropriated Cobra Ferret quads, and they had that weird tricycle thing, but the conventional bikes they were depicted on were never produced.

The one vehicle that everyone knows and loves is Thrasher's Thunder Machine. I could be wrong, but I believe in both cartoon and comic, Thrasher blags his way into the established Dreadnok ranks by showing off this beast. And it is.

It's a total cobbling together of parts other reviewers have done a far better job of identifying so I'll just break it down as a Trans-Am front, an armoured roll cage driver/passenger position and the back end of a pickup truck with a jet engine mounted in the bed. Apparently all propulsion comes from the jet, leaving room enough up front for not one but two ferocious 20mm chain guns. This kind of haphazard arrangement requires some suspension of disbelief. Assuming it all works as it should, the Thunder Machine should be able to go frighteningly fast in a straight line. Do anything else, and you don't need to be Jeremy Clarkson to know that you'd be in trouble. The Thunder Machine was depicted as being fraught with control issues, often rolling itself   in battle. But if it caught anything in its sights, tickets. Those weapons are tantamount to having two Rattler's opening up with their cannons. Light vehicles, armoured vehicles, fortifications - if the Thunder Machine got the drop on any of the above they'd be history.

I'm not sure how a subtle guy like Zartan feels about these behemoths. Neither do I. Spinning the wheel feeds the bullet belt through  under the barrels. Trouble is they feed the same way, and there is no getting around the fact that it's one continuous loop of bullet belt. So the one gun is getting the other's leftovers, until the belt gets taut and you reverse. And Hasbro considered this an 'action feature'?

Aside from less than common-sense design, the toy is quite gorgeous. The level of sculpted detail that this era of Joe possessed is staggering, from that bucket seats, to the grip-textured running boards, to the dashboard dials to the turbine detail - I could easily continue.

There is also a very nice sense of less than perfect bodywork as the vehicle is laced with dings, scratches, crumpled panels and general wear. It's a mean machine, not built to look pretty. I generally like to clean my vehicles up a bit. Not in the case of the Thunder Machine as I find grit, discolouration and stains improve it! It has a set of decals which add detail like headlights, tailights, lamps and the police-car lights on the roof. Sadly my sample is missing the latter decals but I'm not too upset. I could use paint or Cobrastickers.com to help me out if it cuts me up too much. And the tyres are rubber. Amen. This means they will realistically grip rough and smooth surfaces and don't go clackity-clack, or get damaged by doing the very thing they were put on this earth to do. I always cringe a bit when I roll plastic tyres over bricks...

My expanding Mad Max-esque motorpool.

The front grille is famously fragile as it comes as a flat piece which you have to bend to fit into place while putting the toy together. It is therefore impossible to assemble a Thunder Machine without stressing the plastic, but a little paint could no doubt make those stresses disappear. The grille is in no danger of breaking (I hope) provided it's simply held in place and not subject to continuous bending. My Thunder Machine appears to be a bit of an anomaly as its chassis is black and not blue. I have not found any reference to this on the net so far.

Note the tow bar. I appreciate the fun kids can have hooking this up to, say, an Assault Systems Pod and hauling it around. But that ASP had better be clad in asbestos, is all I'm saying

So what do I think of the Thunder Machine? Well that question must first address what I think of the Dreadnoks. Personally, I could do without them. To me, they served to diffuse G.I. Joes mission a bit. Instead of hunting a global, para-military terrorist group, they were getting mixed up with domestic biker punks. The Dreadnoks should have been dealt a swift double-tap to the head, but they became fan favourites thanks to their portrayal in the Joe media and have become icons of the Joe-verse. I like this vehicle because it is so very unique but held off getting it for the longest time as it just doesn't fit. I can't very well see conventional Cobra operatives operating it, so it's inclusion in my Cobra motorpool must acknowledge the presence of the Dreadnoks. I only own Monkeywrench and now Thrasher and have no desire at getting any more. So what does my Thunder Machine do? And the answer is: I have no idea. Cobra's attempt at the world land speed record? All I can say is a spoiler wouldn't be amiss as this thing I'm sure would have a tendency to take off.

Being a Dreadnok is all about rocking your midriff. 

Thrasher is starting to grow on me. A solid sculpt (albeit a bit top heavy with a big head, big body and leeeetle legs) he would have seen use in my more imaginative, possibly sci-fi adventures. Must be the lumo green streaks. I like the raised spikes on his shins, and the paint applications sprung to include little dabs of silver to denote spikes on his right wrist. His left hand is sculpted as wearing a sports mitt of some kind. His weapon of choice? A spiked lacrosse stick. Nice. He is also armed with a killer smirk.

A textbook case of 'Quit while you're ahead'

The only Joe vehicle to boast a payload of vibrators.

Yes. The Rolling Thunder. Death on wheels for enemy ground forces and fixed defences. Sometimes you just have to count each individual piece of armament it possesses and wet yourself a bit. Fourteen gunbarrels of varying calibre, fifteen missiles of varying size and function, and two of the largest missiles produced in the Joe line with a further compliment of six bombs stored inside each missile. But that's nothing you didn't either already know or could figure out without much problem from ogling the product catalogue. I know I did. For hours.

But this is not intended to be a beaming review. Don't get me wrong, in spite of the shortcomings I love this vehicle. It is the most formidable G.I. Joe assault vehicle bar none. It has it all. And a glass canopy... but more on that later.

No, actually let me deal with it now. How do I imagine an armored vehicle with a big glass canopy up front? I don't, I ignore it. I might even go as far as painting over it. But ignoring isn't too hard for now. I can understand the choice from the designer's point of view - a toy's playability is very dearly linked to how many of your action figures you can have manning it's various stations. Putting a driver in the cockpit is no fun if you can't see that you put a driver in the cockpit. For all intents and purposes, he may as well not even be there. And without a transparency all the gorgeous molded details in the three-man cockpit would be lost. It really is a very well detailed sculpt, and the level of detail is impressive on the rest of the vehicle too. Hasbro did not disappoint, and the sculpt intricacy exhibited here is something I fear current vehicles lack. Ho hum.

Repeater is totally snug and warm in there. Until it starts to rain, of course.

Did I also mention there is a gaping hole with no hatch to cover it? Another detail best left ignored.

Why then is this a case of 'quit while you're ahead'? Well for example, I have decided that this vehicle's standard configuration while I use it will exclude the four 'gun-chairs'. Two reasons, one aesthetic and another practical. I like the vehicle lines to be uninterrupted, and it gives the RT a nice low profile (well, relatively low, considering how high a behemoth with all this 'stuff' could otherwise ride). The lighter grey colour also offends my eyes ever so slightly. Practically though, those exposed seats are death traps. And the rear two interrupt the rotation of the main gun. So, off they come and into the bin of unused vehicle bits, along with the 'Admiral's Launch' from the Flagg. Don't get me started.

I also choose to remove the double turret and dish that sit atop the cockpit. If the main gun fires zero forward, it runs the risk of blasting that thing clean off. Not great.

The turntable of six red missiles has me stumped. It attaches to the vehicle's deck, where it can't get a clear shot for love or money. If it's designed to be deployed like a death trap for pursuers, the RT has no crane assembly to hoist it and drop it off.

Ridin' the Gun. Beachhead is of course toast if they fire that missile.  So is Hit & Run on the other side. And  everyone dies if the turntable starts firing.

The ATV is such an afterthought it also has to go. I also struggle to close the RT up snugly when it is on board. No loss there really. Its design leaves much to be desired as the occupant essentially fills the vehicle's interior so snugly, I doubt there would be room for an axle, or any mechanicals for that matter. But it's inclusion was no doubt to enhance the vehicle's playability, and such concepts are lost on the discriminating adult collector. Actually scratch that, it's an almost plausible design... I just don't like it much as the driver sits so low it looks a bit odd.

Even a stud like Falcon can't pull off this piece of shit.

Finally, I opt to remove the large red missiles. Once again, their inclusion smell like afterthought to me. Putting a missile square on the barrel of a cannon might look cool (yeah right), but doesn't fly with me. Especially when you have two guys 'riding the gun'. Okay, that's a stylistic reason, but my real evidence for calling it an afterthought?

The missile doesn't sit on the barrel doesn't sit on its post flush because its tail fin touches the cannon mount. So this big red phallus of death angles towards the barrel of the gun it gets fired from. Too much.

It's brothers don't have similar problems, but the jury is still out on them. I was never a fan of the Joe vehicles that just had missiles slapped onto any vacant surface. I much prefer a well-placed, intentional launcher for my ordinance.

The yellow missiles are also problematic. They barely clear the wheels, and firing a missile above your wheels might not have been the best idea. I assume they're made of rubber, right? A much better choice would be to have them on a rack above the deck instead of the gun chairs. But alas, I was born too late and in the wrong place to be on Hasbro's design team in the late 80's.

I'm also on the fence about the chin gun. If this were an attack chopper, I would laud it. It's a formidable weapon and one that covers what would be the vehicle's weapon blind spot (12 o'clock close). But it does stand to snag any kind of bushes that would otherwise offer no resistance to this monster.

That's more like it.

It rides nice and high. Well it would. Let me explain: the mold has hollows for the giant missiles. Those hollows leave two big missile impressions on the vehicle's underside that reduce the overall clearance. But I'll ignore that in my off-road battles along the carpet.

I got my RT for what I would deem a bargain price of $56, which I thought a steal. It had some patent defects which were included in the item description. A few more plague my RT, but I'm not upset. Buying a 23 year-old toy and having it posted 15 000 kilometres (a total guess) is not without pitfalls. Lets say she's a bit of a fixer-upper. The rear left axle is snapped, I hope super-glue is up to the challenge. The tabs that the big missiles attach to are both broken. The auction said that only one was broken, and that the fault was with the missile and not the mount. I figured I would just buy a replacement missile, but no, the mount is fooked, the missiles are fine. Kids! Treat evilbay merchants with much suspicion. Needless to say, no positive feedback for this guy. He packed it like an arsehole, jamming loose pieces into the hold of the vehicle. You think for the amount of shipping he charged, he could have slapped some Fragile stickers on her. Whether it would have saved the axle, we may never know. When I opened up the missile bay, there were a few mystery broken plastic tabs and I have yet to determine where they are from. Decals are nicely applied though, and that is a true blessing. I lose love for a vehicle in good condition but with stray, crooked decals. 

Fail.

So how do I envision the RT? Well when Joe needs to put the serious hurt on a target, this is the vehicle to do it. Enemy fortifications or armoured columns can be destroyed completely by the big ass missiles, allowing the RT to roll in and secure the remains. It is a one-vehicle armoured assault. And without too much imagination one might swap out the missiles for a troop compliment (a simple custom job using the interior of the Joe APC is one idea I saw on the 'net).

Not to end on a downer, but I need to get this article wrapped and something needs to be said about him. Armadillo is possibly the most boring G.I. Joe figure ever produced. In a desperate attempt to make him more exciting (!), count how many exclamation marks they manage to cram into his filecard. What fun!

Epic Fail.

But seriously, who does operate this ride? If you can stomach Armadillo, who copilots? Who sits in the third station? Who rides the gun -assuming you want to man it? A vehicle purpose built like this I think would need specialised training and with most of the Joes being infantry types, you need a decent size contingent of vehicle operators to get the Thunder rolling. You could steal other drivers, Major Storm, Wildcard... but I think a better solution may be to stock it with Battle Force 2000 guys. Since I have no intention on getting any of their awful vehicles, and they are all vehicle drivers, I think I may have just found a use for Blocker, Blaster, Knockdown and Dodger. Trouble is, I never bothered to get any of them, and I don't know if this is reason enough...

1988

I recently bid for (and won) a loose Rolling Thunder from 1988. You will no doubt be seeing an in-depth review soon after it arrives. It occurs to me that the year 1988 is significant as it was my jump-on point for collecting. So many of my initial G.I. Joe figures were from '88, and among them some of the enduring favourites such as Hit & Run, Shockwave and Hydro-Viper. The vehicles of this year also ingrained themselves as all-time favourites for a host of reasons. The Warthog entered my life shortly after my 8th birthday and it became my premier Joe armour. It saw so much use as a personnel carrier. I always loved the idea of a vehicle with a cavernous interior space where grizzled, war-weary Joes sat in cramped quarters, preparing themselves for a brutal land assault. It also seemed to be a vehicle that could easily fit in with a more realistic (therefore vintage) G.I. Joe motorpool, something that I appreciate as an adult collector with a love for the old-skool, olive drab aesthetic. Shortly after the Warthog, the BUGG arrived as a Christmas gift from ma and pa. Outlandish but definitively Cobra, this vehicle was great fun and is a treasure trove of memories for me.

Flash forward many years and I am cruising a flea market at Sunrise Beach, False Bay and I find a Skystorm attack helicopter mint in box! That alone adds a stamp of coolness to a vehicle and despite being maligned by a few (Mark Bellomo for example) I love this chopper. I have a great deal of fun and use for a small, sleek attack chopper that can turn on the juice with a jet engine. Such fun flying that craft about. Also quite late in the game, Christmas 2009 to be exact, I got a pair of Desert Fox's. I think as a standard G.I. Joe jeep, this puppy blows away the Vamp and Awe Striker. I don't even mind the flesh tone colouring, though I am eternally grateful that my buddy Paul airbrushed and excellent and very detailed matt green coat on one of mine.

This time last year I got my hands on a Phantom X-19 and what a beaut that is. The last of the good vintage jets, large, long and with an intricate working landing gear mechanism (well, mine kind of needs a bit of help, but it's an impressive design nevertheless). I think it's my fave Joe jet, as it turns out.

If the Rolling Thunder proves to be a winner (and I will be critical) then 1988 could well be my favourite G.I. Joe year. So hurry up and arrive! Getting big boxes from the post office is like, a reason to live.

PART 2

So Hasbro learned the hard lesson that nothing they did was going to surpass their original run of ARAH product. So they moved into a bigger scale. Not quite Marvel Legends stature, but certainly more of a Superhero figure scale than Real American Hero. They were big and had an anime style to them. When I say that, I mean the figures didn't emulate realistic physiques and musculature like the ARAH Joes. They were stylised with angular features and tapered waistlines. This translated well in the accompanying cartoon and allowed the cartoon to ride the western/anime popularity wave established by shows like Dragonball Z and Pokemon.

The figures weren't bad. They came with interesting, unique accessories, [most of them] had unique molds and gimmicks. They were just big. Too big to be accommodated by what I deem to be the selling point of ARAH - the vehicles. If you haven't gathered by now, I am a huge fan of the vehicles. If you were to ask me what my favourite G.I. Joe toy is, I wouldn't put a figure on my top ten. Probably not even on my top twenty. And I'm not alone, this formed the subject of an internet poll that I stumbled onto. They eventually had to announced an additional, separate poll for the figures, as the vehicles were getting all the votes.

So what do you do when your scaling doesn't allow for a range of vehicles? Well I don't really know what you should do... But Sigma 6 remedied this by releasing a subscale. A set of vehicles scaled to a 2 inch line of figures.

I bemoan a scaling split. I just can't get my head around it. Do you play out your adventure with the big figures and when you call in some Dragonhawk air support, you switch down a scale? Unsatisfactory, especially for someone who knows better, someone who remembers an articulated soldier toy that could climb into a helicopter or tank or headquarters and look like he belonged.

And that my friends is why Sigma 6 had to die.

A Real American Hero... New Sculpt... Sigma 6... Modern Era... PART 1

What do you consider to be real G.I. Joe? I omitted the 12 inch figures from the title. They are what started it all, and for all I know may be 'realest' Joes ever produced. But I've never owned one; their history is beyond my ken; and therefore beyond the scope of my blog.

I'm trying to sift through it all in my head.  My room is swimming in ARAH and modern era Joes. I try and make the nu-skool guys work with the old-skool vehicles and it is unfulfilling. I can't deny that the modern era Joes have become the epitome of the Joe line, taking a figure design that remained largely unchanged for 25 years and improving on it. It's not without a few major and minor gripes though.

The major gripe I have is sadly not something that will be improved as it is totally dependent on the financial climate. New parts and sculpts are emerging all the time, but sadly they are intended for a handful of popular characters. While we are getting our fan-requested figures, nichey figures made, sadly they often get total franken-Joe treatment. My favourite example of parts reuse must be Hit & Run from the Assault on Cobra Island 7 Pack. Nothing new on that figure. Not even the head.

When we consider that vintage ARAH Joes were each uniquely sculpted (notwithstanding subsequent re-releases) it's clear that Hasbro had a great deal more $ to splash around.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is this - Joes who became fan favourites by virtue of having a sweet original sculpt and not because of their media exposure are relegated to the franken-Joe treatment. Characters who pop up in every rendition of Joe (Cobra Commander, Duke, Snake-Eyes) get all the new parts. While this makes economic sense, sadly those nichy characters who we loved because the were sweet figures now aren't even that. I'm referring to guys like Shockwave, Hit & Run, Tunnel Rat. My favourite vintage sculpt, Falcon has become a Frankenjoe so hideous I don't want to hit yojoe.com to take a quick reference squizz at the 25th Anniversary fig. What a shame. Even having Don Johnson do your voice can't save a 2nd tier, Flint look-alike.

It is with enormous pleasure that I announce three upcoming exceptions. The 30th anniversary figures of Airtight, Lifeline and Sci-Fi look incredible. New parts allowing design accuracy instead of approximation, even when the characters themselves are pretty obscure and largely left alone by current Joe media.

I just looked at Falcon. Looks like a Joe from the post-ARAH, new-sculpt era. Bad.

Getting back to the topic at hand. The road to the 25th Anniversary Joes was not always a clear one. When ARAH disappeared and reappeared and then disappeared, all Hasbro was doing was re-releasing old toys. Enter the New Sculpt. With a new comic title from Devil's Due Publishing, new Joe figures started hitting shelves. At first they were without elastic 'O' rings - the rubber band that holds a vintage Joe together and allows the figure to move at the waist along multiple planes instead of simply side to side. These figures also had the dreaded 'T' crotches that only allowed the legs to rotate forward along the same plane. The figures were also made of a softer, more durable plastic. This saved the new figs from the typical breakages that plagued ARAH like broken thumbs, crotches and elbow cracks. The 'T' crotch joint was a step backwards though, and made the new sculpt Joes slide into Star Wars figurine territory. Bad move. Mercifully they then moved into a hybrid design, reincorporating the 'O' ring, but retaining the soft plastic. After the initial excitement of new toys had died down, it became apparent these figures were horrible. Bad proportions, boring and sloppy paint applications, and, for a few, dreaded action features.

Hasbro had tried to better their original products and failed. I'm sure it showed in their sales. I quickly switched from buying New Sculpt toys back to buying the vintage figures on Ebay. Interestingly enough, towards the end of the New Sculpt line, Hasbro acknowledged this failing of their product and began re-releasing vintage figures cast in the flexible plastic and really going in for the kill with hit sets like the Viper six-packs, and comic packs with more comic accurate, new head sculpts.

But their attempt at putting out a new product was a failure. So how do you re-do Joe without being judged by the insurmountable standard of everything you have done before? Well, you switch scales!

And Sigma Six was born.