Throwing a curve ball

Way back in February 2017, we displayed Impel Trading Card #29 featuring Captain Grid-Iron. Today we have another Joe sporting fanatic. Batter up! Here is #68, Hard Ball.

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I wonder if all these sport references in G.I. Joe were an attempt hy Hasbro to get the kids playing with Joes into sports? In any case, Cobra could always beat Hard Ball since they have plenty of BATs 🙂 I won’t even try and explain that one. If you don’t get it, better find another hobby. Thanks for reading though. And seriously, please continue to read and support the blog.

As one of the first “gimmick” characters in the Real American Hero run, he was designed specifically to make a toy. Being a baseball player, if his codename isn’t enough of a clue for you, then certainly his place of birth, Cooperstown as the home to baseball’s Hall of Fame will settle that matter.

Doing some research on this character, I came across the YoJoe page. I have the figure somewhere in a box, but I didn’t remember him having those grey arms. The color scheme isn’t on point if you ask me. Maybe that’s also the reason there was only one version of this figure released… until the 2018 JoeCon, where Hard Ball was part of Smasher’s Marauders. I did remember his massive grenade launcher. It looked just that little bit too big. But hey, batter up!

The Marvel comic books show Hard Ball for the first time in issue #80. He uses his skills in pitching baseballs by chucking grenades with great accuracy as a fastball. That got him on the team. He then stayed on to even save the President from being kidnapped by Cobra at a baseball game, again by throwing a grenade at the Cobras. Call him a one-trick-pony. Whatever the case, he did a good enough job to earn his place on the Joe team.

In the Devil’s Due continuity, he is featured in issue #38. He joined Glenda and Rampart to investigate a Cobra outpost in Brazil. When they arrived at the training site, all Cobra agents inside had been killed. The then met the killers, who were working for the Red Shadows. Hardball and his team were then killed too.

Did Hardball ever get featured in one of the cartoons? I don’t think so or I can’t remember. Let me know if you do or know.

I’ve been seeing a lot lately about comicgate and all that. Living in Belgium, most of the drama got past me, but I believe it’s all about equal rights for men & women, racism and other socially important aspects of the global world we live in. I won’t start preaching here, but let me just say that G.I. Joe has been introducing people of all races and gender since 1982, and all of them are equal. I admit that I too wasn’t pleased with Aubrey Sitterson turning Salvo into a girl. Why not just come up with a new character? The Joeverse is so full and diverse that one more new character will not be frowned upon. Thinking about it some more, all I can say is: It’s just a comic book. Why all the fuss? A comic book should depict the spirit of the time in which it was published. And we – the audience, the readers – shouldn’t try and project our current values and opinions onto the old comics.

Here in Belgium, the Tintin comics have caused quite a stir because in one of the stories he goes to Africa and the Africans are depicted as stereotypical as you could get. If you would publish this story today, it’s offensive, but remember it was written somewhere halfway the previous century. That’s a long time ago. We shouldn’t debate whether or not it is correct in this day and age. It is a piece of art showing how the world was like in history. So, study it. Sure. But don’t project it’s story and settings into today’s world. The world has changed exponetially since the Renaissance and I guess that’s for the best. Let the creators create new comics for those who want to read them and to those who can’t agree with how these new comics are written: Just keep reading the stories you know by heart. If you do have a more open mind, try out some of the new stories. Who knows, you might end up liking it and in 20 years you can defend it over some new artist that wants to create a new itteration of it 🙂

Wow, that took some more words than I was planning to write. If you survived this, be sure to come back when we take a look at the next card (yes, there’s a hint there).

Until then! YoJoe and Happy Collecting!

 

I have a GIANT new addition to my collection

Hi all,

a quick update on my collection. I’ve got something new, as an early birthday present. It’s kind of  BIG deal. No LARGE introduction for this post. Just my HUGE excitement for adding this figure to my collection.

The Gentle Giant Snake Eyes figure!

How awesome is this? Okay, the plastic got a bit banged up during transport, but I’m really glad I’ve been able to find this one – and affordable at that – here in Europe. As soon as I get my new Joe room set up, this is getting a prominent place in it.

I would love to get a picture of the original 1982 Snake Eyes next to it, but that figure hasn’t made it into my collection yet. If you have one to spare, my birthday is coming up 🙂

Until next time!

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

The Right of Might, the Left of Rockets?

We have another Rocket Man for you today. Yes, that’s right, a man, suck it Mr. Sitterson. Impel Trading Card # 67 features Salvo.

In the Marvel Comics, he first appeared in issue #114. He is part of a large scale operation against Cobra forces in the Benzheen. To say that the guy is a bit buffed would be an understatement. I guess you’ll need a lot of muscle to carry around a 4-stage TOW rocket launcher.

As a Joe of the 90’s, he is however mostly remembered from the DIC cartoon series. He plays a significant part in at least 5 episodes. He gets brainwashed by Cobra, gets to attack Destro’s vulcano base and he helps to stop Cobra’s sun-cream and poison gas from Earth. Gotta love that nineties creativity. Though DIC may have tried to do it cheap, they always replenished Salvo’s rockets between shots 🙂

There have been 3 official figure releases of Salvo over the years, originally from 1990, later in 2005 and then the v3 in 2017 as part of the Club’s FSS 5.0. Most notably on the figures is his bald head (v2 gave him hair!) and the shirt with “The Right of Might” printed on it. I got the original figure as a kid. I know the 90’s Joes get some flack from the community, but you have to admit that they did come with a lot of accessories. Salvo came with a removable helmet, a briefcase, rocket launcher/backpack, 5 missiles, a mine launching type of gun and 5 mines. I’d really like to see toys being this complete nowadays in the stores.

Next time around you might want to put on some thermal underwear, not to get into the guy’s codename, but it sounds painful.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

New specs

A short post today, to show off my new Knockaround glasses.

I ordered them from the Knockaround website earlier this month after having seen them around the interwebs a lot, mostly on Instagram. They arrived quite fast, from the US of A. Naturally our Belgian Postal Services ripped me off and I ended up paying more in taxes and their ‘processing’ fee than I paid for the glasses. Each year, they increase the amount of that fee. First it was $10,then $14, last year it was up to $18 and now I had to pay $25 on top of the import duties. Those duties are actually fair and correct, but the fee they charge is complete bogus and they can never explain what this fee covers. I swear, it looks like Extensive Enterprises is controlling that company and their trying to fund professor Apple’s plan.

Enough nagging (I can hear you think it. How scary is that ? But you have to admit that I’m right!)

The glasses themselves are simply amazing. The orange tinted glass pieces are polarized, so they work like a charm in bright sunlight and whilst driving. The plastic box they are shipped in, looks the part. Showing off both the Joe and Knockaround logo. The glasses come with a rather nice looking pouch, depicting Duke on one side and big old CC on the other.

The green camouflage goes perfect with the orange and the red, white and blue stripes on the arms are a nice homage to the original G.I.Joe logo. Check it out for yourself and order your own pair. You won’t regret it!

 

This post is not sponsored by Knockaround. I bought the glasses myself as a collector of all things Joe related and cool person ?

Until next time.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Is the typewriter mightier than the missile launcher?

I guess the time of pen and sword are behind us, although I still use a fountain pen for my daily work notes. Still, we keep on using the pen and sword metaphor. This week, we have arrived at Impel Trading Card #66, the man who can type faster than his shadow, Fast Draw.

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I guess this guy is the Joe equivalent for Cobra’s Mr. Bang Bang (well technically, he’s an Iron Grenadier, so Destro’s private army, but he was employed by CC, so I’m counting him as a Cobra). The difference between these 2 rocket men, is that Fast Draw has hand controls for his missiles, where Metal Head (a.k.a. Number One – yes, that’s a Star Trek reference) is shouting like a complete idiot.

Enough about that, the figure (yes, just the one release again, although the club recently announced they are releasing an updated version in the FSS 8.0) was released in 1987. I honestly couldn’t tell you if I have the figure in my collection. I’m guessing I do, but since all of my Joes are still boxed up, there’s no way to be sure… I guess my entire collection is a bit like Schrodinger’s cat at the moment. I have something or I don’t, there’s really no certainty these days 🙂

The first appearance of Fast Draw in the comic books (Marvel run), is in #60 I believe, where he is part of the group of Law & Order, Lt. Falcon & Chuckles, who kidnap General Hawk whilst believing they are actually members of G.I. Joe. A bit of a filler issue, after that, the whole Borovia story starts to unfold, oh and – SPOILER ALERT – CC gets shot (issue #61, amazing cover art).

I don’t think Fast Draw gets any (explicit) action in the cartoons, he may be in the background somewhere, but I don’t recollect him at all.

A bit of a shorter post this time, but there just isn’t a lot I can say about this guy. If he were here, he probably would be able to talk some more about his clerk typing specialities, but I won’t go into that right now.

Next time, we’ll have another man (or is it woman nowadays?) with a lot of firepower on his/her back.

Until then, YoJoe and Happy Collecting!

Oh and Happy Mother’s Day to all our fantastic mothers who bought us our first Joes to play with!

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