impel trading cards – Page 3

Do you want to build a snowman?

Spring may be in the air, but this week we focus on Cobra’s version of the Winter Soldier. The Impel Trading Card #35 is the Snow Serpent.

The Snow Vipers appear to be a branch of the Cobra Eels. I guess snow is frozen water, so you could argue this is a logical next step for some of the Eels that like to have their asses frozen off.

I personally don’t like the cold, maybe that’s why I don’t have a fondness or any recollection of seeing the Snow Serpents in action. I’m guessing they were introduced in the ARAH comics issue #2 since this takes place in the Arctic. They probably appear in the Special Missions #2, Word of Honor as well when the Joes disable the poison gas left in a glacier stranded WWII bomber in Greenland. But that’s just me guessing, I really need to do more research before writing these posts 🙂

The Action Figure has had 10 iterations released. The one on the Impel Trading Card is sporting the v1 style of 1985 (later reprised in the v7-10). I must say that this is a great look for a cold weather operative. Fur details, ski mask, snow shoes. Grey, white and blue colour scheme. It’s working for me. The 2nd version of the figure, however, was released in the colourful early 90’s and had a lot of yellow. Yellow snow jokes aside, the Joes also had a Tiger Force Blizzard figure that was even brighter yellow. The later figures went back to a more normal colouring and used lots of white, grey and blue again.

As with the comics, I don’t recall seeing the Snow Serpents in the cartoons anywhere. They are probably featured in some episodes, so if you know, let me know and then at least I’ll be halfway through the battle 🙂

Next time we stay close to home with a character we all love to hate with European roots. Stay tuned!

Happy collecting and YoJoe!

We are back with a BANG, BANG!

This week we have Captain Grid-Iron’s former classmate featuring the blog post. What better way to introduce this fan favourite (please ignore the sarcasm), than the following video (bad quality, I know, but hey, so is the character).

Ladies and Gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Impel Trading Card #34, Metal-Head.

What’s there to say about this character? I’m not a huge fan of him. Mainly because when I think of Metal-Head, the only memory that springs to mind, is that awful DIC cartoon. Although I have to say that he does remind me of someone else. Take a look at the guy and tell me you don’t see the resemblance with Commander William T. Riker of the Federation Starship Enterprise.

Image result for william t riker

I mean, look at them! Even the uniform is practically a copy. Granted, Commander Riker is less of a nutcase. But still, I think Larry had been watching a little too much of TNG when he cooked up Metal-Head.

There have been 4 versions of the figure released, starting with the original one in 1990. The last one was released as part of the 2015 International G.I.Joe Convention, organised in Springfield, IL. The exclusive Tiger Force versus Destro´s Iron Grenadiers box set from the Official G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club also collected Sgt. Stalker, Dial-Tone, Big Brawler, Wreckage, Recondo, Edwin “Lifeline” Steen, General Mayhem, Undertow Officer, three Iron Anvils and three Undertow. Personally, I like Destro having his own little army. After all, he does have the need for some personal security and with the customers he supplies, I know I would feel safer having a personal army to defend myself in case they are not happy with a product or in case they want to try and steal some new prototype.

In the ARAH comic books, Metal-Head first appeared working for Cobra but spying for Destro. I don´t recall him being in a lot of stories, so not much more to tell. I´ll have to reread them again.

I won´t go into the cartoons here since I´d like to remove the memory of Metal-Head in the cartoons.

Next time, it´s time for some chill (sadly G.I.Joe is no longer on Netflix – at least not over here).

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?

I guess I could start this post off with a bad joke like “How many Tele-Vipers does Cobra Commander need to make his troops retreat? “. Nowadays he’d use 140 characters, but I covered that in last week’s post ?

This time around, we will discuss the Impel Trading Card #33, the Cobra Tele-Viper (or Televiper?), Cobra´s force of Radio Communication Officers.

The Joe team have 2 Communication Specialists, Breaker and Dial-Tone. Cobra has like hundreds of Televipers to transmit messages on all frequencies. Of course, Cobra Commander has been known for hijacking the various TV channels all over the world and divulge on his current plan or ask for ransom demands. I guess he would need an army of technicians and hackers to get this done.

For what the toys are concerned, 9 iterations of the Televiper have been released. Of these 9, 2 were Python Patrol editions. The original 1985 version is still the coolest if you ask me. Just look at that Cobra belt buckle and tell me you´re not impressed. I dare you! I´m not much of an army builder, I´m more of a gotta catch them all collector, but I must admit that I don´t have a lot of Televipers in my collection.

I´m sure the Tele-Vipers are present in the cartoons, I just can´t remember them being there. They are not the most memorable foes, to be honest. They are what they are, technicians working behind the scenes and making sure that every single one of Cobra Commander´s rants gets onto the air for everyone to enjoy. I do remember seeing them in one of my favourite episodes. It´s an episode I have on VHS (in Dutch) and I believe the English title is In the Presence of my Enemy. Slip-Stream (my all time favourite pilot, who the F is Ace anyway?) crashes onto an abandoned Cobra research facility with a female Strato-Viper and they encounter several traps and they have to work together in order for them to escape. Anyway, in the beginning of the episode, the Tele-Vipers send out a message to one of Cobra´s satellites and Slip-Stream intercepts it.

All in all, not the most memorable Cobra out there, but they are important none the less. Without them, nobody would know about Cobra Commander´s mad schemes and plans to conquer the world. Not until Twitter was available that is 🙂

Next time, we go out with a BANG when we discuss a hockey analyst?! Who comes up with these? Oh, right, Larry Hama (who is a GOD!). Have you seen the Kickstarter campaign for the Larry Hama Action Figure? Too late to enter now, but I´ll post about it when I have the figure in hand 🙂 (Admit it, you´re jealous!)

Until next time. Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

All rise and bow for your leader!

I know you can’t rise and bow at the same time, but you really should to pay respects to the greatest charismatic leader of all time. True story. Ladies and gentlemen, the Impel Trading Card #32 features the astute leader Donald Trump… Seriously, we don’t know Cobra Commander’s real name, so it could be true.

Continuing on the Trump resemblance, he too had a brother that died through alcohol addiction (Fred – Crimson Guardsmen series link!). He too is a bit strange and not connected to the real world. He too wants power and respect but is genuinely incapable as a leader. I could go on, but I don’t want to give him any more credit than he deserves. He isn’t half the bad guy genius CC is 🙂

Cobra Commander has been in the comics since Issue #1 way back in 1982 where he kidnapped Dr. Adele Burkhart. Since then, every single one of his schemes has been thwarted by the Joes – or his own underachieving minions. Later on in the Marvel run, we learn small tit-bits about the Commander’s past, but we never get the full story. Who is the man behind the mask? What was his life like before Dan was killed in the car crash that connected CC with Snake Eyes?

There is no doubt that he is a bad guy. He’s psychopathic, murderous, plain evil. But still, on some level, I can sympathize with him. He was living the American Dream but lost everything without being able to control the events that lead up to his breakdown. He blamed the government, the Big Money, the Corporations. Not to go all psychologist on you, but for some people, blaming others is easier than admitting to their own flaws and failures(or those of their loved ones). And when sh*t things happen you can’t control, who’s there to blame? Maybe history is repeating itself. Maybe Cobra is being (re-)founded as you are reading this.

In any case, let me get back on track here with the Cobra Commander figures that have been released over the years. Can you believe that 54 iterations of the man exist? My all-time favorite still is the first version in Cobra blue and with the battle helmet. He is still awol from my collection, though I have several later versions with the battle helmet.

My very first one was the 1984 v2 mail-in version. We had the Belgian fan club over here and they also organized the mail-ins. I’ll have to dig through some of my old papers that are still at my parents’ house, but I’m pretty sure I still have my membership card. I didn’t really like the hooded version. He seemed to skinny to be a good leader (now with CC that’s debatable of course). Next, I have the v4, with the reddish semi see-through helmet visor. Great looking figure with bright colors worthy of the glorious leader CC is. I liked that you could almost see who was behind the mask. I remember having the 12″ version of the Commander as well. He came with a removable hood and underneath was a bad-ass looking head sculpt, but also with half of his face still hidden behind bandana tied over his mouth and nose… I guess we will never see the real face of the Commander. Unless this is really it…

Next, I have the v4, with the reddish semi see-through helmet visor. Great looking figure with bright colors worthy of the glorious leader CC is. I liked that you could almost see who was behind the mask. I remember having the 12″ version of the Commander as well. He came with a removable hood and underneath was a bad-ass looking head sculpt, but also with half of his face still hidden behind bandana tied over his mouth and nose… I guess we will never see the real face of the Commander.

In the Sunbow cartoons, you can clearly see that CC is human, but there is one episode in which he is eating without the mask and Destro walks in on him and is repulsed by what he sees. There is no explanation given, but maybe they blended Snake Eyes’ deformities with CC or was this already setting us up for Cobra-La? Who knows.

Let me get this out of my system right now. As a movie, I like G.I.Joe the movie. As to the story and the whole Cobra-La thing, no thank you. I mean, the stories Larry Hama wrote as background for Cobra Commander and the Joes, are good. No not good, great, better than great, they are Literature people. That’s right, with capital L. Why would you want to change that and give us something like Cobra-La instead? Same goes for the live-action movies of late. They are not bad action films (I’ll let you decide if that means they’re good), but they are NOT G.I.Joe. I don’t think it would have been that hard to translate the whole Hamaverse into a more current setting. Iraq or Afghanistan instead of Vietnam, a megalomaniac entrepreneur instead of a used car salesman (oh, there’s the D again). And lasers, definitely lasers 🙂

Now back to G.I.Joe (tune).

The DIC cartoons take place after the story of the movie and we get CC back as (sort of) a human after the Baroness frees him from the life of being Serpentor’s pet. He then creates the Python Patrol (how many snake references can there still be made?) and takes Cobra back from Serpentor who gets turned into an iguana (is this G.I. Joe or Dora the Explorer?). Anyway, Cobra later joins forces with the Joes in battling against Headman and play a football match somehow… Who wrote these things anyway? Probably someone from Headman’s followers.

In the Renegades series, CC is an evil businessman (sounds familiar?) and Cobra is somewhat legit. Naturally, the man behind the unmasked man is a masked and disfigured madman, so Cobra Industries is just the bad guys we love to see. As with the movies, I don’t see this series as canon within the Hamaverse, but as far as stories go, I like it a lot.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m glad I finally found the time to finish this, I have had this as a draft for weeks. Over a thousand words, sorry if I dragged it on too long, but it’s CC, he likes being talked about.

Next time, we’ll take a look at the … hold on, I’m getting a call. I’ll get back to you.

Happy collecting and YoJoe!

Time for some Jambalaya.

If you read the previous post, you’ll have figured out that this week’s Impel Trading Card is Etienne LaFitte, G.I. Joe’s resident Cajun U.S. Marine better known as Gung-Ho.

In total there have been 21 figures of Gung-Ho released. Only five of these depict him with his bare chest and U.S. Marine tattoo (in various sizes and colours). There is one shirt wearing Gung-Ho figure that shows the tattoo is a rather deep man-cleavage shirt. Off course, most people will remember him as the bare-chested Marine, but my favourite figure is the 1987 version in full Dress Suit. More on him in about 31 Impel Trading Cards (the exact double of this card´s #… coincidence, I think not!).

In the comics, Gung-Ho´s first appearance coincides with the introduction of Cobra´s new specialist, everybody´s favourite arms dealer Destro. The Joes are sent to the Alaskan tundra to investigate the presence of Cobra forces. And naturally, in this cold and harsh environment, Gung-Ho is there shirtless. During the whole story, Gung-Ho´s model sister is mentioned when Snow Job tells Rock ´n Roll that he can set up a date for him with her. Neglecting to tell Rock ´n Roll that Gung-Ho´s sister is a child model.

In the original cartoons, Gung-Ho is also depicted in his 1983 look, blueish camo trousers and the open blue vest. He is seen in the intro of the cartoon alongside Duke when they start charging after Stalker landed next to them. In the double episode Captives of Cobra, Cobra tries to get to the Joes by kidnapping their families and holding them hostage. The Baroness is sent into the Bayou to capture Gung-Ho´s family, but they can handle themselves rather well and overpower the Cobra troops.

Next time we will take it to the top of the pyramid before we´ll retreat gracefully.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!