European Joe's

Lookin’ back ain’t all that I look forward to

As we start a new year, it’s always good to step back a moment and take a look back. In 2024, there was an increase of 33% in visitors to the blog and an even higher page view increase of 39% compared to 2023. This means that last year has been the best so far for the site! I want to thank you all for taking the time to read my brain farts. I’ve said it before and will say it (over and over) again, the G.I. Joe community is one of the- if not the best – fan and collector’s community in the world. (You can read those last words in Jeremy Clarkson’s voice.)

All joking aside, I really am very grateful for all the comments and messages I receive from all of you. A wise man once said, time is a currency you can never get back. Thank you for spending some of your precious time on my blog. I’m not sponsored and don’t have any ad revenue generated through the site. That’s something I will try to keep that way as long as I can – the no ads thing, if you want to sponsor me, feel free to reach out – I’ve got bills to pay :-).

The last few months of 2024 have seen less posts than I would have liked, not because there hasn’t been any new arrivals for my collection, but rather because I have been struggling with my mental health. I’ve tried to focus on my (paid) work, my home and my family and that meant that there was little to no time available to write. I’m still muddling through, but I will try to get more posts out again soon.

That’s it for now. I wish you all the best for the new year and hope to see you all back soon for more G.I. Joe updates. Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

I’m gonna need a bigger coffee table

We’ve been spoiled as G.I. Joe collectors with the amount of collector books and comic books that have come out in the last years. It all started with the Ultimate Guide by Mark Bellomo, then the Art of G.I. Joe from 3D Joe’s (Carson Mataxis) and more recently the giant Omnibus. Somewhere in between, I scored a Spanish book set about all the G.I. Joe toys and paraphernalia released in Spain. And now I got these 3 collector editions of the Battle Action Force comic books.

These books are showing the original Battle Action Force comics, but on a much bigger scale than the original comics. Check out the picture below to see how big they are, Classified Snake-Eyes for scale.

The first book features 12 stories alongside the secret file of The Baron and character data files.

The second book has 9 more stories and even more character data files, along with a cover gallery.

The third book contains 3 more stories, additional character data files and cover gallery.

These 3 beautiful books that should be part of every serious collector’s collection, can still be bought via the Total Toybooks website. Hurry up and you may be able to still get them with a 25% discount! Be kind to your mailman as these books come in at a little over 6kg…

That’s it for now, see you again soon. Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

You’d almost feel sad for the trees.

This morning, the mailman stopped by to drop off a package. Not too big, but very thick.

Collecting the first 50 issues of the G.I. Joe Marvel comic cook series, this massive book comes in at around 1160 pages of not only exciting stories, but also real pieces of art.

They state that Pop culture changed forever, and I fully agree with that. This series has had an impact on so many of us. It’s only fitting that it gets a prominent place in our collections. I couldn’t financially get in with the Kickstarter for the Hardcover books, but when I saw this pop up online, I tried to get my hands on one. My local comic book store couldn’t order them for some reason, luckily I was able to find one online.

I’ve put in a Classified scale Snake Eyes, so you can get a feel for the size of book. It really is a thick one. The paper itself is quite nice, almost like the original floppy comics. I just hope that the spine is strong enough not to tear over time.

That’s all for now. I have some reading to do 🙂 See you again soon, until then… Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Vintage three-dimensional hot potatoes.

As a kid, I had a FisherPrice View Master with all kinds of discs. Mostly fairy tales or pictures from around the world. On one of my flea market trips, I came across these discs with a G.I. Joe story.

On the discs, the text is printed in Dutch, but on the actual 3D cells, the text there is in English. The discs tell the story of issue #1.5(?), where Scarlett, Snake-Eyes, Stalker and Rock ‘N Roll have to get out of Trucial Abysmia with a package.

I had seen these discs on eBay a few times before, but I never really had much interest in them until I saw them in hand on a local flea market. I had recently found my old View Master in one of the many boxes containing toys and memorabilia from when I was younger and it felt meant to be that I should come across these G.I. Joe discs.

I’ve had to put a backlight to the discs in order to get these images up. But they do look really nice. Each cell is about the size of my pinky’s nail, so not that big at all and still all these images are really sharp and looking good.

Kids these days have their phones and VR goggles, but back in the day, this really was some cool tech. You needed to aim the back of the View Master to a light source to see the images clearly, but you didn’t really need that much light to enjoy the pictures.

That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon, keep an eye out. Until then… Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

More than meets the eye.

I went on a trip recently, spending 5hr on a plane. To pass the time, I downloaded several movies and series onto my iPad. One of them was the entire run of Netflix’ The Toys That Made Us. They have an episode on G.I. Joe which I had seen before, but now I also watched the episodes on Star Wars, Star Trek and Transformers. Since the 80’s Transformers and G.I. Joe have been sharing a universe within the Marvel comic book series. Rumor has it that a crossover movie is in the works for 2026. We’ll have to wait and see if this will be the next big thing for both Transformers and G.I. Joe, until then we’ve been getting some toys crossing over. This time around, I’ve got the Megatron H.I.S.S. and Baroness dropping in.

Straight of the bat, the box art is a nice split image showing off the robot form of Megatron and the Baroness in action with him transformed into a H.I.S.S. Tank.

The back of the box shows the actual toys in both shapes. It takes 28 steps to transform Megatron into a H.I.S.S. Tank.

Once you slide both parts away, you get the real manufacturer for all weaponry, Hasbro! The inner box, is not a simple brown box though. The back displays a Top Secret Dossier, while the top and bottom have a cool looking crossover logo.

Opening the inner box, we get most of Megatron already built and looking very menacing. On the left is the H.I.S.S. Tank canopy and swiveling turret mount, on the right are guns and a piece of the H.I.S.S.’ Armor.

Megatron is tied to the top part of the box. We can lift this one up to reveal the instructions manual depicting all the 28 steps needed to transform from Megatron into the H.I.S.S. Tank and back again. Alongside the little booklet, there is the Baroness figure, to my surprise, a fully carded figure!

On the front of the box, the outer sleeve really, is a print of the Baroness as if she was behind some plastic, reminiscent of the old 3.75” vehicle boxes. In the box, there was a small cardboard piece that held the figure with a plastic cover so you could see the figure that came with the vehicle. This time though, the outer box is just a cardboard sleeve, so I knew the Baroness figure would be presented in a different way, but I honestly didn’t expect to find a carded figure. She comes with her backpack and a sniper rifle.

The back of the card is showing the beautiful art from the sleeve again, this time with another crossover logo. The top of the card shows a familiar file card, less information than the good old days, but in 5 languages now.

That’s all for now, see you again soon. Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!