European Joe's

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!

Encore une fois

In 1997, DJ Sash was hitting the charts again with a new song titled “Encore une fois”. I was 15, still had all my childhood G.I. Joe sitting in my room and no new G.I. Joe toys were to be found. Little could I have known then that 27 years later, I’d be writing a blog post about some more French comics. If you missed the previous post, check them out here and here.

As promised, I’m back with another addition to my French G.I. Joe collection. This time it’s the Maximum Silence TPB, aside from the French commentary pieces, even non-French speaking/reading people can read this one!

The book starts with the remake of the iconic #21 from 2022 where each page was drawn by a different artist.

The next story in the book is the #21.5 that was first released in 2008 with the Snake-Eyes & Storm Shadow figures from the 25th anniversary series. In 2014, the comic book was released to comic book stores officially by IDW in honor of the 30th anniversary of ARAH. Called “Silence between borders”, the story is the same as in #21, but it’s shown from different perspectives and showing scenes from the viewpoint of other characters.

Next up is the story “Hush Job” from the Yearbook #3. This was released 3 years after issue #21 and is situated sometime after #52. It shows Snake-Eyes being held prison in the Cobra Consulate in New York and being subjected to the Brainwave scanner by Dr. Mindbender. Scarlett is asking Storm Shadow to help her free Snake-Eyes. They infiltrate the consulate building, both in their own ways. Snake-Eyes is able to beat the Brainwave scanner, and together they escape (with a bit of a ruse at the end and the Baroness without her catsuit).

It would be best if Destro didn’t get to see this.

The 4th story in the TPB is “Timber”, #19 from the G.I. Joe Origins series from 2010. It tells the story of how Snake-Eyes first encountered the lone wolf Timber.

And we’re already at the 5th story without any word balloons. This is the #85 from 1989 called “SFX”. The lack of words in this story is more than covered by the sound effects shown, hence the SFX title. Lot’s of sounds in this one.

And the silence doesn’t end yet, we get one more silent issue. #214 from the ARAH series from 2015, part 3 of “The Death of Snake-Eyes” story arc. After a lethal fight with Serpentor, the entire Joe roster – both troops and vehicles – are paying respect to Snake-Eyes.

The more the Frenchier

A few posts back (see here), I talked about finding a French Trade Paperback from Vestron that celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Marvel G.I. Joe comic books. In it were some advertisements for other TPB’s they were going to release. I tracked them down and here they are.

The first book in the series contains the Marvel issues 123 (Shots in the dark), 124 (Triptych), 125 (Diptych) & 126 (Firefly!). After that story arc, they print issue 127 (Playing with the big boys) and parts of issues 128 & 129 (Winds of Change & Standoff!)

Tome 1 – Eco Warriors, DEF and Snake-Eyes

The cover art for this TPB is inspired on the original art for issue #123, but they added a crosshairs in front of Cobra Commander’s head in sludge green.

Book 2 boasts the Ninja force and continues the continuity with issues #130 (Point and Counterpoint), #131 (Last Stand), #132 (Bump in the Night), #133 (Recon by Fire) & #134 (Throwdown in the Citadel). In the back of the book, they now added the original covers as well.

Tome 2 – Storm Shadow representing the Ninja Force

The cover art looks familiar, but I can’t recall where I’ve seen it before. If you know, let me know and I’ll put it up here. It’s depicting Storm Shadow sitting perched or jumping, sporting his camo G.I. Joe look.

UPDATE: I’ve received help from within the Joe Community on this one. The art comes from within issue #112. It was drawn by John Statema, inked by Randy Emberlin and colored by Bob Sharen. Thanks to Justin Taylor, Jeff Bohn, Gavin Regnaert and Rob S Foster for confirming this on Facebook. Special thanks to Rob Arts from G.I. Joe Nederland for reaching out and adding some extra information.

Next up is Tome 3 which jumps a few issues and features the Star Brigade. It tells the stories of issues #145 (Threads and Resolutions), #146 (Immovable Objects), #147 (Oblivion Express!) and #128 (Irresistable Forces).

For this TPB, they used the cover art of issue #146 without any modifications, aside from the addition of the Maximum Action Tome 3 and the change of the header.

Normally, I’d say that’s all. Not this time though. What is printed in the back of TPB 3? An announcement of Tome 4 of course! And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a mention of a Maximum Silence issue! In case you would wonder what that could be about, stay tuned because there may be a post about it in the not so distant future.

Tome 4 – To be released in September 2024

Now that’s really it for this time. See you again soon, until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

A Very Astute Mailbox Parcel

Don’t drop the Clutch and keep on reading to find out what just came in the mail.

To be honest, I never really liked the angular shape of the VAMP. I didn’t have it in the original O-ring (3.75”) line until I got one of those Funskool models a few years ago. In the larger Classified scale though, it looks better.

The VAMP comes with a machine gun emplacement at the back, 2 extra gas tanks, a fire extinguisher, an axe, a shovel, a gun, a bigger gun,2 helmets, a wrench and a Clutch.

Clutch is beautifully painted in green and brown colors. It really gives the good military vibes and with all the accessories, it truly is a nice figure. His colors and deco are a true testament to the original figure.

That’s all for now. See you back again soon for new figures or paraphernalia. Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!