February 2017 – European Joe's

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!

2017 goals update

Hi all!

No Impel Trading Card update today, but a follow up on my 2017 goals.

2017 has started with us finding a new house to live in. It’s still in the same city, so no drastic relocations, but still, packing and moving everything will take a lot of time. Part of my collection of Joes (most of the ones I had as a kid), I only recently picked up from my parents’ house and are still in boxes, waiting to get sorted, cleaned and displayed or sold if I have extras. All of the ones I bought as an adult collector, will have to be packed along with my Comic Book collection and Trading Cards folders. Not to mention the Kre-O sets that will probably be best of being broken down and put into sealed bags before putting them back in their original boxes. And then we still have all the toys from the kids, clothes, houseware, furniture, the cats, … Save to say, it’ll take some time getting everything sorted, packed, moved and installed back at the new house.

I’ve started working full time this month as well, so I don’t have a lot of spare time left. On my days off, the main focus is my family. Both my daughters are still too small to play with Joes, but I did pass on one of my old 12″ Action Man figures to my oldest daughter to play along with her Barbie dolls 🙂 This is also the elephant in the room… I have 2 daughters and I don’t think they’ll ever be very interested in my Joes. They are real princesses! Don’t get me wrong, I’m really proud of them and love them both very much. I just don’t think they’ll have much interest in G.I. Joe. Maybe I’m thinking to stereotypical, but you can’t deny that Joes are made for boys 🙂 And then I start overthinking again that maybe I’m holding on to my Joe collection because I don’t want to grow up, I want to hold on to being a kid without worries. All of which I can’t of course. I guess I’m struggling with the collector’s existential questions. To collect or not to collect, that’s the question. Let me know what you think on twitter or in the comments below.

Another topic from my 2017 goals was to start writing again on a story I’ve been having in the back of my mind for years but never got around to putting to paper. I’ve been browsing for some writing tools and started on a general outline of the story. I’ve got about half of my prologue ready (sort of, kill your darlings process is always ongoing) and will post something here soon. Keep you coming back for more 🙂

We finally got the first Revolution comics over here, so I need to catch up on my reading as well. No big purchases on the horizon, going to be saving some money to spend on the new house. I’ve started selling some of my Joe toys that I used to scavenge for parts so I could complete a set. If you are interested in some scrap vehicles, still great for completing your own or for customs, I’ll put up a list on the shop page. Just send me a tweet or comment here and we can arrange something.

I guess that’s all for today. I’ll probably post the Impel Trading Card post later this week. I’ll get back to my poundering for now.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Street Closed. Do not enter. Detour.

I’m afraid we may have to take a detour this time around. There appears to be something in the way. Impel Trading Card #30 is Roadblock!

The G.I. Joe’s resident gourmet chef is up this week. Roadblock was introduced in the comics alongside Duke at the funeral of General Flagg. Cobra tries to attack the mourning Joes with the new Rattler plane, but Duke and Roadblock shoot the plane down. Quite the entrance one might say.

In the cartoons, Roadblock is best remembered for being the rhyming cook. His aunt and uncle are introduced in the Red Rocket’s Glare episode, one of the first episodes that come to mind when I think of the cartoons. Roadblock is also featured in 2 of the PSA videos, warning kids about power lines and strangers.

In G.I. Joe The Movie, Roadblock – though being blinded by the Nemesis Enforcer – is the only one able to escape from Cobra-La. He carries a mutating Cobra Commander (I was-s-s-s once a man) on his back who functions as his eyes. When they get found by a Joe search party, Cobra Commander is fully mutated into a snake and slithers away. Roadblock then gets his vision back and leads the Joes to Cobra-La where the end battle takes place.

In Renegades, Roadblock is one of the ‘fugitive’ Joes. This time he is bigger and more driver/mechanic than heavy gunner. He (luckily) doesn’t speak in rhyme, but still likes to cook.

And then there was Retaliation and The Rock… I like to think of the live action movies as slightly better than average Action movies, but not as G.I. Joe movies. Sure they have sort of the same characters (Scarlett and Ripcord, really??), but it’s not canon. Kind of like what they did with the Devil’s Due comics, nice stories, but disavowed.

Over the years, there have been 24 figures released. The first one in 1984 had orange-brown pants and didn’t look too good if you ask me. The 1986 figure, shows the Roadblock figure in his gray pants and green top that is used in the comics and cartoons. In 1988 and 1993, Roadblock was part of the subteams Tiger-Force and Star Brigade. The last 4 figures have been modeled to resemble The Rock and aren’t bad, but as mentioned above, I can’t see them as being reincarnations of an African-American, rhyming cook that can run around with a M2 Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun.

To end this post, I’ll leave you with the following music video from Stock Aitken Waterman. This song has great vibes and I’d like to think that Larry Hama was listening to this when he created the Roadblock character. Listen for yourself and let me know what you think.

Next time, we’ll need the following ingredients…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

That ain´t football

This week we have arrived at Impel Trading Card #29. One of my favourite figures of all time. Ladies (there are some of you reading this right?) and Gents, I present you Captain Grid-Iron (or Gridiron).

Released as a figure in 1990, only one version of the figure has ever been released. He came with a lot of accessories, but the coolest thing about the figure are his football shaped grenades. His codename is written as Grid-Iron on the filecard, but on the Trading Card they wrote it without the hyphen.

In the Marvel Comics, he is seen in just one comic. The Devil´s Due run has him featuring on the cover of issue #25. Most people will remember Grid-Iron from his appearances in the DIC cartoon series. He is in charge of the team in absence of Hawk and Sgt. Slaughter. The most memorable episode is the one in which the Joes play a football match against Cobra… Genius, right. (See Youtube). On the subject of football, you can´t really call that game football now can you? A few weeks ago, the same discussion was shown in The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime. In Europe, we have a whole different opinion on what football (what the Americans like to call soccer) is.

I looked over the whole football difference, for me, Captain Grid-Iron was a cool figure, with a lot of accessories. Every Joe collector should definitely have this figure in his/her collection.

Until next time! We may have to take a detour then…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!