Crimson Guard – European Joe's

Don’t punch the screen, punch the page!

A while back, I ordered these Pagepunchers 2 figure packs from McFarlane Toys over on Amazon.com and they finally arrived today. Let’s check them out.

First up are Duke and Snake-Eyes. The packaging of these little figures is great and reminiscent of the original G.I. Joe figures with the explosion in the back. The figures themselves are pocket sized, around 3″in size. They feature 6 points of articulation “for maximum play value” (that’s what the description says). The package also includes a comic book display stand featuring the G.I. Joe logo and 2 comic books (issue #253 of the IDW ARAH run and #10 of the Chuck Dixon run). There is also a bookmark included with the classic Snake-Eyes card art.

The Snake-Eyes figure is looking as bad-ass as ever. This iconic classic design is immediately recognisable and is really cool looking. The Duke figure on the other hand is, well, less so.

I don’t see the resemblance with Duke to be honest, aside from the blond hair and tan shirt, this could be a generic green shirt trooper.

Next up we have a set of Cobra Commander and a Crimson Guardsman. This set includes the #267 from the IDW ARAH run and the 2012 Annual from IDW. It also has the stand and same bookmark.

These figures look their part and closely match the original figures.

Again, we’re seeing the Commander with his battle helmet. No-one is willing or going to touch the hooded version it seems. The color is bright blue and the accents pop out in red and black. I would have liked to have seen his classic pistol, but alas, no accessories are included.

A lot of red on the Crimson Guard, and some black and white. The printed decals are really fine and sharp. No quality issues here it seems.

That’s all for now. See you back soon.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

An officer and a not so gentle-woman.

It seems like I’m getting a nice stream of new figures every week now, you’d almost think that their is a lot of stock everywhere. The sad reality is though, these are all figures that have been on pre-order for quite some time. Whatever the case may be, I’m happy to say that some new figures have arrived again.

First up is another Crimson Guard, the Classified version this time around (remember, last time we had the Retro Carded version). The figure itself looks pretty much the same, although this version has a black helmet and holster on his left leg, where the Retro Carded one has a silver helmet and red holster.

We’ve had the officer, next up is the woman. And what a woman it is. Let’s take a closer look at Zarana.

She is fierce looking. Definitely not someone to mess around with. She also comes with quite a set of weapons in the form of a dagger, a (bloody?) red bladed knife and a rifle with what looks like a small circular saw underneath. If that doesn’t scream, Stay out of my way, I don’t know what will.

I’m not the biggest fan of the headsculpt. It’s nice that you can change her hairstyle, but the face/expression is a bit to hard for my taste. The details on the jacket are really beautiful by the way. The zipper, the silver shoulderpiece and the strap on her left shoulder truly make the figure stand out. That and the bright pink.

She looks so much better in the artwork. Kind of reminds me of Harley Quinn or maybe Danger Girl from J. Scott Campbell. In any case, Marcus Williams really did an awesome job on this. I’m not saying that the artworks are the best thing about these series of figures, but I’m not denying it too. The style reminds me of the 90’s-00’s comics we got from DDP, somewhat cartoony maybe, but I really like it.

I want to end this post with a shout-out to TBHstore.nl. I bought these 2 figures from them (and have a lot more in pre-order). They always package the figures with the greatest of care. They can keep some things in storage, so you can group pre-orders and save on shipping costs. They are truly passionate about action figures and that shows in their service and dedication to their customers to deliver the best possible shopping experience. If you haven’t checked them out, do so now and I promise you, you won’t regret it.

That’s all for now. More is on the way, but you’ll have to check in later to find out about that. For now, as always…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Can you check my pulse?

Several years ago, I was looking to buy a Nest mini for my home, but they weren’t available in our country (where have we heard that before?). I browsed the internet and was able to find them with a big German website. Unfortunately, they didn’t ship to Belgium. After some research, I found a site where you could get a German address to ship your parcel too, they then stored it if needed for up to a month and then ship it to Belgium. The fees were reasonable and so I bought 2 Nest speakers and had them shipped over to me. The whole process went very smooth and I honestly kinda forgot all about it. It never occurred to me to shop in Germany before that, and frankly, I never shopped there again. That is, until very recently.

You see, Hasbro has made Pulse available in some parts of Europe (UK, France, Italy, Spain & Germany). However, they only ship within their own country. I was looking around the site at the pre-orders for the Classified Dr. Mindbender and Serpentor. I was actually able to put them both in my basket and move to the checkout. Then it became clear that I would need an address in Germany because I couldn’t enter my own address. And then I remembered that I used this mailing service years ago. I looked it up and sure enough, the service is still up and running and my account was still functional (I’ll look over the GDPR issues for this once).

I placed my order and now the waiting game was started yet again… And the waiting will be even longer since today I received an email from Pulse that the delivery of Mindy & Serpy will be delayed to April-May 🙁

On a positive note, I also ordered a Classified Retro Crimson Guard figure from Hasbro Pulse Germany and they shipped that one out to the German address. I promptly received an email from the storage/shipping company and I just had to pay for the shipping. The same day, the package was prepared for shipment to Belgium and 2 days later, it arrived on my doorstep.

Well, you’ve made it this far into my story. I guess it’s only fair that we start looking at the figure. Here we go.

The figure itself is really nice. It looks exactly like the Crimson Guard figure we know and love from the 3.75” line. It comes complete with a rifle (with bayonet), pistol, backpack, dagger and sword. All in all, a very complete and nice looking figure.

The helmet is fixed, so no way of knowing if it really is a Fred Series Siggie underneath there. Still the silver look is more suitable for the figure than the black mask on the Classified boxed figure in my opinion.

The back of the card does resemble the old school cards, but the description is now in 5 languages and only 3 other figures are shown. Retro? Yes. Interesting? Somewhat underwhelming.

As I mentioned before on the review of the other Retro Carded figures, the cardboard of the card is very flimsy. It’s truly a miracle that the card arrived here after being processed twice by shipping companies, in a very good state. It’s still straight and no bends or tears. Still, I would really appreciate it if would be thicker (that’s what she said!).

That’s all for now. Keep coming back to read more about Joe and see me getting Dr. Mindbender and Serpentor from Pulse, hopefully somewhere in the near future. More Classified figures are on their way, keeping track of these pre-orders is nearly a fulltime job. See you next time.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!