Oh G.I. Joe, what have you done to me. I blame you, Hasbro.
Short story, I didn’t have a lot of G.I. Joe figures when I was a kid. I watched the hell out of the cartoon and I wanted everything I saw but my parents had to draw a line somewhere. My room was already filled with Star Wars, Transformers, and Masters of the Universe, mostly, so very few Joes were bought. I had the oddballs, like Night Creeper and Snow Serpent and maybe even Destro. But I wanted any and all.
Maybe that’s why I’m falling fast down this rabbit hole.
When Snake Eyes was shown right before Toy Fair ’20, I jumped all over it. Bam. Awesome looking, so 80s it hurt. But when Scarlett, Duke, and Roadblock where revealed I took a step back. They had that classic feel but there were other colors and design elements thrown in. It made me second-guess jumping in. Or maybe I could paint and swap parts. Maybe. But there was some doubt.
Then I got Snake Eyes and I started realizing he was updated in some ways too. Armor sculpt that blended in with the black, harnesses, bits and bobs, but still very much Snake Eyes. Somewhere along the way Hasbro dropped Destro on us, again with the perfect blend of classic and modern. And I was hooked. I looked at the other three Joes through my new appreciation of what Hasbro was going for here and got excited. Again. So much so I couldn’t help overpaying on eBay for an early copy of Duke here, just to calm my curiosity and solidify whether or not I was all in.
I’m all in. All the way in.
Sure, I could probably do without the gold, the last little flourish that was scratching away at my brain, but having it in hand it doesn’t even bother me anymore. The rifle is bent because of the packaging but it’s not a floppy material, it’s quite solid but had the misfortune of sitting the the tray too long. And with Duke, the laser weapons at least evoke his classic weapons. That seems to be a sticking point but I’ve come to like them, and if future ones don’t tickle my fancy I’ll just replace them. For the overall look, no matter how many people tell me the face is some dude from Doom or Woody Harrelson or Steve Rogers, this is now Duke in my head. Not the original cartoon Duke. Not comic Duke. Not Resolute, nor Pursuit of Cobra, nor the movie they made a few years ago. This is the Duke in the G.I. Joe line I’m currently head over heels in love with. In a purely middle aged guy playing with action figure nostalgia sense. I mean, look past the armor on the legs and the added colors. There’s Duke’s shirt, and his pants, and his backpack, and his scar, and his wings on his chest.
I understand some people who don’t like this because of scale or the embellishments. That’s cool. I passed on the 3.75 line for years and years (and years) while admiring from afar because I wanted some G.I. Joes that fit in preferences. And after the initial shock and a lot of plastic fondling I’ve come around to realizing the Classified Series, with it’s mix of old school and new, is now my G.I. Joe line. Would I buy a 40th anniversary line on retro cards and figures based purely on the 80s? Hell yeah. But I’m also buying the hell out of these because I like them too. Gimme all the Joes and Cobras and everyone in-between you can, Hasbro!
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