The ’82 Joes were, for the most part, very muted in their color schemes, featuring a lot of greens, browns and some black. The ’83 Joes added a lot more color to the formerly restricted palette, but it was in 1984 when the saturation was ramped up and we got our most colorful Joe yet.
Blowtorch couldn’t help being the most eye-catching member of the Joe team to date. That trademark ketchup and mustard combo practically jumped off the card and begged you to buy him. I’ve always loved the way the colors red and yellow vibrate against each other on various comic books characters, and it was no different in the Joe world, except for the one difference: Blowtorch will burn your ass.
In addition to the colors of red and yellow, I’ve always been fascinated by fire. I’ll admit it; I’m the kid that was always asking to light the matches around the house whenever the power went out and the lanterns needed to be lit, or when the stove needed to be fed, or when it was time to burn the leaves/trash/whatever. I loved to strike the match and watch the flame burst forth from nothing. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t grow up to be a pyromaniac.
I don’t think it can be understated that if you stop and think about it, the G.I. Joe toyline—a toyline for ages 6 and up–was practically drowning in sadism. It was a kid’s toyline and it included a flamethrower guy. It was a kid’s toyline with a character whose specific purpose is to burn the bad guys alive. Sure, bad guys and killers were rampant, and all the members of G.I. Joe and Cobra were loaded down with enough weaponry to make Rambo look like a pussy. But Blowtorch was a bright red and yellow guy with a gun that shot flames intended to slow-roast the anonymous Cobra troopers into shriveled, blackened husks.
Is there any wonder why this is one of the greatest toylines an ’80s kid could play with?
Blowtorch wasn’t the only flame-spitting action figure. There was also Torch, Barbecue, Charbroil and some others I’m probably forgetting. But visually, none of them could hold a candle (ha!…flame reference!!) to Blowtorch. He had style. He had panache. He had my favorite feature, which was this kind of creepy oxygen mask that was actually removable. He wasn’t perma-stuck as flame-guy. He could take off the mask, take off the helmet and pretend to be a regular type of guy who didn’t spend his wartime days turning the enemy into weenie roasts.
When you had everything on the figure put together, from the helmet and mask, to the backpack and the gun, with the little hose attachment that fed the fuel to the gun, the final product was this completely demonic looking entity. Blowtorch looked intimidating. He looked like living fire, come to strike down the evil forces of Cobra. I wonder what child psychologists would have thought if they caught sight of a child pretending to feed a whooshing jet of flame to a Cobra trooper, and then the subsequent writhing as the bad guy burst into flames, screaming right there on the living room floor until he dropped into an imagined burnt husk.
This was no My Little Pony.
Blowtorch didn’t make many media appearances. He had a few comic appearances, and a few cartoon appearances, but at no point did he live up to the promise of his figure. They just weren’t going to have Blowtorch burn anybody alive on a weekday afternoon. Blowtorch was a character whose best adventures could only exist on the living room floor, or on the surface of your bed. This is where Blowtorch could melt the tread on a HISS Tank and then cook the driver alive, or could flambe an entire regiment of Cobra troopers from a strategic vantage point. You can almost smell it on the wind…
Even in the later years, when the colors grew more and more neon and the Joes left behind their muted green early years completely, Blowtorch still managed to stand out among the rest. He was a unique red and yellow nightmare, designed to perfection.