(Editor’s Note: Today’s video and its accompanying writeup were created by Mario Xavier. Mario is an actor, director, and stuntman with a passion for GI Joe. Please check out his YouTube channel and Twitter. You can also find his filmography on Prime Video.)
(Editor’s Note: I have another special treat for you today, courtesy of SurveillancePort.com proprietor CIAD aka Erick. He took these photos and was kind enough to loan them to me. I hope you enjoy some nice, clean photos of a dazzling little speedboat.)
Tiger Force Friday is always a big thing in the GI Joe Social media world. Just check out the hashtag on Instagram. I don’t usually participate, both because I am a loner and a rebel, but also because I’m never prepared and always forget about it.
Today, I’m a joiner and a conformist. But in a good way!
Thanks to Erick from Surveillance Port, here’s a fantastic photo gallery of the 1989 GI Joe Tiger Fish complete with every angle you could ever want.
(Editor’s Note: The photos for today’s post come courtesy of CIAD, aka Erick, the owner and operator of SurveillancePort.com. Erick is a great writer and photographer, but he’s more than that. He’s a pillar of the online GI Joe community. He’s one of the kindest and most supportive people in the fandom, and he’s always reporting on the latest news, giving signal boosts to cool projects, and spotlighting deserving content creators. You can find Erick at his website, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook. Thanks, Erick!)
Since we’re on an Alley Viper kick, I thought we’d take a look at another one. I acquired my first original Hasbro 1989 Alley Viper in 2019 at JoeFest in Augusta, GA. In September of that same year, I grabbed another one at a toy shop in Salt Lake City, Utah.
But those Alley Vipers weren’t my first experience with the 1989 mold. Sometime in late 2017 or early 2018, I acquired some factory custom Alley Vipers made by The Black Major. My first TBM AVs were the versions that homage the 1997 Rage box art/prototype Alley Viper– blue and black.
There was another version I was interested in, though. Online photos made it look like an ‘inverted colors’ version of the 89 Alley Viper, using blue as its primary color and orange as its accent color.
Those figures are the subject of today’s post– The Black Major Urban Assault Trooper, which started its life as a convention exclusive.
Continue reading “Black Major Urban Assault Trooper (2017 Dirty South GI Joe Meetup Exclusive)”
Today, we’re looking at my first Alley Viper. This is my actual childhood figure, who’s somehow still in really good shape. It’s a toy from a year that makes most GI Joe fans point their noses firmly skywards, but it’s one of my favorite years for the toy line.
The 1997 GI Joe Alley Viper is the reason that the Alley Viper is one of my favorite Cobra troops (it comes in second, only behind the Astro Viper) and is probably one of the major reasons I’ve continued to love GI Joe for my entire life.
Like all 1997 Joe figures, he’s a bit of an oddball. There are many reasons Serious Collectors don’t love this toy, but I don’t care about any of those things. This figure is one of my most cherished GI Joe possessions. So, of course I’m going to tell you all about that– but I’ll review the toy, as well. As much as I ever review a toy, anyway.
You know what you’re getting into at this point.
Stretcher, the GI Joe team’s medical specialist from 1990, and I go back a long way. We go all the way back to 1990 in fact. My original Stretcher figure met a tragic end sometime around 1992, but he’s still a character and toy I have a deep connection to.
This is a review I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but Stretcher is not an easy figure to find and complete. Luckily, I found a carded version at JoeFest 2019 in Augusta, GA. I opened him up about a week ago to bring you this review.
Stretch out and relax. Let’s dig in.
Today we’re keeping it casual at The Dragon Fortress.
I’ve updated the site with six (6!!) in-depth, dedicated pages for Russian Funskool GI Joe figures. Hopefully you find it useful and enjoyable.
We’re also taking a look at some amazing Transformers repro accessories a friend made for me.
Kick back and relax.
Continue reading “Fun with Transformers Repro Parts (and 6 Russian Funskool GI Joe figures)”
A couple weeks ago, I ran a Twitter poll asking my readers what they’d rather see for my next review– a “weird” Beast Wars toy or a Kenner-style DC toy. The BW figure won. Thanks to all 32 of you who voted.
When it comes to “weird,” Beast Wars has plenty to choose from. It was a bizarre, high-concept toy line that took a ton of chances and commonly veered into what we might consider “abstract” or “avant-garde,” at least as far as action figures targeted at 7-12 year olds go. In that regard, it’s only rivaled by Hasbro’s Batman Beyond toy line.
I really wanted to lean into the “weird” aspect, and it doesn’t get much weirder than Takara’s Cyborg Beasts figures. These Japanese exclusives took four deluxe Beast Wars molds (Cybershark, Dinobot, Waspinator, and K-9) and infused their beast modes with crazy robot augmentations. The general weirdness also carried over into robot mode.
Consider today’s subject, 1998 Transformers Beast Wars II Max-B, who is a cyborg German Shepherd with wolf-colored fur.
In Mainframe’s Beast Wars cartoon, the characters were robots who combined their mechanical parts with organic parts, resulting in a biomechanical amalgamation that was mostly robot-based. For a cyborg beast, you have the robot augmented with biological animal parts (already kind of a cyborg), and then you add mechanical parts on top of the organic animal parts. So you’re basically left with a double cyborg, and in an entirely different way than what you saw with either Transmetals I or II. It’s a lot to take in, and it’s a lot different than what any other toy line was doing at the time.
Let’s get weird with 1998 Transformers Beast Wars II Max-B.
Continue reading “1998 Transformers Beast Wars II Max-B Review”
Hi there. There’s no new review on the main feed this week, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t produce a ton of content for you to check out.
I have four in-depth looks at Russian Funskool GI Joe figures for you, and some not-so-in-depth looks at some Masters of the Universe Origins figures for you. Check them out after the break.
Continue reading “Site Updates: Russian Funskool GI Joe and Masters of the Universe Origins”
The catch of the day isn’t a whopper, but it’s generated some Big Fish Stories nonetheless. Do we find this figure compelling because of its lowered articulation? Because it came free with a couple tubes of toothpaste? Because of its odd, shoddy paintwork? Because of its dubious legal nature? Or do we recoil in horror because it’s not quite right?
For me, it’s all of the above and much more. When I set out to write this review, I figured I’d do something “easy” because the last one I wrote was massive. But I’m a journalist by nature, so I couldn’t leave well enough alone– I did some initial research, asked the experts some questions, and then dug even deeper. A couple things I found really surprised me.
This GI Joe Funskool Pepsodent Exclusive Undertow is much more than a slapdash toothpaste giveaway figure. There are oddities with production, licensing, and figure construction. I dug up the unexpected.
So, come for the weird under-articulated Undertow variant and stay for the mysteries hidden within its underachieving exterior shell.
Time to reel it in.
Continue reading “GI Joe Funskool Pepsodent Exclusive Undertow (2002) Review”
This is another huge review, with 6000+ words and around 60 photos. But it has to be big because we’re looking at the biggest, baddest dudicus to ever be a metamorphing Bruticus.
Today I’m joined by my friend Dial H, who runs Dial H for Houston. If you enjoy pulpy science fiction, fantasy, and alternate history novels, check out his website immediately. He writes fun, funny, and snappy reviews of all sorts of books you’ve never heard of. His site has personally encouraged me to order a few books for The Pile.
Dial H was nice enough to supply both photos and commentary for G2 Bruticus, as I am both missing some of the toy’s accessories and missing all of Dial H’s life experiences and insights. This is a toy that’s notoriously hard to complete, as parts and pieces almost never pop up on the secondary market.
So we’ve united into our own ragtag combiner force to bring you this review. Dial H is going to bring you a definitive ranking for each member of the team, but I cannot bring myself to choose favorites among my brightly colored 90s children. I do mostly agree with his rankings, though.
I’ll let Dial H kick things off.
Continue reading “1994 Transformers Generation 2 Combaticons and Bruticus Review”
The Dragon Fortress 