And this just might be a figure that is better than his previous version. Far, far better.
Charbroil was always somewhat of a second rate Blowtorch in my opinion, and even though his Night Force version did add some nice credibility to the character (I really hated the brown, yellow, and silver look) he still wasn’t really high on my list of knock out characters. Of course, appearing in the same assortment as Hit & Run, one might expect he got a little overshadowed.
The Collectors Club has revealed their version of Night Force Charbroil now, and it is pretty nice. Using what appears to be the G.I. Joe: Retaliation Joe Trooper body from neck to toe (which I have ZERO issues with, as demonstrated by my Best Toys of 2012 article), he’s got a newly tooled helmet and backpack and even without a ton of detail work, the figure looks really nice. Love the combination of gray and blue here.
Check out the latest update at GIJoeCon.com, and I’ve mirrored the image below.
is that the torch from torch back in the two pack days?
Does that helmet come off?
They mention that it is a “helmet” and not a “head” so I think it’s safe to assume that yes, it’s removable.
Nice, but I like the ROC version quite a bit more, even if the head was a departure from tradition.
Justin, I think your boy Hit and Run is going to have to be a star to sell me on this set.
I like this one a lot. Very nice.
A new helmet?
(Dragonsky likes that color of the backpack better.)
Complete disappointment.
Weak. So far they’re just taking the original o-ring designs and redoing them in the modern format. And where are the fancy paint apps the Club was known for? They keep increasing prices and decreasing paint apps. I’m not sure I’d pay full retail for these much less $360.
I’ve seen this mentioned elsewhere, but I’m kind of curious why people are surprised by this. Mass market toys are doing the same thing. Transformers grow smaller while price increases. Paint apps and articulation are being greatly reduced across the board in every single figure line. Why would a small-scale toy producer have any different restrictions than the mass market guys? It’s a fact of life, we’ve gotta start accepting it. I’m just happy it’s the number of paint apps that is suffering and not stuff like articulation, filecards, or accessories.
I’m certainly not surprised per se. Disappointed perhaps. The Club had a sorry-ass 2012 to put it lightly and the least they could try to do is keep the Con pricing the same as last year’s rather than bump it up yet again.
I’d rather they cut accessories easily. Most year’s Marauder puts out an augmentation set for a reason. That flame add-on while nice isn’t necessary. The stands can go. Tooling new heads and helmets and backpacks when there are probably tooled versions that’d suffice isn’t necessary either. And I’d be willing to bet that the packaging is the biggest expense easily.
I just really don’t like how it looks like they’re clearly just going to redo these figures exactly like they were originally including retooling the original sculpts instead of using their imagination to create something new.