G.I. Joe Convention 2017 Dee Jay

If you told me, twenty years ago, that eventually one of the most highly sought after G.I. Joe convention exclusives would be a version of DeeJay, I would have called you a damned liar.  DeeJay, quite frankly, was a horrendous vintage figure.  From his scrawny, weirdly shaped legs to his out of proportion super-muscled arms, to his squished-head helmet, and downright bizarre color pallet, he was one of those late 80’s figures that gave G.I. Joe a bad name.

Granted, I think most of those figures that gave G.I. Joe a bad name get a bad rap, and don’t deserve the hate.  But DeeJay?  Damn, son, DeeJay deserves every single iota of that hate.  One of my least favorite figures ever.

So how exactly did the Club make him not only a desirable convention figure, but actually a pretty darn cool one at that?  Somehow they managed.

DeeJay has a new head sculpt that looks much better than many of the others in the convention set I must say, even though his face does look a tiny bit squeezed.  The body parts are relatively modern, though the 25th Anniversary Iron Grenadier legs are somewhat older, they work amazingly well.  He uses the Retaliation Snake Eyes torso, which remains one of my favorite figures in the modern era and the gauntlets on his arms definitely retain a certain look of technical design as well.  All of the parts come together to build out a pretty nicely proportioned, great looking figure that retains some of the vintage look, but in a nice modern way.

The colors also use the vintage design as an homage, combining white and blue with a nice, rich green to give DeeJay some nice variety to his color pallet, and the color applications make a lot of sense, not just slapped together in various places, but applied with some thought and consideration to the texture of the figure in those places.

All in all, a very nice update, surprising to me, considering DeeJay’s less than stellar source material.

Accessories

DeeJay continues the trend of the other BattleForce: 2000 figures with a replica of his vintage weapon as well as a blue version of Dial Tone’s backpack, which calls back to the fact that he’s the BattleForce: 2000 communications specialist.

This is a pretty great figure.  I’m certainly no fan of DeeJay, which goes right along with my feelings on BattleForce: 2000 as a whole, but I can’t argue that this update was very well done and gives us a character that perhaps we didn’t think we needed (especially since he’s a charred corpse in Trucial Abysma).