The time has come! Last year we brought you Welcome to Wolf Squad, a novella based on the 2015 series of G.I. Joe and COBRA action figures… now we bring you Nerves of Stone, the follow-up Novella to our Wolf Squad adventure from last year.
Familiar characters make their returns and some new characters get introduced…each and every member of the 2016 G.I. Joe and COBRA roster appears!
When a new G.I. Joe recruit goes missing while investing a top secret COBRA research lab in Alaska, G.I. Joe’s special operations Wolf Squad team gets deployed to see what’s up. They get far more than they bargained for and when G.I. Joe reinforcements arrive, a long kept secret gets revealed…
Now, for a limited time, get an exclusive sneak preview of this upcoming novella! Sign up for the World of Wolf’s Head Publishing and you’ll get immediate access to the Prologue and first chapter of this novella, due for release in early 2017. This will be available NOWHERE else.
As an added bonus you can check out the first three chapters of my original novel The Fog of Dreams and get access to a Top Secret Research Paper outlining the Operation: Harvest story. If you’re a fan of G.I. Joe, I really think you’ll enjoy this story as well. Lots of similarities as one might expect.
Just sign up for the World of Wolf’s Head Publishing, I promise we won’t spam you or throttle your mailbox, but we will have plenty of exclusive offers and fun stuff coming down the pipe. Check it out!
With some newly found spare time at GeneralsJoes we’ve put together some video reviews for figures from FSS 4.0! Tiger Force Outback and Sneak Peek video reviews have been posted to the GeneralsJoes YouTube Channel and are ready for viewing.
In recent months, comic artist John Royle has put together some amazing G.I. Joe covers, and just revealed was his retailer incentive cover for Revolutionaries #4 from IDW Publishing.
This cover looks just as exciting as the other work he’s been doing, which is really saying something! Check out this fantastic cover and the comic details below. Fantastic stuff from John Royle.
Revolutionaries #4
Art by John Royle
Inks by Eeshwar
Colors by Juan Fernandez
I’ve had the video reviews up for a while, but finally I’ve had some extra time to assemble the written reviews as well!
Hop on over to my G.I. Joe: 50th Anniversary Review Page to check out the latest reviews for Duke and Tombstone. You can also click the links below to go straight to the reviews. Enjoy!
I could spend hours extolling the virtues of Duke as a character, but let’s face it, after over 50 different versions of the character, almost everything that could possibly be said about Duke has been said. While there isn’t a whole lot of new ground to cover when it comes to Duke the character, it’s interesting to look at this particular Duke action figure.
After the original 50th Anniversary run, there were rumblings among the fandom asking why we couldn’t get an updated version of Duke similar to Flint that we got in 2014. It was something that many folks asked for, in spite of the numerous versions of the character we’d already seen, because interestingly, Hasbro has never really done a modern update (past the questionable 25th Anniversary versions) that tied directly back to the vintage look.
Well, in 2016 Hasbro does a little bit of both, but I’m not certain the figure is better off for it.
While they certainly mirror the vintage look of the figure from a color perspective, Hasbro elects to modernize the figure with a bulkier, almost arctic looking uniform (using components from the Data Viper). The range of motion and articulation is really great, though the choice of different parts than, say the 2014 Flint does raise some eyebrows. Duke’s legs are from the G.I. Joe: Retaliation G.I. Joe Trooper, though thankfully seems to have deeper foot holes that fit in the pegs better than some other figures that have shared these parts.
From a color scheme perspective, Duke obviously pulls homage from the 1983 version, but is cast in a strangely bright hue, his shirt looking much more vibrant (and thus a little less realistic) and his pants a deeper, richer green.
All in all, Duke definitely has the look of the character, though the colors don’t quite jive with a more realistic looking version of the figure. The sculpting and articulation are both really good, thanks to more modern figure components, but they look like a more arctic version of the figure. Also, for whatever its worth, once you take off Duke’s vest, his torso is from Rise of COBRA Breaker and looks really skinny next to the baggy cloth of the arms.
ACCESSORIES
Duke comes with a wide array of cool weapons, though none of them especially stand point. He’s got a familiar machine gun and pistol, the green Shock Trooper tactical vest, smaller M249 heavy machine gun. He also has a green backpack. Pretty traditional looking weapons assortment that works fine, though isn’t especially remarkable.
Duke is one of the timeless characters of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero lore. Rather than go full bore vintage, Hasbro uses some vintage homages with some new twists, which generally I’m a fan of, though in this case it doesn’t work especially well. It’s a decent looking figure, but doesn’t bring a whole lot of new elements to the table, which feels necessary for yet another version of this character. Either go full vintage or go full on new, this walking the line in between isn’t especially effective.
YouTube Video Review
G.I. Joe 2016 Duke
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
3.2
Summary
Duke pulls some from his vintage version, with some new twists, but those new twists aren’t especially satisfying. A strange mix between the classic character and some modern arctic representation, Duke doesn’t really knock me out in either category. It’s a fine figure, but not fantastic.
Pros
1 – Great modern parts
2 – Excellent articulation
Cons
1 – Paint colors are almost too “colorful” and not especially realistic
2 – This strange vintage and new middle ground doesn’t especially excite either side
3 – The accessories could have been better
The time has come! Last year we brought you Welcome to Wolf Squad, a novella based on the 2015 series of G.I. Joe and COBRA action figures… now we bring you Nerves of Stone, the follow-up Novella to our Wolf Squad adventure from last year.
