Dark 5cythe over at The Terror Drome has posted a wealth of great looking pictures of the recently released Target exclusive Tiger Force Tiger Rat w/ Wild Bill and Python Patrol Conquest with Python Patrol COBRA Viper.
I’m one of those folks who really isn’t wild about the Tiger Force deco. Repaints for repaints sake…stuff that the fans like to slam Hasbro for these days are the same reason I wasn’t wild about Tiger Force back in 1989. I absolutely hated the figure paint schemes for Python Patrol, too, though I absolutely love the vehicle deco. The dark black and red paint colors with the criss-cross pattern is a great look, and I love the concept of Python Patrol representing a high end COBRA technology. Still not sure I’ll be dropping thirty bucks a pop on each of these, but I can appreciate the appeal.
To see a ton more pictures, check out this thread on The Terror Drome.
Anyone who follows my reviews or my dio-stories knows that I’m a big fan of Barrel Roll from the Spy Troops era, and am, in fact, a huge fan of the whole Stall family dynamic. From Barrel Roll and Blackout’s conflit, tying in the whole sister angle with Bombstrike…sure it’s unlikely that three separate siblings would all happen to join G.I. Joe and/or COBRA and face off against each other, but it was still a cool story and an interesting subplot, even if not fully explored. I like to think Brandon Jerwa obviously had it on his mind when he was penning the G.I. Joe title, but I’m not sure he ever got the chance to fully develop it.
At any rate…the utter distaste that most fans have for the new sculpt era has left a lot of great stuff on the table, as it’s fairly unlikely that Hasbro will dip into that pool for source material. Yeah, they did the “Greatest Battles” 4-Pack, but let’s face it, that was pretty much just an excuse to release another Duke, COBRA Commander, Snake Eyes, and Storm Shadow.
Lots of folks have identified the Resolute Duke figure that showed up in the 5-Pack as being a potential Barrel Roll, and I can see that. The original figure was labelled a “high altitude sniper” and came with some COBRA pilot gear…the second figure actually came with a jetpack. When Barrel Roll showed up in the Sigma 6 toyline, he actually had a remarkably similar paint scheme to the Resolute Duke from the 5-Pack as well. But this is all just a roundabout way of me being giddy that someone finally gave us a decent 25th Anniversary Barrel Roll custom, and it’s only fitting that it’s longtime “friend of the site” Mysterious Stranger.
He posted the custom here on JoeBattleLines, and damned if I don’t freaking love it. He took the familiar Resolute Duke with the jetpack, gave him a sculpted head from Broken Arrow Toys, the Ace legs (which look PERFECT in comparison to the original version) and then painted the figure to more closely resemble the original Spy Troops look of the character. The end result is a fantastic update to the Barrel Roll character that blends perfectly with the 25th Anniversary, yet is also a nice representation of the Spy Troops era.
Great job on this one! Love it. Now do a Blackout, dammit. 😉
Anyone else even sorta looking forward to the new Iron Man Animated Series?
Yeah, me neither…at least not until I saw this trailer:
Okay, honestly the trailer is only sorta cool. It’s not mindblowing, it’s not amazing, and I’m still barely sold on the “Iron Man as hip teenager” concept. Actually, I’m not sold at all. But the animation looks nice and fluid, and I dig the dialog. Plus, so far with Spectacular Spider-Man and Wolverine & the X-Men, Marvel’s animated fare has been pretty damn good as of late, so I’ll give this one a shot. And that’s not even considering the 60 minutes of pure awesome that was Hulk Vs.
But this actually opens up a bigger can of worms, which is a YouTube channel that I’d never heard of before, one devoted to the Marvel Universe. This includes movie trailers, motion comics, promo’s for various animated series…and dude. Full episodes of X-Men: Evolution. Sweet!
Familiar overseas seller, ws_toys is now selling the M.A.R.S. Industries Officer and Trooper in sets of 3 for $29.99 with free shipping. Considering the Officer and Trooper were $14.99 and $12.99 apiece respectively, this is a pretty decent deal, though these will be available at mass retail in probably 1-2 months for about half the price.
For those folks who want these early, though, check out eBay to get all three of them in one whack.
IESB.net comes through with images of the upcoming Rise of COBRA prequels from IDW Publishing. Each issue is a solo story focusing on Duke, Destro, Baroness, and Snake Eyes respectively, with an additional Snake Eyes follow up following the film’s release. According to the announcement, Issue #1 is scheduled for release next Tuesday, March 11th!
Check out the article and the images at IESB here, or you can also check out the gallery below.
You know, when I did my “2009 Movie Mayhem” post two weeks ago, there were a lot of films that didn’t make the cut. Even with the “geek ties” films like Star Trek and Harry Potter don’t really have an impact with me personally, so I didn’t include them with the normal comic book fare. But as I hear more and more about Terminator: Salvation, I realize that film was a glaring omission from my summer list. I’m a huge fan of the Terminator universe…I loved Terminator 3, and am a devoted watcher of the Sarah Connor Chronicles (which is, unfortunately, most likely on the chopping block). Salvation has Christian Bale and Sam Worthington, and finally takes us behind the war zone with Skynet in full control and the robots ruling the world. Basically what we’ve been wanting to see since 1984.
Still, it didn’t seem the film was getting a whole lot of mainstream pub, so it sort of slipped my radar. Well, not any more.
As we are all aware, Sideshow Toys put their excellent Storm Shadow COBRA Ninja figure up for pre-order late last week, complete with a very nice gallery of images. Well, Cool Toy Review scored a sneak preview of the figure with some even larger, more high resolution images of the infamous COBRA assassin. These pictures are absolutely huge and insanely detailed and showcase Storm Shadow very, very nicely.
Newsarama is filled with G.I. Joe related nuggets today as they spoke with both Chuck Dixon and Robert Atkins at MegaCon this weekend, and report about that conversation here.
Chuck Dixon is the writer and Robert Atkins is the penciller for the ongoing G.I. Joe title and both had an extensive conversation with the folks from Newsarama about the title and what’s coming in the future. There are a number of very interesting comments and quotes scattered throughout the interview, which honestly has me pretty optimistic about the direction this new G.I. Joe universe is taking.
Do yourself a favor and check out the interview here, and keep a close watch on IDW happenings, I think we’re in for a fun ride.
Longtime GeneralsJoes friend LeonardoTDragon of JoeBattleLines took some time to dust off his “shooting area” in order to get me some fantastic pics of the new 4″ scale Marvel figures from Hasbro. I think he sensed my frustration when I’ve been hitting dead end after dead end over the past 3 weeks (yes, even today, after the infamous “street date” there are none to be found in local retailers) and took pity on me by supplying some of the crispest and sharpest pictures of these figures I’ve seen to date!
Dark 5cythe over at The Terror Drome has posted a wealth of great looking pictures of the recently released Target exclusive Tiger Force Tiger Rat w/ Wild Bill and Python Patrol Conquest with Python Patrol COBRA Viper.
