Flint - Hall of Heroes (Figure 8 of 10)
If any figure deserved the Hall of Heroes treatment, it was Flint. Since his debut in 1985, Flint has been a very popular character amongst the fandom, and in the Sunbow series, I would say he easily rivaled Duke as the most popular G.I. Joe animated character. For whatever reason, though, he has been somewhat neglected when it comes to re-releases, which is a shame.
Throughout the run of the vintage line, he was in Tiger Force, got put in charge of the Eco Warriors, and received a desert themed update...in the Real American Hero Collection he was once again dropped in the sand with a repaint of his Eco Warriors rendition. The new sculpt line gave us a "would have been cool if not for the ridiculous moonboots" version, but really not much else. Well, that's not entirely true. The vintage version was repainted several times throughout the run, but he never got another newly tooled update.
Even when he made his auspicious debut in the Anniversary line, he existed as nothing other than a Duke repaint, whose bare hands caused a raucus stir amongst the fandom. The first attempt Hasbro made to repair the problem gave us a Tiger Force version, but still not the ultimate Flint. Well, as does seem to be the trend, we finally got on in Hall of Heroes, but it's easily overshadowed by one released at the same time in the G.I. Joe Battle Pack. A shame, in a way. I would have much rathered one of them got colored in Sunbow accurate greens and browns, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Now, when I say this figure was overshadowed, you have to really look at the details to see. The Battle Pack version has a newly tooled head which looks very nice, as well as a totally retooled torso, removing Duke's recognizable Airborne pin. The Hall of Heroes version got none of this treatment, and basically just exists as a repaint of the Tiger Force version, which is still fine, but not quite as nice as the other. Granted, the camouflage pattern is a bit better on this one, and the multi-colored webgear is a nice touch, but the tooling remains much improved with the Battle Pack.
I know everyone was all giddy about the "fixed" arms, but I will be honest. I'm not exactly wild about these either. The elbows have pretty poor range of motion, especially for just being bare arms, and his hands are sort of contorted into very specific positions. He comes with a couple of cool shotguns, and really he can't hold either one of them in a very realistic firing position.
The color scheme is as we would expect, with the black shirt, excellent pattern on the camouflage pants and the green straps down the torso. Flint has a great wipe of dirt on his boots, and essentially looks pretty much like the vintage figure.
Flint's accessories are pretty much a combination of what we've seen with other versions. He has his backpack, Duke's pistol, and the shotgun he came with originally, but as an added bonus he gets a more vintage accurate sawed off as well, which would have been very cool, except that the Battle Pack version brought it to us first.
The weapons are nice, and they suit the figure well.
Ultimately this is a great update to the G.I. Joe Warrant Officer. However, it's not quite as nice as the Battle Pack version, so the score must suffer a little for it. I'm very happy that Hasbro thought to give us this nicely done update, it just seemed odd to be getting two figures so similar to each other within weeks of each other.
As an Anniversary homage, this Flint does his job well, and is probably more accessible than the Battle Pack one, but if you have a chance, I would definitely recommend the other, it has more to offer for probably a similar price point on the secondary market.
GRADE: 
