Figure Subscription Service 2.0 - Lt. Falcon

Of all of the faults that the animated film from 1987 had, what bothered me the most, even back then, was that they took Lt. Falcon and turned him into the "gold plated goof off" who somehow required a former wrestler's tutiledge before he could be considered a true soldier. Forget that he was a Green Beret and forget that he would have had to have maintained a level of professionalism before even being invited to the G.I. Joe team... he was just a reckless hack who essentially took every short cut possible.

I know the Sunbow series specialized in keying in on specific personality traits to make their characters interesting, but in my mind this was almost at the level of Bazooka's sub-80 IQ of items about the animated series that I found too distracting to get over. As such, I've focused mainly on the Marvel Comic to engage my opinion of Lt. Falcon, and thankfully he comes across as much more capable there and much more the field leader that I see him as. It's because I love Falcon so much that I was so incredibly disappointed in his 25th Anniversary version, and ended up quite pleased with the one we received with the Slaughter's Marauders 7-Pack. However the cost-effective nature of the 7 pack meant they had to be a bit creative with their paint applications, and as such, the sporadic camouflage on that Falcon figure took a bit away from him, I thought. As a result, I strongly feel that this version of Lt. Falcon is the best version of this character that we've received in a very long time.

Using all of the tooling from the Marauder's 7-Pack version, including the new head and removable beret, this Falcon looks awesome and current with some great bulky tooling and impressive Pursuit of Cobra level detail. I believe the torso is from the 25th Anniversary Dusty, with arms and legs from the PoC version of that same character. His hair color here is brown instead of black, which is vintage accurate. Articulation matches the sculpting here, and the figure is quite poseable as well as being very detailed. I find myself amazed at the level of sculpting within the head as usual, with the swept back hair and jawbone being quite distinctive.

Now, I know the whole Night Force Falcon debacle at the end of the 25th Anniversary line made a lot of collectors long for a truly vintage accurate version of that figure. I'm thrilled that the GIJCC did not go that route. Instead of lightening up the colors considerably to match the gray and green of the Toys "R" Us repaint from the 80s, the Club elected to deco this figure in a way that very nicely compliments the other members of their own Night Force set from last year's Convention. A great move, and this figure fits into that aesthetic perfectly.

ACCESSORIES

Looking at his accessories, this Night Force Falcon has the best of all worlds, for the most part. The removable scarf and beret are great, as well as both shotguns. His nicely green backpack contains all of the same separate radio and knife components as the 25th Anniversary version, and that was probably the best aspect of that older figure. One interesting change, however, was the Club's decision to go with the Cobra Trooper webgear rather than the one released with that older Falcon figure back then. I can only imagine they did it because it fits over the newer, bulkier torso better. I have no major issues with this webgear in general, and I'm surprised it doesn't look as dated as I thought it might at first.

The end result is a terrific figure in this Figure Subscription Service, much to my own surprise. While I generally prefer more new concepts and less straight up repaint of retail offerings for my $25 per figure investment, I can't argue with the fact that this is a great update, and a perfect compliment to my new Night Force team. His final score is down a bit, simply because he is a repaint, but there are enough good elements to warrant a purchase, in my opinion.

GRADE: