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Hasbro- GI Joe Renegades: Duke.
I know what you are thinking: what other media can he possibly review in an effort to keep these posts semi-interesting? And let me tell you that thanks to some somewhat questionable cartoon streaming sites there is no shortage of stuff to watch and write about. In this case, to match all the GI Joe Renegades figures that I have coming down the pike, I thought I would take another look at the short lived, but surprisingly decent GI Joe Renegades Cartoon series. Before we jump into the first few episodes here are some details on the series for those who don’t want to go to Wikipedia: First premiered on the Hub network November 26, 2010 in the US and (finally) January 9th 2011 on Teletoon in Canada, Renegades followed a select group on familiar Joe characters in an A-Team style adventure pitting them against COBRA, now portrayed as a seemingly legitimate community minded pharmaceuticals company/ front for an evil terrorist organization, and the Military who thinks they are fugitives due to some sneaky tactics employed by Cobra to effectively frame them. The new series, released around the same time as Transformers Prime, also borrows heavily from the recent live action release, but stops short of being a direct sequel or continuation. The players, also most of the toys that I’ll be reviewing, should be familiar to anyone even remotely aware of what Gi Joe is and include: Duke- No nonsense leader of the group (apparently regardless of actual rank), Scarlett- Female version of Duke, Roadblock- The muscle/mechanic/apparent chef (nice touch) of the group, Tunnel Rat- The sneaky/ wisecracking guy of the group, Ripcord- The chatty wildcard of the group and of course Snake Eyes- the non-chatty ninja of the group. There are also a few supporting Joes that will show up throughout the series, but these 6 seem to be the core group. As for Cobra it looks to be Cobra Commander, The Baroness, Dr Mindbender, Firefly and Storm Shadow. I would assume that Destro would be in there somewhere, but they never produced a toy of him so I’m not entirely sure.
Just for everyone to get the flavor of the series here is the Intro on Youtube:
https://youtu.be/t6rLJyVFckw
As with all reviews these are my thoughts and will probably differ from yours, which is fine, and I’ll be spoiling the heck out of anything so, if you are really worried about the resolution of a Cartoon from 9 years ago, I would steer clear.
Pros: While I am all but over the 3 ¾ size class for figures, I still don’t mind the Hasbro keeps the fire burning for them; I just wish that they would give us some 6” figures already. I mean with Star Wars Black Series, Marvel Legends and now Power Rangers, they have the ability… In any case, Hasbro has done a decent approximation of a realistic sculpt of Duke from Renegades and matched both armor and accessories. I also appreciate the GI Joe level articulation on a figure of this size and as always love an included stand.
Cons: I think Hasbro has an opportunity with this figures and kinda messed it up. Sure they tried something new with Sigma Six, but while some people hated it, it was something new and different and led the way (in my opinion) to the now standard 6”, fully poseable action figure. I’m not saying that there is not space in the market for a 3 ¾ size class, but if there ever was a reason to push a 6’ line, this new cartoon would have been it. I also would have preferred that these figures match the animation style of the cartoon, but I’m sure that was not in the budget. Lastly I’m not entirely sure why Duke was packaged with so many of the “futuristic” laser blasters. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of accessories, but don’t bother if you are just going to throw in random stuff that he can’t even hold.
