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Old 06-13-2012, 12:54 PM   #1
Scrapper6
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Scrapper6 Reviews G.I.Joe Retaliation Single Cards Wave 1

Since I am in a Joe mood with collecting of late and since most reviews online tend to be relegated to Youtube videos I decided I'd play my hand at reviewing the figures one at a time as I pick them up.

So each post in this thread will be a review for one of the single carded figures, all of them may eventually get picked up, as of now I only have plans to pick up a few, I may change my mind on that subject. Not too sure. Maybe if TRU or somebody has another half off sale then I might pick up for cheap the figures I'm not too crazy about to provide objective and concise reviews of each figure.

If the Mods wish to merge this thread with the Cobra Fangboat review I did last night, I say if you must, you must. That being said let us get on to the first review.

1) Cobra Trooper:
a) Packaging: I feel that Hasbro has taken a step back as far as packaging goes throughout the Retaliation Line, with the Vehicles it isn't too bad, sure it's generic looking with The Rock and SE gracing every aspect of the packaging where the Logo is found, but at least the Vehicle Packaging still has pictures on the front of the box of the vehicle in action.

The same can not be said of the single carded figures. We have a boring, plain ordinary looking bright red card, the image of the Arashikage Dojo is clearly seen with a massive bright explosion of some sort behind the character/figure in-package.

This may be designed to draw the kiddies eyes, it may even be done to make all of the packaging uniform throughout the line. The plain truth of the matter is, these cards are utterly forgettable and if it weren't for the simple character blurb on the back with character/toy specific images you could easily dump them in the recycling bin if you wanted.

The character blurbs are another point against this style of card backing/packaging. Gone are the impressive File Cards that has been a stable of G.I.Joe since the 80's (not sure if they had them with the Manly Action Doll of the 60's.) instead we have a one sentence blurb in english, french and spanish detailing the 'function' of the character in package.

The packaging is not as nice as PoC, 30th or even 25th packaging, it isn't even as good as the previous movie packaging that at least had character specific art on the front. And we shall leave it at that.

b) The Figure: Hasbro has done away with the accessory laden figures of PoC and 30th and replaced them with accessory light figures. They have also taken some of the articulation points out, I heard that these figures were no longer going to have wrist articulation, and yet all of the figures I've picked up so far still have swivle wrists. Was it the super articulated pivot wrists that the fans were talking about? Not sure.

Each figure has less accessories, but, each figure also comes with a gimmick. Rather than the line wide gimmic of RoC with the giant missile launchers, Hasbro has instead opted for some different and some might even say kid-friendly items.

The Cobra Trooper includes the following: One large gun of some kind, which fits loosely in his hand and can come out when played with excessively. Removeable blue harness with holster attached and a small pistol, the harness includes molded in detailing which looks pretty damn neat, plus six molded on canisters of some type. Possibly gas grenades.

He includes as well a removeable blue helmet. The color of blue has been likened to Neon. This is incorrect, while the blue is bright and certainly different from the more toned down realistic angle that RoC/PoC/30th had going for it, the color is in no way as jarring to the eyes as a bright neon color would be.

The final accessory comes in two parts, another blue harness that is worn over the figure and attaches to the gimmic accessory. A real working Cobra Parachute, again for emphasis, A Real Working Cobra Parachute!

This accessory hasn't been seen since the heydays of G.I.Joe back in the 80's, it is a massive parachute emblazoned with the Cobra symbol, made out of a very durable feeling material. The cords attaching it to the harness clip on by two uh clips and are quite long. The parachute is bigger than the figure, and, as advertized on the packaging, it really works. (Mind you I've only tested it at short range, so the figure tended to fall faster than the parachute could open, but it still works. And would work great being dropped from two stories up I'd wager.)

Two things, the instructions tell you to throw the figure up at an angle to make it work. This method doesn't work as well as if you'd dropped the figure from a height, also, by throwing him his gun will fly out of his hand. And the wrist along with it, as the joint in the right wrist is a rather loose fitting one. Not so much as it will fall off at a mere look, but it can pop off easily when excessibe play is in effect.

Also the helmet does not fit on too snuggly, so the helmet will also fly off.

Lastly we shall discuss the figure itself, now that the accessories are out of the way. Cobra Trooper includes a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, elbows, swivel wrists, ball hinged hips, swivel waist (Possibly also on a ball joint), single hinged knees and no ankle articulation.

After having experienced double-hinged knees and ball jointed ankles since the 'Modern' Sculpt Era of Joe has begun, this can be a real shocker to some of us. However the figure's are not losing out on articulation completely, not as badly as some might have you believe. And they can still strike some great, dynamic looking poses, though hand support is sadly required. You see Hasbro opted not to include Figure Stands with this line, something that doesn't entirely hurt the figure, but it does mean you're going to have an odd figure out on your Joe shelves. Since all of them are lacking in figure stands they will definitely stand out amongst the rest of your display.

The sculpt of the Cobra Trooper is still the same level we've come to expect with Modern Joes. He looks great, he's got realistic looking body armor and his pants bunch up at the boots like they would on anyone wearing that type of outfit. He doesn't look entirely like the Cobra Trooper you'd expect or are familiar with from the Comics/Cartoon. This is the movie version of a Cobra Trooper I suspect, and he pulls it off nicely.

His fully covered face with red goggles and a black ninja-like mask make sense since this is meant to represent a Cobra Paratrooper in essence, and they might need masks to prevent anyone from seeing their faces when Low-Altitude Jumping into enemy territory.

Also, the dull blueish color of his uniform also makes sense for night-time paratrooping. And helps I'd imagine to keep him less visible on a clear sunny day. Possibly.

Anyway, this is total wall of text by now so let's get down to the finisher.

Overall, while some may find the changes to their beloved Joes a bit jarring, Hasbro is still hitting things out of the park. In this fan's opinions Retaliation Joes are still impressively sculpted and great, fun toys overall. Even without massive amounts of accesories. The packaging on the other hand is a definite step back and could have standed to at least feature something to make it stand out from all the other Marvel Movie Toylines Hasbro makes. After all this is their own IP.

That being said, I shall give this figure a solid 4 out of 5, that may be a tad generous, but remember this guy comes with A REAL WORKING COBRA PARACHUTE! That right there bumps it up a notch in my books. Be forewarned however, this figure's stance is a bit wide, and while I have had no problems with getting him to stand on a shelf, it is possible that there are some who will be harder to stand than others. Edit: By which I mean warped knee joints, as the ball jointed hips do allow him to change his stance, but the knee joints are a bit looser than the double-jointed knees of the past and could be warped during the construction process to the point where one or the other is out of alignement.

Last edited by Scrapper6; 06-13-2012 at 01:05 PM.
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Old 06-13-2012, 04:24 PM   #2
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Re: Scrapper6 Reviews G.I.Joe Retaliation Single Cards Wave 1

I'm going to hold off on reviewing too much more this week, since I haven't picked up everything I want yet, hopefully that'll change by the weekend so I can review more stuff.

But anyway, here's my second Single Card Wave 1 Retaliation Review.

2) Red Ninja:
a) Packaging: Really the same as all the other wave one figures, check out the review with Cobra Trooper.
b) The Figure: This is a repaint of the Renegades Storm Shadow mold, which sadly I have not managed to get yet from the 30th anniversary.

This Cobra Troop Builder is articulated out the wazoo, with 16 points, the full range of most Modern Joes. We've got ball jointed neck, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, ankles, double-jointed knees and pivot wrists. The articulation is perfect for a ninja character, and the repaint of the mold looks great.

Acessory Wise he comes with only four things, a removeable black belt/bandolier combination, two black handled silver bladed ninja swords and of course the gimmick weapon/accessory. This time it's a Zip Line, which I haven't tried out yet, it comes with 2 ft of string/line according to the packaging and features a lot of different methods for using it as a zip line. There's clips and hooks and grips and... Well it's tricky to explain, all I know is the thing probably works great. Unfortuantely there is no storage place for it, the zip line is also a really large chunk of plastic that, when attached via his arm to the Red Ninja it makes the arm top heavy.

Overall, while this figure is highly impressive and the sculpt looks great as an upgrade for the Red Ninja, it does suffer a little bit. While you could technically store one of his swords on his back by slipping the blade through the bandolier, it doesn't sit nice. The articulation is awesome for a ninja character, and the odd jointing of his feet means you can get some pretty damn cool poses, I just wish that Hasbro had not omitted the back scabbard or something to store the swords with.

The zip line is also, while impressive, quite cumbersome and has no storage for the line proper so you have 2 ft worth of string hanging off the thing.

I'm probably going to get a little flak for this, but I'm sticking with a 3.5 rating for this character. It's a great figure, don't get me wrong, and I can't wait to pick up another one for my troop building. I just feel that with the lack of proper sword storage capacity and on top of the generic looking packaging this figure will stay 3.5. The Red Ninja in the Ninja Showdown set appears to come with more accessories, I can't wait to pick it up to compare the two versions of. Hopefully on the weekend I can get that set.

Current Ratings: Cobra Trooper 4
Red Ninja 3.5

Edit: Darn it, forgot something monumentally important. The swords will not sit in the hands very tightly, they love to fall out at the least little adjustment of the arms for different poses. That's another reason why he has such a low rating, despite being repainted from a very in-demand version of SS.

Last edited by Scrapper6; 06-13-2012 at 04:27 PM.
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Old 06-15-2012, 11:04 AM   #3
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Re: Scrapper6 Reviews G.I.Joe Retaliation Single Cards Wave 1

Haven't managed to snag a Joe Trooper or CC yet, which is most unfortunate. But perhaps the weekend will net something.

Anyway, the last review of a Retaliation figure I own so far.

3) Zartan:
a) Packaging: Do I really have to say it folks?

b) The Figure: I'm going to be perfectly honest, this figure was one I initially planned on skipping. Then I decided that I didn't want to not take advantage of the half-off sale from last week to the best of my abilities, so I snagged this dude up.

At half price he's a really impressive looking figure in spite of his odd gimmic choice. He's also one of the most toned down almost 30th style Retaliation figures out there. In that he doesn't include any ridiculously over-the-top over large missile launcher or other strange accessory/gimmic.

I was mostly drawn to the sculpt on this figure, it is wickedly cool. Meant to convey Zartan in some sort of, I don't know, ninja battle suit or something (for when he's disguised as either of the two ninjas I suppose) the figure's sculpt and coloring looks pretty damn sweet. There is a lot of impressive detail, even with the nerfed articulation this almost looks like it could be a more realistic (IE non-Mohawked) iteration of Ninja Force Zartan. (Or some have claimed he looks like a hold over sculpt design from Renegades, personally I just don't see it.)

He has a decent number of accessories too and best of all, with exception to the spare heads for disguise purposes and the large crossbow weapon storage for all of them. Both blades can fit into the sheath that attaches to his back-pack and the small pistol he's sporting has a place to slide in on the back of his hood/chest armor piece. (Although it doesn't clip into anything due to the nature of the soft rubbery plastic used, still it mostly fits quite snuggly even when moving the figure around. Only when you cause the rubber holster to flex a bit will the gun fall out... Or, holding him upside down helps with it falling out too. But why would you ever display Zartan upside down?)

His articulation is the standard with Retaliation, he's got the single jointed knee, ball jointed hips, shoulders, elbows and head, swivel wrists and of course no ankles. The head articulation is slightly hindered while he's wearing the chest armor/hood combo, although his head will still turn inside of the hood it looks odd for him to be turning his head sideways to look at something without the hood moving. You can turn the hood with the head though, however this has the unfortunate side affect of knocking the scabbard/sheaths for the swords or the bolts for his crossbow backpack out of alignment. The hole in his rubber hood/chest armor piece is enough to keep the backpack of your choice from falling out completely, but it will pop out of the peg hole on his back. If it ever slid in there to begin with, I suspect the hood hole is for holding the backpack while he's not disguised and the peg hole is for holding the backpack when he is.

His hands are just a wee bit large due to the sculpt, so his weapons, while not snuggly fitting in, are noticably looser. I haven't had any issues with any of them falling out, except for the crossbow, but that thing is so big and top heavy as to be forgiven for constantly falling out of loosy-goose hands.

Now on to the gimmic, ordinarily Zartan includes alternate heads for making disguises, this is still the case here. The difference is, that with exception to the Snake-Eyes head, all of them include light-piping eyes. Apparently movie Zartan's eyes glow to distinguish when he's in disguise instead of suffering from some odd allergic reaction the sun turning his skin blue. Go figure.

Zartan's regular head includes a strip on the top (which the hood accomodates by having a slot on top) in green light piping plastic. The light piping effect is... typical of the gimmic, it looks decent enough, I just don't expect my human action figures to have glowing eyes. So it's kind of ho-hum for me, and really detracts a little from the heads, considering he won't be wearing his hood with the other light-pipe heads so you're stuck with a human figure in disguise with a noticeable strip of clear red plastic in the hairline/mask-line (for SS' head).

Each head represents a different disguise, we have the Snake-Eyes head, which looks pretty damn sweet on this body, and almost as if it were meant to fit in. Next for some odd reason Zartan is wearing this dark grey/black ensemble while disguised as Storm Shadow, the white masked head looks a little bit out of place on the darker body, it isn't a very convincing disguise, I would have preferred it if Hasbro included a soft good's white coat or cloak of some kind to cover up the dark body to better reflect the disguise, as opposed to the useless third head.

That's right, he's got a fourth head (third for disguises) and the packaging doesn't even call out who this is supposed to be. Is it Flint? The President? Storm Shadow without the Mask? (Highly Doubtful as it looks more like a military guy or something, not the Asian face of Storm Shadow) It's just there for the kiddies I guess, so Hasbro can say, heeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy kids disguise your Zartan figure with even more heads with light piping functions!

So Zartan comes with eleven accessories in total, aside from the Joe Trooper I believe that is the most accessories any one figure from wave one comes with. He's got four heads, the hood/chest armor soft rubber removable piece, the large crossbow, the extra bolts in backpack backpack, two swords, a back mounted scabbard set for both of them and a smallish pistol of possibly futuristic Cobra design. (Looks more like a laser pistol than a bullet toting one.)

Overall, I find myself really digging this figure when I thought I wouldn't honestly like it, due in part to the gimmic. The sculpt is fairly impressive, the storage capacity for the accessories that mean anything is great, and even the head swapping gimmic isn't too bad, though it loses a point for the horribly out of place light piping plastic on three of the four heads. Slap the SE head on this mold and it looks almost like it could be Snake-Eyes. So that's a bonus right there, and since the figure does not have any Cobra Symbols on him anywhere the disguise feature works out. It might have been neat though to see a tiny symbol painted onto the removeable chest armor piece, as I do like my Cobra operatives to be sporting their allegiances somewhere, but it isn't that necessary.

So ratings I'd have to go with... A solid four out of five for me. As always the packaging detracts half a point off from the figure and I'm just not too crazy about the light piping gimmic. Also, who the heck is the fourth head meant to be Hasbro? Just who?
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Old 06-16-2012, 10:34 AM   #4
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Scrapper6 Reviews Retaliation Ninja Showdown

Early Morning Review Time, and while not technically a single card item, I felt keeping everything to one Thread would be a good idea.

Ninja Showdown:

a) Packaging: I think I've made my stance on the Retaliation packaging pretty clear by now, however let's bring up a few things Hasbro managed to do right here.

The three packs are packaged in open window boxes with diorama set pieces, these are great for two reasons, one the packing doesn't look as generic when you can see a dynamic looking cardboard diorama piece in the background to help showcase the figures.

And two, you have the chance to see everything in the set to make sure there are no QC issues with the figures. It could still stand to look less like a Nerf Gun design though, seriously I hadn't noticed this until just recently, but Hasbro's Nerf Gun toyline has packaging with a very similar orange background on it. It's so similar in fact that my mind was tricked a few times while checking out a store thinking they were actually Retaliation items. Could this be why Hasbro chose this route? To trick Nerf Gun collectors into buying Retaliation? Or more than likely is it because the same guy made up both packaging designs and just lost the creativity that day?

b) The Figures:

We'll start with who I feel is the weakest of the three, not because of any design or sculpting flaws, but because Hasbro loaded him down with way too many accessories and didn't give him even a scabbard for his sword.

Storm Shadow. The sculpt of this figure reminds me of some of the SS figures we got during the VvV days, which isn't all together a bad thing as many have pointed out the similarities between Retaliation SE and the VvV SE who shares similar sculpt and design elements.

He's got all of the standard points of articulation we've come to expect in our Modern Joe figures, the full range of motion with 16 points, head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles. The paint job is pretty meh though. I mean he's white, with gray to accentuate some of the molded details, and he does have a huge Cobra Symbol on his chest, so yay he's showing his allegiance. In fact there's a less noticeable symbol on his mask too, Hasbro couldn't have made it harder to see if they tried. Red on Gray, that is not going to work unless the red used is either neon or a really bright almost pink tone.

Accessories wise Storm Shadow is packaged in a way that he seems to be intended for the following, two silve kunai, a silver sword that looks too short and kind of reminds me of the swords I used to have with my Ninja Force figures, a collapsible bow of some type, some have said compound bow and a large bladed staff weapon.

The accessories are a nice step up from the lackluster single card approach, however, first of all he doesn't have a scabbard, so he can't keep his sword on his back while he's wielding the bow or staff weapon. Secondly, his hands are a bit soft and like to let go of the thicker weapons easily, I'm afraid the hands might warp because of how soft they are. Then he doesn't come with any arrows for the bow, which apparently originally came with Spirit. And lastly, while the kunai are definitely impressive they can't be stored anywhere, if his belt had, had a little notch or something to hang them off of by the hoops on the end that would have been great, but there's nothing.

All in all it makes this character come off as one where Hasbro was just like, people want the weapons, the fans are telling us they don't like the lack of accessories, so throw some of our ninja staples in with this set and they'll be happy. It's as if no actual thought was used in giving us these weapons with this figure.

This is why Storm Shadow, in my opinion, is the weakest of the three.

Moving on, we'll go to Snake-Eyes next. A strong contender for the best looking movie version of SE out there so far.

Snake-Eyes has sixteen points of articulation, due to the rubber vest thing his waist... or ab or whatever you want to call it, I mean it isn't exactly at the waistline on the figure, but it's easier to just call it wast articulation and be done with it... Anyway it is surprisingly not hindered.

All the joints work nicely and mine didn't seem to be too tight or loose, except for the ankles. His feet are a little bit looser than the other two ninjas in the set, which is a real shame, so far though he hasn't toppled over or anything so it isn't affecting his balance too much.

Snake-Eyes' sculpt is awesome, when I first got him out of the package I said there was something familiar about him, and for good reason, he's based on an older VvV sculpt I used to own.

Accessory wise Hasbro put a little more thought into this one, he's got the same two swords and scabbard that Zartan came with, these are in a more traditional black colored plastic as opposed to the blue and dark gray of Zartan's accessories though.

He also comes with two guns, I have no idea what type they are because I never really memorized gun types, all I know is that one of them has a silencer that is removeable, which extends the barrel. It looks cool and that's really all I care about. He can pretty much hold all of his accessories at once, with his swords on his back and both guns in each hand he's fully capable of keeping all of his accessories while on display/the shelf.

Coming back to the sculpt for a moment, I am just seriously blown away by how impressive looking he is, compared to the single carded version this SE is just so much better, the single carded figure I keep looking at on the shelf, debating with myself whether I should get him or not, he's just so bland looking though. And here we have one that looks not only better, but is even a much better version than the original RoC SE I have.

If Storm Shadow is the weakest of the bunch than Snake-Eyes is easily the strongest and well worth a pick-up, even if you don't want the other figures in the set, I'm certain there are some out there selling him loose already on E-Bay at ridiculous prices. Do yourself a favor and get him any way you can, if you're a fan of SE then he's a must own version.

One minor note, while he can hold the swords his hands look more like they were sculpted with the guns in mind, and with the hilts of these swords being so much thiner than the one that comes with Storm Shadow they may have a tendency to slip out. A minor issue for an other wise great figure.

Finally we come to a personal favorite of many, the Red Ninja.

But wait, Red you say? He's more black than red?

Yes, while this is basically just a repaint of the single carded Red Ninja with a mostly reverse color scheme, all the black is red and all the red is black except for the arms, it is still called a Red Ninja.

Hasbro really made him different, you can have two Red Ninja from the Single Cards and this one and you'd have a pretty interesting trio of ninjas, two grunts and one squad leader. Or... Well we'll get to that in a moment.

Articulation is all the same, accessories however are not. This Red Ninja still has the same zip line, once again in reverse colors, it's all black not silver like the back of the packaging indicates. And it's still the same length of rope, 7ft. (I originally said 2ft, but I got the measurements for feet and meters mixed up, it's actually 2 meters worth of string, it's really a lot of string.)

Now, the back of the packaging says he should come with one of the sai, while Snake-Eyes get's the other, but I really think he's better off with both. As he can hold one in his hand while the other slides quite nicely into the bandolier allowing for complete storage of the accessories.

He's also got a claw, which is a lot nicer than the ones I have with RoC Storm Shadow and Kamakura, I'm not sure on the technical name of this weapon, but this version clips on over the arm and then has a bar for him to hold. His hand doesn't actually want to hold the bar though, not in any ordinary way at any rate. The weapon still fits snuggly over the arm and stays in place though.

As for the sai, well I'm glad they included them with this mold, because of the way the fingers are sculpted he can either hold it by the handle, or like Raphael, you can have him hold the weapon with his fingers sort of looking like they're wrapped around the three blades, which doubles the cool factor.

Hasbro introduces a new type of accessory with this set, one I've never seen before, it's an overtly large Chinese styled hat, the kind worn by rice pickers to keep the sun off. It looks unique and adds a bit of real world autheticity to the figure. I don't think I'm explaining it right, it's a cool looking hat is all I can say with very impressive sculpting details. And it's a very durable hard plastic.

Ok, almost done, bear with me folks. Red Ninja also includes the same mask that Temple Guardian Snake-Eyes from PoC had. This accessory takes an ordinary looking Red Ninja and transforms him into the Cobra Ninja Slice, at least that is what a lot of fans are repurposing this figure as because of this accessory. I'm pretty torn between this idea, on the one hand it's cool because I always loved the look of Slice, I remember the Ninja Force figure I had and played with many times in my youth quite fondly.

On the other hand, I really like Red Ninjas too, so if I repurpose him then I lose out on having a Red Ninja Leader to command my Red Ninja army. Decisions, decisions.

Overall, this three-pack is a damn fine set and well worth picking up. It includes three ninjas, with a large array of accessories, weapons and the packaging looks some what better with that awesome diorama piece that, as a bonus, won't get damaged by removing the plastic figure holding thing because Hasbro knew some of us would want to keep it intact for our displays and packaged it a certain way as to not damage the look of the artwork on the front of the carboard.

There is only one real issue I have with the set, Canadian Retail Price. It's 29.99 normally (32.99 apparently when TRU wants to have a % off sale, damn bastards.) which is a huge dissapointment. We're talking no value at all. These three-packs are 20$ in the states, esentially it's like buying two figures and getting one free. But in Canada it's like buying three figures all at once and paying the exact same price as three figures on individual cards.

Definitely wait for a sale if you can, right now they are 25% off at TRU, which due to the price increase mentioned above, doesn't really give you as much value as I calculated it would based on the actual price of 29.99 it should have been, f'ing TRU! But it is still a deal, and less than thirty dollars after taxes, so well worth the pick up.

You get a great Snake-Eyes, a versatile Red Ninja/Slice (If you want to repurpose him as such) and an ok Storm Shadow. Plus loads of ninja accessories and a nifty looking cardboard diorama with the image of a snow topped dojo/temple somewhere on a mountain. Definitely worth the sale price.

Rating, forgot the rating...

Three Pack Rating: 4 out of 5
Storm Shadow Rating: 3 out of 5
Red Ninja Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (I know same as the single card version, but I really don't think he warrants a full 5 out 5, he's got a bit better accessories and all that, but he is a repaint.)
Snake-Eyes Rating: 5 out of 5 (Yes he is just that good in my opinion, his sculpt is excellent, his accessories are great and he's the stand out seller from this set.)

Last edited by Scrapper6; 06-16-2012 at 10:47 AM.
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Old 06-19-2012, 10:46 AM   #5
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Re: Scrapper6 Reviews G.I.Joe Retaliation Single Cards Wave 1

I should probably save this for after I pick up more figures, but what the hell, if I find a G.I.Joe Trooper at retail to own and review at this point I'll be one of the more extremely lucky guys out there. That being said... Onwards and Upwards!

Review #4 Cobra Commander:
a) Packaging: Been there, done that, generic as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! :lol

b) The Figure: A lot of fans complained heavily about the design of Cobra Commander's outfit and mask in Rise of Cobra, so much so that even the film maker's took the complaints to heart. I'm not sure entirely how the switch is going to play out in the film, however I'm confident that we'll still see CC in his old RoC outfit when he's let out of the prison before adapting the new look.

A lot of people are complaining that this figure is not entirely movie accurate, to them I say this, as the main villain of the piece I'm sure we'll see a lot more Cobra Commanders before Retaliation ends as a Toyline and I'm sure we'll see an entirely movie accurate sculpt. For the time being though, is this figure really so bad because he's not screen accurate?

And to this I reply, hell no! Retaliation Cobra Commander looks pretty damn impressive, we've seen the same basic body armor with silver battle mask design from good old CC for a long time, the progression and evolution of the sculpts on these figures has always been impressive. So much so that each different iteration is a worthy pick-up by Joe fans and Collectors alike.

We've got the standard figure articulation for most Retaliation figures on this one folks, he's got shoulders, elbows, neck, waist, wrists, hips and knees. No ankles, no pivot in the wrists, no double knee, but this level of articulation still has great potential for poses and maintains the fun factor for the kids.

There are two different paint jobs, blue a standard Cobra Commander staple and black, some thought that the black would be only available as a chase variant and in the amazon four pack. This is erroneous, in fact I haven't seen a single blue version at mass retail, which is a real bummer because I prefer blue over black when it comes to Cobra Commander. To me blue is standard while things like black and crimson are more dress uniforms used for special occassions.

The sculpt on this figure is utterly brilliant, his battle armor looks like actual kevlar, his legs have cobra symbols on the knee guards and his battle mask... This thing looks like it would need to be put on in layers, first of all he has his standard silver faceplate, which is over layed by the helmet resembling a sort of wrap-around style of helmet... At least I think that's the style it would be likened too, I'm no good with descriptors sometimes.

Basically the helmet resembles a cobra's head, four teeth are placed at key points around the area of the silver face mask, looking as though they are keeping the face mask in place, the back of the helmet has a design pattern reminiscent of a open cobra hood and there are two red eyes painted on the upper part of the front with a smaller protrusion resembling another cobra head. It is one killer represenstation/interpretation of Cobra Commander's battle mask.

Accessory wise he has very little, a removeable blet with bandolier filled with pouches for storing... who knows what. A large light gray automatic rifle or machine gun and a smaller pistol mounted in a hip holster. And of course the gimmick of the piece, a large three pieced Cobra Headed staff.

This accessory, while looking very cool for the kiddies and some of us who happen to dig the look of this style of accessory, does suffer from a few noticeable flaws. First off, it's oversized. It is way too big, thus becoming top heavy when Cobra Commander holds it, even more so if you have the missile sticking out of the mouth. Yep it's an overgrown missile launcher disgused as a snake's-head staff.

The details on the staff are quite nice, and I kind of wish Hasbro would have included a smaller version with similar sculpting as a sort of alternative to the huge gimmic one. For one thing a smaller version wouldn't look so out of place and ridiculous in Cobra Commander's hand and also it wouldn't drag him down by being so top heavy.

Even the missile has nice sculpted detail, almost resembling a flaming burst of snake venom.

Overall I'd have to say this is a worthy successor to the name Cobra Commander, and the figure as a whole really stands out as one of the more livelier designs based on the Commander's battle mask in recent times, he's certainly more imposing and threatening looking compared to his Renegades Counterpart.

Ratings wise I'd have to give him a solid 4.5 out of 5, he's really a great figure and even in spite of coming with a gimmicky over-grown missile launcher, the launcher itself has great sculpted details and isn't too bad, if it weren't so top heavy I might even be able to get the Commander to hold it and wield it like he's doing on the back of the card without toppling over every five seconds. Again, why did we not get figure stands Hasbro?
Worth picking up, I might even say he's worth picking up twice if you can find both blue and black versions for retail price.
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Old 07-03-2012, 04:53 PM   #6
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Re: Scrapper6 Reviews G.I.Joe Retaliation Single Cards Wave 1

Bit of a delay here folks, was being patient before I reviewed my next figure so I wouldn't be zipping through them so fast.

Good news, found a G.I.Joe Trooper.

Bad news, this is not that review. :lol

5) Conrad 'Duke' Hauser Figure Review:
a) Packaging: Again we've been through this, it's bland, it's terrible, it's just plain boring.

b) The Figure: By now many fans of Joe have grown sick and tired of the numerous versions of Duke Hasbro continues to push down our throat.

It's gotten to the point where most reviewers tend to gloss over a Duke release in favor of someone more impressive and exciting. I'm going to do my best to treat this review as an impartial observation of the figure and not a I am sick of Duck Bitch Fest

This figure includes standard Retaliation Articulation. He has ball jointed shoulders, elbows, hips, neck and single jointed knees with swivel elbows.

The sculpt work some might call unoriginal, or perhaps something that doesn't fully stand out. I share some of their sentiments, however I feel that this Duke's sculpt is fairly decent and looks like a suitable upgrade to the Reactive Impact Armor from RoC.

He's pretty much dressed in regular army greens with silver body armor and black belts to break up the monotony. There's even some detailing where you can see the armor has been scuffed up with dirt and wear. Really, if you ignore the fact that this is just another Duke the figure sculpt is highly impressive and could almost work as a generic soldier's body.

The head sculpt bears passing resemblance to Tatum, it isn't as exact as some of the RoC figures, for one thing it doesn't look as screwy as some of the Duke figures looked in the RoC line. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, basically it's kind of a hybrid facial design that looks almost as close to Tatum as possible while retaining the more angular cheek bones of the PoC Dukes.

Here's where many of the complaints come into major play. The accessories, granted he doesn't come with a lot, but a lot of fans seem to think he has the weakest and least impressive accessories of all the first wave, with possible exception to Roadblock and his molded in weapon holding hand.

First up, he has this big honking multi-round weapon with a hollow chamber and a grenade launcher molded into it, all in all an impressive weapon, if it weren't for one glaringly obvious problem. Whereas most of the Retaliation figures recieved ordinary colored plastic weapons, or plastic that at least could fit in without being too obviously out of context, Duke has his weapon in a brilliant shade of orange.

Seriously, his weapon is orange, and not even a bright neon Orange, but more like a puke colored half-tan, half-orange hybrid that is a dull russet tone. Basically his gun would fit in great next to the Joes of the 90's and their neon plastic arsenals of the bright blue, green and yellow variety.

I can't fathom why Hasbro would do this, the sculpt work on this piece is sheer brilliance, it looks and feels like a real world gun. If it weren't that damn orange color it would be perfect. As is... Bleahk. This is the first time ever where I'm seriously tempted to take a sharpie to something, maybe even dip it into a bowl full of black pain and then highlight the details with a clear white or rich silver coloring to better match what a real world gun should be.

For some odd reason the weapon also has a hollowed out space in it, I'm not entirely sure what for, unless you're meant to stick Duke's other hand inside of it to make it look as though he's two handing the thing while in use.

The other accessory is equally cringe worthy to most fans, but for me, this is basically the entire reason for why I bought this figure. The sheer fun factor.

First is the piece included to balance the weapon when Duke is holding it/using it, once again that god awful orange plastic is used for a piece of shoulder armor/mounting. It snaps on quite securely and has a ball socket to hold the ball joint on the massic missile launcher.

This missile launcher is thankfully not orange, instead it is a similar tone of green and silver to the paint job on Duke's uniform. It attaches quite snuggly onto the smaller orange gun via a clip system similar to Prime Megatron's weapon for mounting on his arm. The fit is quite nice, and as a bonus when it is attached Duke can still be stable even without a figure stand, his balance is not too overtly threatened when using this weapon.

The missiles themselves are a clear orange color, looking quite similar to the missile with Cobra Commander, they fire from the weapon via a rip-pull cord similar to the Rip Attack Vehicles from RoC. This Rip-Cord is sadly the same puke orange color as the rest of Duke's weapons.

The gimmick works quite well though, each missile is intended to fire in sequence as the barrel rotates while you pull the rip cord along. The missiles fire quite far and quite effectively, you could easily lose them if not careful.

Pulling the rip-cord while Duke is holding the weapon may be a bit ungainly and awkward, in fact it could even serve to have your figure no longer wanting to stand. I'd recommend removing it first from Duke before using it to shoot the missiles at your Cobra Display.

The launcher is a fun addition, it looks and feels like something a Joe would be using in the field if a bit on the oversized side of things to better interact with the kiddies. It's a fun weapon that could even be used in a kitbash of a Transformer if you wanted, the sculpt on the weapon is pretty darn impressive and the small ball joint is situated in such a way that I can already envision many different uses for it as a piece in kitbashing.

As a small bonus the figure's ball socket joint for the neck is of standard size, if you were so inclined you could give the body the second head from the Joe Trooper and make it Not Another Duke on display.

Overall I rate this figure a solid 3 out of 5, while he is yet another Duke and his accessories coloring could have used some major overhauling before seeing release, he's still a solid looking figure, he does the job of being a Retaliation version of Duke quite nicely and his overgrown missile launcher is a fun toy to actually play with, with a world of possibilities. Some might criticise the rip-cord launching mechanism, personally I feel that just adds to the fun. It's a real shame that most kids will probably lose it after a few days if not careful causing the functionality to drastically decline.

Really there is nothing inherently wrong with this figure, aside from the coloring of the weapons. And I say give it a shot, you might just like it.
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Old 07-06-2012, 09:43 PM   #7
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Re: Scrapper6 Reviews G.I.Joe Retaliation Single Cards Wave 1

I find myself in the unenviable position of reviewing a figure I have already reviewed, so to speak. So we shall mercifully be brief with this one I believe.

6) Storm Shadow:
a) The Packaging: Been there, thrice, seen the movie and bought the t-shirt... moving on.

b) The Figure: Single Carded Storm Shadow is the exact same mold found in the Ninja Showdown set, previously reviewed in this very thread.

The sculpt work, the articulation are all identical to that figure, so we'll just cover what is different with him for this release.

Storm Shadow's paint work is much lighter in tone for the single card release, the white is a softer tone, not as sharp and bright as the Ninja Showdown version.

Instead of the huge Cobra emblem on his chest he has a much smaller one located on his right; the same parts of the Ninja Showdown version painted dark gray/silver are a much lighter gray/silver this time around, and thankfully are not on his mask. The same coloring is used for the parts painted black on Ninja Showdown SS.

There are a few odd paint inconsistencies I failed to notice or mention about the Ninja Showdown SS, some of them which carry over between to two versions, some of which do not.

The pieces of armor for the shin are only painted on the front this time, not all around like on the NS SS, the strap used to hold them on is partially painted clear around the figure, for some odd reason the back piece just under the knee joint is not painted silver.

The pattern on his upper torso, which comes down from just under the large necked collar and frames his chest, does not go all the way down to the lower torso. There are sculpted in details on the uniform which would seem to indicate the silver paint job is meant to continue, but it seems Hasbro opted not to do this.

(I get this would be better explained with pictures, however seeing as how these are text based reviews, and Storm Shadow is predominantley white making it harder to capture close ups of the detailing, you'll probably need to see the figure in person or images online to get what I'm saying/talking about.)

And I promised a short review, heh, heh. Accessory wise Storm Shadow includes two different sized silver blades, with black handles, a back mounted sheath to hold them, more like a holder though since it's a small rectangular piece of plastic and not a typical length of the blade style holder/sheath. And the large kiddy gimmic zipline.

These might not seem like a lot of accessories after getting the PoC Desert Battle Storm Shadow or (if you were lucky to spot it at retail) Renegades SS. However they are serviceable enough for a figure meant to represent the Cobra Ninja.

The zip line is a huge, back mounted item capable of swapping places with the smaller sword holder, it is billed as being a 1.5M zip line, and functions fairly much the same as the Red Ninja Zip Line, although the bulky looking main body of the accessory is definately a tad on the oversized side.

Here's the really fun part though, since NS SS didn't include the small sheath, you can let him hold the Zip Line on his back for display/storage (if you have both) and regular SS can keep the ordinary sword holder on his back. This small rectangular chunk of plastic can hold either Storm Shadow's swords, or some of the accessories included with NS SS which had no storage.

The Kunai fit relatively ok using the blade, or, if you open up the compound bow you can snap it snuggly into place on either side. And of course the spare sword from NS SS can also fit if you prefer, although that sword doesn't seem to look entirely right while inside either of the two slots. So I opted not to let him store it there. This thing should have been included with NS SS, it would have bumped up his grade a little.

Overall, due to the lighter color scheme and the fact that he includes weapon storage, and a fun looking zip line accessory I'm going to have to give Singe Card SS a slightly higher rating. We bump him up to a solid 3.5. While both color schemes are great and do not detract too much from the overall sculpt of the figure, the added weapon storage ability and the fact that his weapon storage can also be used to include some of NS SS's extra weapons if you so choose/happen to own both, allows for the first iteration of Retaliation Storm Shadow to be a solid must buy in my opinion.

Especially if you can find one at Wal-Mart right now, as the one I got him from had marked down Joes to 8$ a piece. Don't know if it is all Wal-Marts, but it's a damn fine deal, I'm half tempted to say that Roadblock is even worth it at that price, but then I remember why Roadblock isn't on my list of figures to pick up.
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Old 07-07-2012, 11:10 AM   #8
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Re: Scrapper6 Reviews G.I.Joe Retaliation Single Cards Wave 1

Well folks, until the next % off sale on the Joe Vehicles and Three-Packs we've reached the end of my reviews for the time being. Unless I change my mind and pick up SE's single carded version... But that being said, I wanted everyone to get a chance to read SS's review I posted last night before adding the final review.

And this is going to be for what many are saying is the best SC release from Wave One of the Retaliation line, let's see if they're right.

7) G.I.Joe Trooper:
a) The Packaging: Yadda, yadda, yadda.

b) The Figure: G.I.Joe has long held itself as being the unique soldiers and characters that represent the best of the best. There has only ever been a very small contingent of Joes who are the Joe equivalent to Cobra's massive faceless army of troop builders.

Steel Brigade, G.I.Joe Pit Commando, Greenshirts these are pretty much the extent of Troop Builders on the Joe side.

And now Hasbro introduces us to the G.I.Joe Trooper, some fans call it the Master Chief of the Joes due to certain similarities. Personally... I don't think so.

The Joe Trooper is the only non-ninja from Wave One to get the full treatment when it comes to articulation. He has the standard 16+ points of articulation, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists (swivel and pivot), abdomen (hampered by his Tac Vest), hips, double-knees, ankles (rocker and standard ankle articulation whatever it's called.)

As a faceless Joe Footsoldier or Stormtrooper this character comes with a veritable armory of accessories, but first we'll discuss the sculpt work and details.

He's a solid looking figure with some great work on the details, his uniform has many creases and things molded in to simulate someone who's been out battling on the front lines for a while, he's got pouches, straps, everything. His sculpt work is highly impressive, comparing him to someone like Steel Brigade or the Pit Commando I'd have to say he could almost surpass them. Though I think the SB has a slightly more nostalgic advantage than good ol' Joe Trooper here.

The green fatigues and the initial head sculpt look is why people liken this to a HALO inspired figure. The Joe Trooper's primary head (the one he's got straight out of packaging) has him wearing a full facial environmental protectiv helmet. It's design appears to be made up of two parts that go over the face hidden underneath, the first part is the front facial mask a sort of airtight thing to protect from the sands of the desert or the harsh cold bitting winds of the arctic tundra. There's hints of a rebreather or gas mask around the mouth area and opaque blue eye protection, like a visor or something to filter out harsh lighting conditions.

It is all very HALO like, but since I don't follow HALO I'd have to say it is what it is. Perhaps inspired, but not directly related.

The second part of the mask/helmet is the cap looking piece, seeing the sculpt you can clearly see where the seams for both halves of the helmet would be located, if for example the Joe Trooper were to wear only the part that looks like a Military Cap/Baseball Cap thing and not need the mask part for the harsh environments thing. Am I being very clear?

Ok, enough of the sculpt work and stuff, let's move on to the accessories!

No zip lines, no overgrown missile launchers, no funky weapons of any sort. The Joe Trooper is, an all environments foot soldier for the Joes who comes loaded for bear, that is his gimmick and that's all he needs.

He has... Removeable Black Tac Vest, Removeable Double-Knife Sheath (A very loose accessory held on by a simple peg in hold, it likes to come off fairly easy), two distinct and unique looking knives with each one having their own sculpt/design for said sheath, one large tan (Or blue variant) protective cloak (for concealing body in desert environments I'd imagine, the blue perhaps works well in urban environments? I don't know, it's a really neon looking blue and I don't have it personally yet in my collection), three large rifles/automatics of varying types, two pistols, two smaller hand-held revolvers (I think), one spare head with mohawk cut (Think Ninja Force Zartan, only less obtuse), an extra gas mask for entering truly hazardous areas (tan or blue depending on the cape/cloak), one orange spade/shovel/trowel and a large gray backpack for storage.

And boy are we talking Storage, much like with certain members of the PoC line (Snow Job) this figure can hold all of his accessories (Unless you don't want to hinder his articulation for poses in which case the cape/cloak is an optional item for full on stoarge); his backpack is sculpted to include four seperate holsters for all of the smaller pistols, a large something-or-other where the extra gas mask helmet sits, an indent with a peghole for the tacky looking orange shovel, two L shaped grooves where the stocks or two of the rifles can slide in to be held in place (or the handle of the third gun which doesn't include an ammo clip/stock thing.) and, where the peg is situated for sticking into the backhole there is a special scoop for holding the spare mohawk head. (It will not however hold the HALO head when you switch them around unfortunately.)

I look at this figure's load out and I can't help thinking, Lone Soldier surrounded by Cobra Troopers, he exhausts the ammo in one gun and moves on to the next and the next, and in the end, if any are still standing he can beat them to death with the shovel. When it comes to Joe Troopers they have to have something of an edge over all the faceless grunts of Cobra, and this accessory load-out is definitely that.

The only serious flaw with these accessories is the orange shovel, it is actually made in the same gray plastic as the rest of the arsenal, Hasbro went out of there way to coat it with this, tacky neon 90's era Joe orange that is much brighter than Duke's duller orange weapons and still just as obnoxious. If they wanted to make it a different color from the grey why not simply mold it in black or silver? A rich silver colored shovel with a brown painted handle would be a lot more realistic.

Remember those land mines that came with City Strike Firefly? There are two non-removeable sculpted in mines on the top of the backpack, that's something that is a nifty looking molded detail.

There are only two problems with this figure aside from that orange colored shovel accessory. Minor problems at that, when he's all kited out with his gear he can be extremley back heavy to the point where you have to fiddle a bit with the legs to get them just right, and speaking of the legs, the sculpted detailing of the pants legs are both a blessing and a curse, the numerous folds and creases in the pantlegs makes it very difficult to get this guy to actually have straight feet. (I half suspect that the lower legs below the knee were inadvertantly turned the wrong way round in construction, because the feet will actually flatten out better when facing backwards.) This flaw in his feet means that he has a bear of a time standing with straight legs. And getting him to stand completely straight with his backpack on is all but impossible. A real pain and semi-aggravating design flaw.

It wouldn't be so bad if Hasbro had kept the figure stands in.

Overall rating, Solid 5 out of 5 for me. Minor flaws and problems aside this figure is well worth the money, there are no large missile launchers to worry about, and he's decked out with so many guns he could be a one-man killing machine all on his own. Considering how difficult he is to find at Retail I'm not alone in sharing this belief, even the Scalpers are going after this one as opposed to most of the others, not even the ninjas are being scalped as bad as the Joe Trooper is. And he's one to a case, making him really tough to track down. I'm hoping to get a second one, and perhaps a third one if I wind up with two tan versions because I'd kind of like to have one tan and one blue, but I'll take my Troopers where I can find them.

That's all from me for the immediate future, once I get the other three vehicles and the Ninja Dojo set expect to see this thread updated again, and I promise, once I have all of Wave One that I'm interested in I'll take some pics and stick them up here in their own seperate post so you can get to see the figures I've been talking about. Bye for now, and YO JOE! (Or if you prefer, COBRA!)

Last edited by Scrapper6; 07-07-2012 at 11:15 AM.
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