G.I. Joe Classified Series

I love how we all have our frame of reference. But yeah, I didn't even know that about that movie but agree it's lame. Make it someone else!
Speaking of oul Vlad, I loved John Oliver's bit last night about the New York Times:
If the Times had been around in the 15th century, I’m guessing it would’ve given an opinion piece to Vlad the Impaler: “Drinking the blood of my enemies isn’t disgusting — it’s beautiful and courageous.”
 
It's funny as while I've been collecting Joe stuff as long as it's been around, the OG 13 weren't really ever a thing here. Originally the line was a mixture of 5 PoA and a few Joe figures as vehicle drivers and base operators, divided up among a bunch of specialist squads. Then it evolved into mostly GI Joe figures against Cobra, introduced Duke as the squad leader along with Scarlett, Breaker, Recondo, Gung Ho, Stalker, Roadblock, Flash, Airborne, Ace, Deep Six, and Cutter. Rock N Roll was renamed and used as the Wolverine driver, and conspicuous by his absence was Snake Eyes. Although our comic did have an original Snake Eyes story, which was weird as it was the first time we'd seen this guy and he didn't have a figure. He was awesome though, flying home on C-130, the plane was shot down, he lands in the jungle pursued by Cobra and Rambo/Predator's his way through the entire squad, ultimately leaving Destro to die in quicksand.

It was like "who *is* this guy, he's awesome!" and it wasn't until another year/eighteen months down the line that it finally went 100% Joe and we got Snake Eyes v2 as our first official Snake Eyes figure. This had Flint was the squad leader, introduced Jaye, Footloose, Bazooka, Alpine, Quick Kick, Dial Tone, Roadblock v2, Airtight and a few others.

Thing is though, we never had Hawk v1, Zap, Clutch, Short Fuze, Grand Slam, or Cover Girl (when I found out about her years later I was annoyed because she looked/sounded so cool). Same thing happened with Transformers, never got Swoop, Blaster, Shockwave. I always wondered what factored into such decisions, it was so not fair...fie!
 
All this talk about where we end up in the collecting/nostalgia ecosystem - anyone else have a story of knowing exactly when they were aging out? I will never forget being SO MAD when I got home from school and my little brother had Fast Draw, whom I was DYING to get, and that was when I knew I was now going to get the cast offs and lil bro was going to get all the good stuff from Kaybee Toys... (All childhood resentment aside, I've got a V4 Snake Eyes for him sitting in my office for the next time I see him cos he'll never buy one for himself and I'm NOT going to make it to his birthday before I give it to him.)
 
And Vlad IS on topic since he was sorta a character on GI Joe.
Okay I just watched Coppola's Dracula while running on the treadmill today and I"m back on my bullshit about which Joe would be which character in a Joes retelling. It's always Arthur and Jonathan Harker who trip me up. I know exactly which Joes are Quincey and Jack Seward.

Sidebar: WTF is up with Pulse pricing lately? I'm going a "existential crisis cos my Edinburgh trip got canceled" shopping dopamine thing and saw the cops are in stock... at $41 bucks a pop? Six dollar markup from BBTS and Amazon?
 
aging out?
Never did!
I’ve got lots of stories about my parents trying to *force* me to “age out”, but my love for Joe and action figures in general has been an ever-increasing crescendo throughout my life. I actually fought hard to never let go, and I’ve always considered it a key part of my identity. Hell, my love for action figures is, in my opinion, more important to my identity than my gender identity.
 
For me it was probably around that point with the V4 Snake Eyes. I did have him because it's Snake Eyes but I was not into that design especially since I LOVED V3 so much, and he had JUST gotten it in the comics. I also did get the bright green Firefly even though the figure didn't look as cool as the art in the back of the comic.
firefly-green2.gif

But I never had Firefly and was excited to have one. But I think between those two I realized my excitement for the line, and toys, was fading. It took me a little time to realize I could get them and display rather than play, then that's always been the case heh. But GI Joe was the last line I collected until I no longer played.
 
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