Good-Bye, Geo Cities

The once free Yahoo service that allowed anyone to create a half-assed fan sites and personal info pages ends today. So many derelict geek pages that have sat there, not updated for years, will be no more. *Sniff* History will record that on this day, Picard destroys the Tox Uthat...wait...what?

No site will be missed more by less people than the original COBRA CABANA website, which for years was sponsored by a collect calling service that went out of vogue in the 90's.

Korean Bootleggers had G.U.T.S.

At some point some Korean bootleggers decided to cash in on G.I. JOE. Instead of doing anything "kewl" that American fanboys would rave about years later on message boards, they copied Mattel's G.U.T.S. army men line (specifically, the jungle fighters series), produced them in single colors and put them in G.I. JOE style packaging.

































































They also made a kid-sized toy sub machine gun. The artwork features a grimacing soldier with a thigh-mounted missile launcher clearly based on the 1990 version of Metal-Head. Note the obligatory space base in the background. Japanese and Koreans can't have simple military fantasy, they have to work in space ships, robots and giant monsters. It's not like in the USA, where we have G.I. JOE, which is 100% realistic and believable.

Packaging You Weren't Meant to See

Every so often some relic of the unproduced 1995 series of G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO appears on Ebay. Most of the time these items are bought for substantial sums of money and disappear into the collections of people whom, for whatever reasons, don't wish to share pictures of them with the rest of humanity.

One planned item for 1995 was a recolored Transportable Tactical Battle Platform, renamed "Battle Station", which was to include recolored versions of Big Ben and Snow Serpent V2. The package artwork reveals unproduced 1995 Battle Corps Rangers figures and a strange crab or insect headed creature we can safely assume was a new enemy. Despite the mix of short-sleeved characters on the art, the Battle Station was intended to be part of an arctic series.

Most of the text of the Snow Serpent's file card can just barely be read.
Snow Serpents are the arctic equivalent of Cobra's elite frogmen, the Eels. They are trained to fight under arctic conditions that would give a polar bear frostbite. They don't mind fighting in the frozen north and they have been equipped with special thermal packs to circulate warm air through their suits and through the working parts of their weapons. Their latest mission: to attack the G.I. JOE Battle Station positioned in the North Sea. Destruction of the station is vital for Cobra to initialize (?) a blockade of shipping lanes. [Can't make it out] prone (?) to be a mission from which the Snow Serpents do not return.
















We have to wonder why no fan site saved these images and hosted them. Who are they afraid of offending? Any copyrighted material technically belongs to Hasbro. The images aren't watermarked. I haven't heard of anyone selling them for money at conventions, etc. So what's the deal? Why do some nerds with too much money sit on interesting finds? Who are they trying to impress when virtually no one even knows they have the items they have? If they are saving them for a book or some sort, they must be taking their time in making it.

Wacky Brazilian Package Artwork

By wacky, we mean slightly amusing to a very select group of people, because all blogs are required to make lists of stuff only geeks would find interesting. This usually involves swiping pictures from other sites and then adding commentary that is supposed to sound insightful and/or humorous.

Early on Estrela, the company who produced Comandos em Ação for Brazil, used copies of Hasbro's G.I.JOE package artwork. Later, they came up with new or altered art to better reflect the action figure characters available in their country (and because they were too cheap to include vehicle drivers!).


1. Abominável da Neve, which we know as the Cobra Wolf.















Yes, operated by Brazil's evil version of Blizzard, co-piloted by Croc Master (like the American art work), and who's that on the side but Hydro-Viper (or whatever he's called in Brazil). Yes, deploying a wetlands reptile trainer and deep sea divers in arctic conditions makes a lot of sense.


2.Avancer (Giro Triplo de Avanço) , better known to North 'Mericans as the Swamp Masher.














Brazil was ahead of it's time. In 1992 they decided ninjas make awesome attack vehicle drivers, something Hasbro didn't do until 1993 with the Ninja Raiders.


3.Aerocóptero de Extermínio aka The Mamba.









What is this, the G.I. JOE cartoon? A Tele-Viper gets to pilot, while the suicide pods are manned by a B.A.T. and Cobra Commander, well...he's not actually Cobra Commander in Brazil.


4. S.A.P.O. (Sistema Avançado de Propulsão para Ofensivas), the infamous Cobra Pogo.












Ciclon, Brazil's version of Overlord, was actually Destro's second-in-command of the Brazilian version of the Iron Grenadiers. Playing second fiddle made him so hopping mad that Ciclon chose an appropriate vehicle to reflect his mood. What is it about Cobra leaders and their one-man death traps, anyway?


5. S.T.A.R. (Super Tecnologia Avançada em Rastreamento) , Battle Force 2000's Vindicator in the States.














Seems like a typical G.I.JOE package artwork of a vehicle in motion while all its weapons are firing. But look closer, who is co-piloting the hovercraft? Dodger! What happened to Dodger's ride...is a wrecked Marauder (U.L.T.R.A. in South America) just off camera? Perhaps this doesn't depict a combat team mission at all, but Blaster and Dodger out shooting people's mail boxes for laughs.


6. Feroz, the Hammer Humvee.









Hey, ninjas make great vehicle gunners, too! Dress Blues are appropriate in combat. And who'd let Psyche-Out drive? I'd let freaking Lightfoot drive before I'd let Neon Leon behind the wheel, don't care if he is an officer. (Moving on before it becomes obvious I'm padding the list with a lackluster entry.)


7. Estação Náutica De Ataque, a recolored version of the Cobra Battle Barge.


















Someone at Estrela thought that a floating machine gun nest was more suited to the heroes than the villains. And they thought it should be army green. And they were right, actually. You can polish a turd! But why would Slaughter and friends sit out in the lagoon for hours waiting for low flying enemy aircraft? (Barbecue seems to be shooting at the water for some f'ed-up reason.) Maybe they had something else going on. Hmmm...


8. Hidroélice de Emboscada , a dark red Cobra Water Moccasin.













Estrela "crimsoned" a vehicle before Hasbro did! If you actually own this version, you can trade it for the soul of any U.S. Joe collector. It's that damn desired to fans who know it exists. Notice that the operator here is Snake-Eyes V2, who in Brazil is an enemy "Black Cobra Commander". Also of note, Crystal Ball stole Cobra Commander's pistol. And the armored "Cobra Commander" on the side is a brave man, because there's no hand rails and if he falls in the water, he's sinking an anvil.


9. Torpedo, a Brazil exclusive from 1986.











This Torpedo contraption was such a high speed deathtrap that no known character operated it. Instead a Breaker-Short-Fuse hybrid was recruited, and apparently perished before making it to action figure form. But, hey, there's an easy lazy custom for fans, Torpedo Operator, Code Name: Short-Break.

Fun Facts About Cobra Characters

Now we know...more than we needed to.

Fun Facts about G.I.JOE Characters

Knowing is half the battle, the other half is watching your back around your "team mates."

Beware of Hawk-Offs

Back in 1997 Hasbro, under the Kenner brand, released the "Stars'n Stripes Forever" boxed set that would've been awesome but was in fact NOT (this is fact, as no one has ever rationally convinced the world otherwise). Due to missing molds and/or a rushed production schedule, Hasbro wound up reusing parts of Hawk V2 from 1986 to make both Breaker and Rock'n Roll figures. Breaker was made using Hawk's head, along with Hawk's legs, Roadblock V2's torso and waist and Gung-Ho V1's arms (including flesh-colored wrist watch!). Rock'n Roll only received Hawk's manly mug, the rest was created from Roadblock V2 (1986). Rarer "black Ripcorded" variations of this Rock'n Roll exist with dark skin, these are considered prized pieces by the few people who give a damn about the 1997 releases.













In 2000, as part of The Real American Hero Collection, Hasbro made a recolored, talking backpack-free General Hawk (1992) that was renamed "General Tomahawk" and the package billed him as an all new character even though the file card's information was identical to that of Clayton Abernathy, the original Hawk character. He had a bizarre stone washed jacket that looked like it was smeared with chocolate syrup and blue web gear for some stupid reason.

What's all this mean? It means...Dennis Quaid-looking figures are cooler by comparison. Sometimes nostalgia finishes in last place.