Mauler with Heavy Metal. Loving this big hefty thing! They need to do it in a way that won't alienate ARAH fans, which is really hard to pull off. For better or worse, American exceptionalism is joined at the hip with the ARAH era just due to the time period that the toys and shows were made (the Cold War with America vs. the USSR, and the feel-good vibes of the proud-to-be-American, can't-do-wrong 80's and accompanying cornball sci-fi fantasy cheesiness of it all) and the rose-tinted nostalgia of a lot of our childhoods growing up during that era. Yeah, the international UN thing they tried to do with ROC was panned by a lot of fans and critics/mass public alike for how generically boring it was. Half the fun of ARAH Joe were the zany, colorful costumes and character themes, which was replaced with drab black and gray all-look-samey standardized uniforms/accelerator suits. I know they're a para-military unit but all the characters (aside from lacking depth and personality) blended together visually with the exception of Storm Shadow who wore all white. Retaliation kinda did the Regenades theme of the Joes being attacked/reduced in number so they became the underdogs with a kind of Mission Impossible thing going on. It was marginally better than ROC and the Rock's star power helped a bit, but it's (leaning/relying so heavily on the Rock to sell tickets with Bruce Willis along for the ride) not a recipe for long term success, in my view. But I'm hard pressed to figure out a better formula than that though. If the rumors of the Tomax/Xamot twins of Extensive Enterprises being the main villains and trying to bring the Rock back for the third movie are true, I hope they make the rest of the Joe team gel a bit better with people with action/martial arts backgrounds and not more vapid models who just look pretty but can't act/don't seem to know what they're doing.
What was your guys favorite Joe Vehicle as a kid? Mine was the Cobra Mamba. It was this badass purple helicopter with 3 cockpits. Few toys take me back as much as the Mamba. I grin like an idiot whenever I see one, which I did at a flea market today.
I also had the Mamba, but my fav when I was a kid was the Phantom X-19 Stealth. But looking back, the coolest Joe vehicle I had (that I wish I still had) was the W.H.A.L.E.
So many that rank high for me - Havoc, Conquest X-30, Devilfish, Whale, Snow Cat, but if I had to choose one the Defiant Shuttle Complex would beat them all. Happy to still own it.
I still have most of my Joe vehicles. I loved the Moray hydrofoil, the Mean Dog which was an odd but fun modular tank thing, and more recently the Rhino APC, which is about as close as Joe will get to the Aliens APC.
As a kid, the HAVOC. Besides Zanzibar's skimmer thing, the HAVOC was the only Joe vehicle I had a kid. Jaws would claim it as a Sandcrawler from time to time. As a fan, I love the 1.0 HISS tank. I've got probably a dozen of them. Multiple colors. Even got the Septic Tank which used the mold. Cobra CLAW was cool. The Trouble Bubble is classic. Firebat & Rattler's are my favorite jets. For the Joes, I loved the Sky Hawk. Skystriker is cool but the fact the landing gear are tied to the wing position annoyed me. Wish they were two separate levers.
I didn't have very many Joe vehicles as a kid, just the Cobra ASP. But as an adult, I'm very partial to the Cobra Rattler, RoC Steel Crusher and RHINO, the ARAH MOBAT, Mauler, Bridge Layer, Dragonfly, and Wolverine. The newer movie HISS tank with the real working treads is a nice one too (red and black versions). SDCC Jetfire using the Skystriker mold with fastpack boosters is great too.
Same for me as a kid. I'd cover it with Joe's like it was a transport vehicle. Now, I think I most admire the Crusader space shuttle.
I have way more as an adult than I did as a kid. My favorite back then was the 89 Crusader Shuttle. 2nd or close to a tie was the Phantom X-19. The 2011 Skystriker is my favorite now. Kept wishing it would come back. Modified 1 into a 2 seater and 3-5 with wingsweep separate from the landing gear. The wingsweep lever swings the wings but the landing gear are manually retractable. I'm trying to find a better way for 2 seat conversion. The Rattler is a very fun toy. Head exploded just thinking it's an A-10 hybrid with a Harrier. That is ridiculously.... DANGEROUS. Always did want the Night Raven too. How someone drew inspiration from the unarmed Blackbird to design a Mach 3 supersonic armed recon interceptor bomber is freaking awesome. ARAH had great designers.
As a Kid my favorite vehicules were the cobra Wolf and the Warthog. I always wanted a Mobile command center, but it was too expensive for my parents. As a collector now I've way more vehicules then back then, now my favorites are the RHINO, Conquest X-30, Ice Sabre/dagger and the cobra deviant.
The RHINO is awesome. That and the Night Attack Chopper as well as Crimson Command Chopper are my favorite vehicles from 2002-2006.
As a kid it was the Mudbuster. It was also the only one I ever had as a kid. Still have no idea why I never asked for more, probably just a case of too many things coming out. As an adult it's the Night Attack Chopper. Playing with that kind of gives me an idea what it would have been like to play with the Defiant way back in the day. Nice and beefy with a simple but fun gimmick. ALWAYS had to hide the damn thing whenever my cousins came over, otherwise it would not have all it's missiles or be in good condition.
Actually, I like the black Humvee they did for the first (live-action) movie line. That and the Skystriker. I had a tough time buying even one of those though. My friend worked at TRU at the time and bought seven or eight of them. He claims they were marked down to $25 at the time but I had to pay the full $40 or so for the only one I ever saw in the wild.
The NAC has that awesome interlinked gimmick where one press pops open the wings into attack mode, a further press rotates both missle launchers in sync and fires missles simultaneously. Very well designed toy. Heavy too! That toy did not feel cheap at all. Big ass helicopter.
Rattler and whale were my two favs. Water moccasin was cool too, but didn't do much so not nearly as high on the list. Oh, I almost forgot about the Avalanche. Now that was a great vehicle as well.
The WHALE was the best, but I honestly used it more like a playset than a vehicle. The original VAMP w/ swivel-arm Clutch was my first Joe toy, so that one always has a high rank on my list. The AWE Striker was equally awesome. The Dragonfly got a lot of use, as that rope and hook added a lot of play value to my 8-year-old self. Those early years were the best. I had a lot of the later stuff like the Mamba, Phantom X-19, Maggot, etc, but none of those hold a candle to the '82-85 vehicles in my opinion. Something about those uniform green vehicles gave the whole endeavor more realism for me than the outlandish designs of the later years. For my money, the JUMP Jetpack was better than anything from 1988
Was there in fact an upgrade in materials/finish during this release?...I'm pondering getting into collecting the 25th and newer figures but looking at some (25th Scarlett (blue outfit) they just look terrible quality-wise but then others (2011 Sci Fi) look pretty good.
I definitely noticed it around wave 5. Some figures like Snake Eyes V3 definitely felt more solid than previous figures. By the time ROC/POC rolled around, the figures felt more solid and substantial compared to the 1st 25th figures, especially from the 1st 2 5packs. Sci Fi is great, V1 Scarlett, not so much. The best Scarlett might be the Renegades one if you like the character design. The Resolute one would've been good had the head not been so big. The girl figures tended to have big heads.
See to me the SciFi was the best part of it. I'm younger than you and got into Joes around the time that it changed to the more outlandish, so maybe that's why. I'm one of those weird 80s and 90s kids. Technically a millennial because I was born after 81, the cut off. I'm all about that ridiculous, extreme side of the Joes.
