G.I. Joe – Page 6 – European Joe's

Trivia Time!

Occasionally I come across something Joe related that is so absurd or weird that I just can’t help myself and I need to get it. Last time around, it was a book filled with all the file cards. This time, I found a book that has all the G.I. Joe trivia a true fan should know… And we all know what knowing is.

What follows now is the product description on the Amazon page. Fairly generic (ready to copy & paste for any subject), but still very well written. /s

If you’re worried about anything, pass the time with this trivia book. It will bring you joy, make you smile, and assist you in relaxing. A number of quizzes may also be useful in learning more about the series or characters. This trivia book is just what you’ve been looking for to relax with! This trivia book will put your world knowledge to the test while also instructing you on dozens of new facts. There are a lot of interesting things to learn from issues and questions that will make you better your reasoning and problem-solving skills. There is always something new to discover! This Trivia Book is formatted into short quizzes followed by their answers to make it quick and easy to test yourself before seeing the answers first, and specific details are usually to enlarge the basic answer and add even more to your insight. Stop hesitating and choose it now because it is worth buying. There are over a thousand questions in this Trivia Book organized into a range of subjects. To make it efficient to test yourself without first seeing the answers, the categories are classified as short question quizzes that are accompanied by their explanations, and additional information is regularly added to help expand on the basic solution and add even more to your understanding.

If this hasn’t gotten you excited for this book, I don’t know what will. Maybe some pictures?

As you can see, the cover image is not an original image, but a recycling of the cover of the G.I. Joe Operation Blackout game cover art. Can you spot the minimal differences below? (Spoilers: The title is the biggest difference).

Xbox One G.I. Joe Operation Blackout Game Cover

The back cover is yet another sales pitch copy/paste text where they simply change the subject title if you ask me. But please, enjoy this lovely written proze.

Unlike some other fan books – this book does come with a title page and some sort of introduction. Ok, it’s asking to leave a positive review on Amazon, but hey, it’s progress I guess.

The author is named as Morioka Ryoichi and you may know him/her from other masterpieces as the Mortal Kombat Cookbook, the Power Rangers Cookbook, the Joe Biden Coloring Book and How To Draw: 30 Minute Drawing For Beginners With Mindfulness: The Walking Dead. After all, nothing screams Mindfulness better than zombies!

Safe to say , my expectations were not very high. And I was not disappointed. The trivia is very mixed. Some questions (all multiple choice by the way) are extremely easy, some are really detailed questions. The book is split up in several chapters.

Chapter 1 called “Overview” contains questions fairly general questions. At the end of each chapter, there is an answers page. I did say answers page, not a correct answers page unfortunately. The answer on the question What was the name of Zartan’s gang? is given as Cobra L.A. Dreadnoks is one of the possibilities though. On another question the Crimson Guard is called the Crimson Wars… The disappointment only grows.

Chapter 2, “Famous details of the series” goes into more detail. Such details as “On which day was G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was released?”(I kept the error from the book) and “Who leads the Crimson Guard?” – Hey, they got it right this time around.

Chapter 3 is called “The Comics”. It contains such comic related questions as: When was the original design of G.I. Joe designed by Stan Weston? and When was “G.I. Joe Extreme” figures were introduced by Kenner Toys? (actual question, I’ve kept the error.

Chapter 4 is titled “The movies #1” and all questions relate to the Rise of Cobra movie. Enough has been said about this movie. It would appear, the author is a fan though.

Chapter 5 has the title “The movies #2” and you guessed it, has questions on Retaliation. As with the previous chapter, not going to spend more time on it than needed.

On to Chapter 6, “The Characters”. It starts of strong-ish with questions about Snake-Eyes and Destro, but then comes the awful important character question of “How many effects companies handled the VFX of the 2013 G.I. Joe movie?”

After each chapter is an answers page as I said before, but there is also a page with some “Did you know?” trivia tidbits. The best one for me is: “Bullet Man, the weirdest G.I. Joe ever.” Now you know!

After 6 trivia filled chapters, we arrive at page 66 of 90. The rest of the book is filled with ruled pages. Yes, 12 ruled double pages to add your own questions and corrections to the book most likely.

That’s it for now. Time to put this Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts in my bookcase and probably never take it out again. Unless you want to plan a Trivia Evening, shoot me a DM and I can send you the questions.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Sweet swag

It’s got G.I. Joe written all over it.

Occasionally, I come across something Joe related that is weird or special. This time around, I was browsing Amazon to see if I could find something to add to my curiosity collection of G.I. Joe related items. The first one was an easy buy, a simple ruled notebook to keep track of my posts on the blog seemed like a good idea.

I’ve been using many Moleskine notebooks over the years and I still prefer their notebooks above any other ones, but when I saw this one for cheap on Amazon, I ordered it. It’s a softcover notebook with ruled pages. The G.I. Joe print on the front is destressed, but also not of very high quality. Needless to say, this isn’t Hasbro licensed. The softcover is smooth, not shiny. It has a nice feel to it, which is important for a notebook. The notebook contains 60 ruled pages (front and back), so plenty of space to keep track of my posts and scribble down the ideas I may have for future posts. In the back of the book, it is stated that it was printed in Italy (so are Moleskines) by Amazon Italia Logistica. For those of you that are interested, the ISBN number given is 9798798260430.

The next item is something even more obscure and definitely not licensed by Hasbro. It’s the G.I. Joe Filecards Unofficial Fan Edition 1982-1994 by Jackson Robinson.

This truly is a gem for every G.I. Joe collector. The book lists all filecards from 1982 through to 1994. I have no idea who this Jackson Robinson is. I’ve searched through the dozens of Facebooks groups, Hisstank forum and many more places and the only useable reference I could find is on a personal resume page of a man named Jackson Robinson. The site mentions that he has worked on the Hasbro team as Principle Illustrator & 3D Artist and that he “Concepted, Pitched and created the new character line look for the GIJOE Action Battlers Toy Line.” I actually have one of those figures (see Instagram). Not the best figures out there if you ask me. And truth be told, neither is this book.

Yes, it does contain all the filecards (as far as I can tell), but the scan quality is not that high for all the cards and the layout is – well, quite frankly – not existing.

As you can see above, the scans are not perfect (even worse examples follow below). This is the first page of the book. No intro, no title page, just straight into the file cards. I can forgive that though. It does show what the title implies, but still. Some little intro text might be nice.

As you can see in the picture above, the scans sometime come with tape on them and the resolution of each scan does seem to be different a lot too.

I bought this book from Amazon (printed in Italy again by Amazon Italia Logistica – ISBN 979878665415). I’m a bit disappointed in the quality, not of the book, but of the contents. It’s a great concept and easy to look something up in a book rather than to go check online (I do recommend 3Djoes over this book though). Great idea, not so great result unfortunately. Like I said, the book could do with some intro (Why this book? Who is the author? – I use this term very loosely, because everything is just scanned/stolen from other sites I think.) and a table of contents would also be nice. A decent layout would also help.

Even though this is not up to the G.I. Joe standards of other guides and books, I’m not sorry I bought it as it’s a great subject for a post and some conversation. As I mentioned before, I like to just browse online to see what strange stuff I can find that is Joe related. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of unofficial coloring books appear online. There are also a number of G.I. Joe cooking books. Did anyone ever buy one of those? Let me know if you did. I’m holding off on those purchases for now. Stay tuned, because maybe some future post will continue this bizarre book collection.

That’s it for now. Until next time. Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

It’s a small world after all…

Now that this happy little Disney tune will be in your brain for the rest of the day, you might think my work here is done. Keep on reading though, because something small has been added to my collection.

Not so long ago, I wrote a post on some small scale (one might even say tiny) Joe themed toys from Jada Toys. This week, I received a new addition for that subcollection.

As with the previous post, the main complaint I have is that this is the exact same figure that was released in the 6-pack and in the Series 1 boxset that contains 18 figures.

Other than that, it looks awesome. I’ve stopped complaining about them using the A.W.E. Striker as boxart for everything. I still don’t get it, but I just let it go (really going for all the Disney vibes here).

The vehicle itself looks really good in this 1:32 scale. Lots of details and a true little version of the original toy. The bodywork is the same as that ot the V.A.M.P. they released with Duke, so a bit of an easy release if you ask me. Still, definitely worth it.

On the back, they are now showing not only the set with Duke and the V.A.M.P., this one but also still the H.I.S.S. tank with Destro. Where is this set? Has anyone seen this in real life? I need it! Okay, that Destro figure will be the same as the previous 2 releases, but that H.I.S.S. just looks stunning. Come on Jada Toys, what’s keeping you?

That’s it for now, see you soon! Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

4 ninja’s and a First Sergeant

If they were walking into a bar, that would probably make one hell of a joke. Or a painful experience. Whatever the case may be, they didn’t wonder into some shady establishment, but arrived here in my collection.

First of, I received the 2003 figure set consisting of Duke, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. This set comes with the Spy Troops movie on DVD.

Let’s start with Duke. This appears to be the v13 of the figure, but on YoJoe.com, it only shows him being released as a single carded figure or in a set with Cobra Commander. I know that YoJoe.com is currently not the most reliable source, but these figures are almost 20 years old (just let that sink in…), so I do think it should be on the site. Maybe this was an international released pack and that’s why it’s not picked up on the site? I don’t really know. Information on this pack is very limited to people selling it online and even then, the intel is limited. If you know more about this, let me know. As you can see below, the backside of the card is aimed for the international market, not showing any file cards, but lot’s of information in many different languages.

The same goes for Storm Shadow (clearly v11) and Snake Eyes (v17). They are listed as being part of a 2-pack, but not in this weird threesome pack.

The other weird thing about this pack is the Duke figure. He’s given the ninja treatment by not having an O-ring, but being fitted with an nunchuck swinging action feature. So looking at the accessories, Duke should come with a gun and communicator device, but also with the nunchucks. Storm Shadow then gets a sword and dagger and Snake Eyes is equipped with an uzi, sword and communicator device. In short, Duke doesn’t fit in here. Put in Scarlett or Zartan and you’d get a pack that actually makes sense. It’s like trying to make Roadblock into a ninja, nobody in their right mind would try that, right?

It really is a little mystery if you ask me. What won’t be a mystery for long is the math you’re doing in your head right now. The title talks about 4 ninja’s and we only have seen two. Who could the other 2 be… Well, let’s find out. They came in a mystery box…

If you know, you’ll know the code on the box. For everyone still trying to guess, look at this next picture.

Yes, this package was ordered through In Demand Toys yet again. As with all my previous orders there, everything went smoothly and the package was delivered fast and undamaged on my doorstep. If you haven’t shopped with them, what are you waiting for? Seriously, they have everything from Star Wars to Power Rangers and from the TMNT to G.I.Joe. Check them out, buy something and tell them I sent you 😁

Now back to the actual delivery. The box contains the 2021 O-ring figures of Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes!

Similar art on the back and a lot of languages.

Now, inside the box, for now we have Schrodinger’s ninjas. I haven’t opened the box yet. All my Joes are still in storage and I’m holding off on opening this set until I can display them properly. I won’t leave you hanging though, here’s a picture I found online.

From what I’ve read online, the card backs are quite flimsy. Not the quality we remember from the original O-ring figures. The art is still the same. The plastic bubbles are also much deeper than the original ones, giving them a better display look. The file cards are on the back, but they are more of a multi-language name card rather than the classic file cards we all know and love. The figures are about the same size as the original ones, maybe just a teeny-tiny bit shorter, but I don’t have the exact measurements so I’m going by pictures I’ve seen online.

It’s great to see these vintage figures back. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the 3 3/4 inch Joes and it really is a nice tribute to the line by releasing these 2 figures (and the Cobra pack coming later this year). Did we need another set of Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes figures in the smaller scale? Probably not. I never had the original Snake Eyes figure, so this is most likely as close as I can get to the original figure without spending to much money. Also, the Classified versions of the figures do look great and closely resemble these figures. I have to say that I’m really surprised by the quality of the Classified line figures, the details on the figures and the box art. For both display value and playability, 6 inch is looking to be the new 3 3/4 inch. Bigger is better they say. I like them both and will continue to get both sizes of figures for my collection.

That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with more updates to the collection, until then… Happy Collecting and YoJoe!