classified – European Joe's

An officer and a not so gentle-woman.

It seems like I’m getting a nice stream of new figures every week now, you’d almost think that their is a lot of stock everywhere. The sad reality is though, these are all figures that have been on pre-order for quite some time. Whatever the case may be, I’m happy to say that some new figures have arrived again.

First up is another Crimson Guard, the Classified version this time around (remember, last time we had the Retro Carded version). The figure itself looks pretty much the same, although this version has a black helmet and holster on his left leg, where the Retro Carded one has a silver helmet and red holster.

We’ve had the officer, next up is the woman. And what a woman it is. Let’s take a closer look at Zarana.

She is fierce looking. Definitely not someone to mess around with. She also comes with quite a set of weapons in the form of a dagger, a (bloody?) red bladed knife and a rifle with what looks like a small circular saw underneath. If that doesn’t scream, Stay out of my way, I don’t know what will.

I’m not the biggest fan of the headsculpt. It’s nice that you can change her hairstyle, but the face/expression is a bit to hard for my taste. The details on the jacket are really beautiful by the way. The zipper, the silver shoulderpiece and the strap on her left shoulder truly make the figure stand out. That and the bright pink.

She looks so much better in the artwork. Kind of reminds me of Harley Quinn or maybe Danger Girl from J. Scott Campbell. In any case, Marcus Williams really did an awesome job on this. I’m not saying that the artworks are the best thing about these series of figures, but I’m not denying it too. The style reminds me of the 90’s-00’s comics we got from DDP, somewhat cartoony maybe, but I really like it.

I want to end this post with a shout-out to TBHstore.nl. I bought these 2 figures from them (and have a lot more in pre-order). They always package the figures with the greatest of care. They can keep some things in storage, so you can group pre-orders and save on shipping costs. They are truly passionate about action figures and that shows in their service and dedication to their customers to deliver the best possible shopping experience. If you haven’t checked them out, do so now and I promise you, you won’t regret it.

That’s all for now. More is on the way, but you’ll have to check in later to find out about that. For now, as always…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Can you check my pulse?

Several years ago, I was looking to buy a Nest mini for my home, but they weren’t available in our country (where have we heard that before?). I browsed the internet and was able to find them with a big German website. Unfortunately, they didn’t ship to Belgium. After some research, I found a site where you could get a German address to ship your parcel too, they then stored it if needed for up to a month and then ship it to Belgium. The fees were reasonable and so I bought 2 Nest speakers and had them shipped over to me. The whole process went very smooth and I honestly kinda forgot all about it. It never occurred to me to shop in Germany before that, and frankly, I never shopped there again. That is, until very recently.

You see, Hasbro has made Pulse available in some parts of Europe (UK, France, Italy, Spain & Germany). However, they only ship within their own country. I was looking around the site at the pre-orders for the Classified Dr. Mindbender and Serpentor. I was actually able to put them both in my basket and move to the checkout. Then it became clear that I would need an address in Germany because I couldn’t enter my own address. And then I remembered that I used this mailing service years ago. I looked it up and sure enough, the service is still up and running and my account was still functional (I’ll look over the GDPR issues for this once).

I placed my order and now the waiting game was started yet again… And the waiting will be even longer since today I received an email from Pulse that the delivery of Mindy & Serpy will be delayed to April-May 🙁

On a positive note, I also ordered a Classified Retro Crimson Guard figure from Hasbro Pulse Germany and they shipped that one out to the German address. I promptly received an email from the storage/shipping company and I just had to pay for the shipping. The same day, the package was prepared for shipment to Belgium and 2 days later, it arrived on my doorstep.

Well, you’ve made it this far into my story. I guess it’s only fair that we start looking at the figure. Here we go.

The figure itself is really nice. It looks exactly like the Crimson Guard figure we know and love from the 3.75” line. It comes complete with a rifle (with bayonet), pistol, backpack, dagger and sword. All in all, a very complete and nice looking figure.

The helmet is fixed, so no way of knowing if it really is a Fred Series Siggie underneath there. Still the silver look is more suitable for the figure than the black mask on the Classified boxed figure in my opinion.

The back of the card does resemble the old school cards, but the description is now in 5 languages and only 3 other figures are shown. Retro? Yes. Interesting? Somewhat underwhelming.

As I mentioned before on the review of the other Retro Carded figures, the cardboard of the card is very flimsy. It’s truly a miracle that the card arrived here after being processed twice by shipping companies, in a very good state. It’s still straight and no bends or tears. Still, I would really appreciate it if would be thicker (that’s what she said!).

That’s all for now. Keep coming back to read more about Joe and see me getting Dr. Mindbender and Serpentor from Pulse, hopefully somewhere in the near future. More Classified figures are on their way, keeping track of these pre-orders is nearly a fulltime job. See you next time.

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

This ain’t no love bug, Maggots!

The first package of 2023 has arrived and what a package it is. Number 53 doesn’t match the Love Bug this time around, but the one and only (if you’re not counting the Valaverse Action Force figure), Sgt. Slaughter.

The box art on this one is unique in the fact that we get multiple versions of The Sarge. Top left is his WWF pose, top right looks taken from the comic books, bottom right from the cartoons/movie, front and center almost looks like a picture and then bottom left is the actual figure ‘s upper body. Somewhere in there is also a detail of his fist clenching a Classified Figure that is holding his mini-figure that is also included.

Also on the side, the art is lifelike and looks the part. Being a windowless cardboard box again, we also get actual photo’s of the figure on the back of the box. Including the actual size of The Sarge, which is, truth be told, not as big as I would have guessed. Still, he’s probably very imposing in the flesh.

That’s all for now. See you back soon. Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Why you too should join the Culture Club.

Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma Kamakura
You come and go, you come and go
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams
Red, gold, and green, red, gold, and green

Mostly green though. And some silver. This package just arrived today straight from that big river store in the US of A. It’s also my first figure that comes in the new all cardboard packaging.

I get the switch from the windowed boxes to these full cardboard ones, it’s less plastic and less cardboard and will probably be more cost effective as well as better for the environment. If it’s better for us as collectors? The jury’s still not out on that. I personally like it. The art has always been great on these Classified figures and this way the focus can be more on the art. What I don’t like is the fact that the size is different from the other Classified figures (I guess I could just open them all up to counter that). The small picture of the figure on the front bothers me. They have all this space to let the art pop from the page, it feels wrong to me to put a picture of the actual photo on the front, they can (and do) that on the back. I’m guessing it’s some legal obligation. All I can say is that it ruins the art. I know, with the window boxes you could also see the figure, and you’re right in pointing that out, but still, that is completely different. They should have fully embraced the new packaging and went for an full-on art attack with these boxes.

On the back of the box, we get a complete view of the figure, complete with a ruler to show the actual size of the figure. I genuinely think this is a good way to show off everything that’s included in the package. Keep it like this, don’t put a small picture on the front and take attention away from the art. Especially since the same image (but larger) is re-used on the back again.

On the back, they also reprinted the photo from the front, this time instead of the bust, the complete figure in an action pose. As I said before, this should be enough, I don’t need to see it on the front.

As a side-note, when will we be getting an official checklist for these figures, comparable to the little pictures we used to get on the back of the cards of the 3&3/4 figures? I know this is also probably not done in a way to keep the production costs as low as possible, but still. How cool would it be to have a small poster inside these boxes with an overview of the classified pictures on one side and then an action shot on the other side? Maybe we’ve been to spoiled with the European catalogs we got in the 80’s and 90’s, but still, I’d really would love to see that make a comeback.

That’s all for now. More new Classifieds coming soon I hope. Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

This week’s lucky numbers are …

Of the top of my head, or better yet, straight from the lovely people over at In Demand Toys via the postman into my collection. Number 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41 & 42

Lucky numbers – I messed up the order – I know, but this way, it’s 3 red ones, 2 blue ones and again 3 red ones. Symmetry trumps numerical ordering…

Waiting for the numerous pre-orders can be long and hard (at least that what she said), but it also means that sometimes, you get a big box of goodies all at once. This week, my mailman dropped of a box of 8 figures. Let’s get into it.

We start of this big delivery with number 33, my second B.A.T. I recently got the first one in, so I won’t go into much detail here. Click the link above to read the post on this one.

We continue with the #34, the Alley Viper.

This one is again a 6 inch update of the classic 3.75” figure. The bright orange with blue accents is really popping and resembling of the original figure. The High-Vis orange is not very subtle, then again as urban assault troopers, they do stand out in the crowd. They come fully prepped with several weapons and of course the iconic Cobra Shield.

This is a perfect example of the hommage the creators of the Classified Series try to accomplish with this figures. The Alley Vipers have been a fan favorite army builder and I truly believe that this figure will also find it’s way to collectors in multiple amounts rather than just the one. I know I have ordered another one 🙂

As the art shows, you can’t just have one Alley Viper…

Next up is number 35, Storm Shadow, the second version in the Classified series, but resembling the original Storm Shadow figure from 1984.

I feel like I keep on repeating myself here, but Hasbro has really found the sweet spot between updating the figures and keeping them familiar enough for the adult collectors to keep on buying them. One could argue that the first Classified version closely resembles the 1993 Ninja Force 3.75” version of the figure, but it doesn’t get any more iconic than this all white ninja look for Stormy.

We’ve arrived at #36, 2 figures if you count the animal companions as separate figures, we have Spirit and Freedom.

I’ve always made a point of pointing out how great the artwork is on these classified boxes. This time though, I’m not a big fan. It’s far from ugly, but it just doesn’t work for me like the other figure’s art has done. As ever, art is very personal and I’m sure others will like this style a lot, but I’m not feeling it. It’s like the Tom Scioli TF vs G.I. Joe comic books, some people love the artstyle, I had to force myself to read them all. It’s Joe, so I did have to have them and I read them.

As with the Storm Shadow figure, this one closely resembles the original 3.75″ figure of Spirit that was released in 1984. This time around, Freedom gets a huge update and becomes an actual toy with moveable legs and wings, rather than a simple plastic animal accessory.

I’ve been looking for Freedom, I’ve been looking so long.

Up next, it’s #39, another Joe and I might add a European Joe, it’s Tiger Force Stuart “Outback” Selkirk.

Although the original 3.75″ figure was released in 1987 (with the bright ginger hair), we got the 1990 Tiger Force repainted version with the white hair exclusively in Europe. It took me quite some time before I realized that the regular figure even existed. I only knew the TF version, later on, in the comic books, I saw Outback in his white ‘Survival’ t-shirt and with the red hair.

In case the bright orange t-shirt didn’t give it away, the package also clearly shows the Tiger Force logo.

The artwork here is again of the highest quality. With the move to full cardboard packaging later this year/next year, I truly hope that they push the artwork more to the foreground. If I have any complaints about the artwork, it would be that they limit it to a small corner of the front of the box (and some details on the side, but there it gets a blue/red haze).

From the Outback into the Wild, we have arrived at the #38 figure (yes, I just discussed #39, read the text under the first picture to know why). It’s Croc Master and Fiona. Again, 2 figures really – not including the itsy-bitsy baby crocs.

Fiona and Croc Master (from left to right).

If I was to channel my internal Hector Ramirez, I’d be asking: Who was Fiona? What did she do to make an extremely nice G.I. Joe toy designer name a crocodile after here? An ex-wife? Mother-in-law? Annoying boss?

The figure itself is again a very well executed hommage to the original 3.75″ figure. If you can believe it, there have been 5 versions in the 3.75″ line of Croc Master (and only 1 of Scoop – come on Hasbro, give me a Classified Scoop – I know, there was a G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club Figure Subscription Service volume 5 figure as well of Scoop, but I’m not counting that one)

This brings us to #41, the Python Patrol B.A.T. Again a beloved sub-line that gets some new TLC from the Classified Crew.

I don’t know if we ever had the Python Patrol figures and vehicles on the shelves here in Belgium. I never had any of them as a kid, that I know. As much as I love the regular B.A.T. figure in the Classified run, I have to say that this color scheme is absolutely lovely on that figure. The grey, the dark red, the bright yellow. I all just fits so well together.

Number 42 on the list and the final figure from this motherload of shipments, is another Python Patrol figure, the Python Patrol Viper.

It says Cobra Viper… which is true, but it should have said Python Patrol Viper!

Being a repaint of the #27 figure, it does fit in the Python Patrol theme, but the color scheme is not as nice as with the B.A.T. figure. Hasbro wouldn’t be Hasbro if they didn’t think about the numbers and so re-using an army builder figure in a different color scheme/sub-unit has worked in the past, and will probably forever be a money-making strategy.

They did get cheap with the accessories though; the figure doesn’t come with a scarf. Pro tip for the Joe team: AIM for the exposed neck!

Wow, that was quite a list and an exquisite set of figures if you ask me. With the prices going up (not just USD vs EUR vs GBP), but also pretty much everything else getting increasingly expensive, I must face the reality and change my attitude from “I have to collect them all” to “This one is nice to have, that one I can skip”. There are still some pre-orders on the way, but going forward, I’m not counting on getting every figure that is released. Does that make me sad? Yes. Does it also mean I can keep my house warm and have food on the table? Yes, it does. Priorities must be set and as much as I love G.I. Joe – and if you’ve been following the blog for a while (it will be 10 years in December!!!), you know I really do love the brand – sometimes hard choices must be made.

If you’d like to support the blog, there is a gofundme online, mainly to cover the costs of running the website and the rest will go to the Classified H.I.S.S. tank fund, because if I have to stop collecting, I want to go out BIG! Feel free to share the link with friends and family. I know it’s challenging times for everyone, but every little bit helps.

Thanks for making it to the end of this long post. See you next time!

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!