25th Anniversary Line

[Paul]

still no single packs here in my neck of the woods.

I agree with Jesse about BBI and 21st C being "More" correct with their stuff than Hasbro...but there are a couple problems with their stuff when mixing it with the Joe Stuff.

Since they are true to scale, the Apache is bigger than my Skystriker.

(JJ, Wild Bill would never fly one of those, he would fly a Bell SUPER COBRA which either BBI or 21st also made and made my poor Dragon Fly look so TINY in comparison)

I have not scaled it out, but I fear the HUMVEE would be bigger than the MOBAT for sure and possibly the Mauler as well.

[efranks]

Thanks for the run down, Jesse.  I haven't bought any 21st stuff since they got out of the 1:6 business and while some of the bbi 1:6 stuff TRU was carrying a while back wasn't bad, it wasn't quite what I was looking for at the time.  I did buy a couple uniform sets and at least one weapons pack, though, and liked the stuff well enough.

I was tempted more than once to pick up a 1:18 Elite Fordces piece or two at TRU when I was buying Joes more often about 2 years ago, but never did.  I've always admired the 21st planes and equipment that WM has been carrying also, but again, never purchased any of it.

It would be fun to have a nice Humvee for my Joes to tool around in so maybe I'll take a closer look at them at Target when I head back there next.  No helos there yet, though.

On the Joe front, I found the two 5-packs at Target today and picked up one of each.  Also got a single carded Stormshadow.  Haven't opened them yet, probably sit down later tonight and go through them.

So far I have mixed feelings, though.  I opened the v2 Snake Eyes last night and while the extra articulation is nice, the sculpting looks well done and the accessories are nice, the weak plastic (as we already see in the Star Wars line) sucks.  The fact that the forward hip movement is hampered also is a big disappointment, especially in Snake Eyes.  Except for that extra kneed joint, some of the 2003 and newer SE figures are almost better articulated.

I'm going to hold off on final judgement on all of them till I get the 5-packs and the Stormshadow open.  Then I'll probably know if I'm going to be buying more or not...although I don't think I'd be able to pass up on Firefly.

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[Reid]

Stopped by Target to see if they had reset with the new 25th Joes and... No luck. They had some of the new 8 inch Kung Fu Grip/GI Joe Commandos, but no 25th product whatsoever. TRU didn't have any either, just some old DTC comic packs.

[Biffette]

The other thing that caught my attention is that there's a variant on the wolf.  I've seen no mention of this or photos on the various web sites and I'm even in the Joe club and didn't hear about this.  Two of the Snake figs had the grey wolf we've all see photos of but the other one had a black wolf with white belly.  Now, I'm wondering if there's a third variant with the grey/black wolf like there were 3 versions of the 8" Sigma 6 wolf.

So, what color wolves have you guys found so far and what stores did you get them at?

At my local Fred Meyer I saw both the white and black, but I didn't even think to check if the black was white/black or grey/black; just grabbed the white wolf and left the variant.

[efranks]

It looks like there are just 2 variations, the all grey one and the black with white belly.  It was listed on YoJoe.com and the newest newsletter from the Joe club just arrived and mentions it as well.  It must be short packed though.  Of the three on the shelf at K-Mart only one was black and today at Target they had 3 Snake Eyes figures and they were all grey.

Also, I picked up a Cobra Officer today at Target and they had the new Elite Forces vehicles socked.  There's a tank, Blackhawk and Apache which all look insane.  Didn't buy any as I don't have the space but that Blackhawk was tempting!

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[JohnH]

As much as I love the old Joe stuff, I really didn't plan on buying any of these for myself.  I bought a set of the 5-packs to take pics of for ToyTraderz, and by the time I was done I was hooked.  They are really superb figures.  A bit loose in places, but overall I'd give the a solid "A" grade. 

I'll definitely get the single packs as well now that I've had fun with the 5-pack figures.  I've seen Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes but thought I'd wait.  I'm kind of surprised that those are the two that are out there more than the other figures. 

John

[efranks]

I'm not as heavily into the Joes as I am SW but I've gotten the impression over the last couple of years that maybe Snake Eyes and Stormshadow aren't as popular as they once were.  Or, at least, that people are tired of seeing them on the shelves. 

Seemed like every wave of Sigma Six figures either had Duke, Snake or Storm or worse, all three.  Same with the 3.75" figures.  People that complain about too many Vader figures in the SW waves or the hundreds of Wolverine variants have a minor irritation to the Joe collectors and the endless Snake and Duke figures out there (the DTC waves were an exception to this problem, however).

Even the new Sigma Six-style figures that are out now as Adventure Team includes a Stormshadow vs Tiger set.  There's a Snake Eyes tomb set with cobra snake coming later on in the line.  So, I'm not really surprised that they aren't selling quickly. 

The Cobra Officer went first at K-Mart and I think I got to the wave at Target first today as all the figures from the case were still on the shelf.  Hopefully this line of figures will be a little more diverse as the DTC was towards the end.

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[Jesse James]

N/P on the rundown E...  And Paul's right, 21st made a SuperCobra (Not sure on the Apache or not though), but BBI's is an Apache...  Definitely different, but for $30 I think I'd go with BBI's Apache since it'd be the cheaper ride.  He just needs a friend to help him.

The Humvee's pretty good though...  I like the Super Humvee more personally E, but they do make (BBI that is) a tan regular Humvee too, I just haven't seen anything but woodland camo ones at Target thus far.

If I may also suggest...  Power Team Elite's Humvee's are to-scale more or less and in many litlte ways they're superior...  In other ways inferior.  They're good though, and I don't know many folks that turn their nose up at them.  They're cheap, easy to paint up, etc.  And Big Lots is to be carrying a whole slew of PTE stuff this holiday seaason.  I think PTE made like at least 2 or 3 versions of the Humvee too so you may want to wait on that...  21st has a Humvee too but IMO it's more model than toy, and thus it's pretty fragile.  They have a transport version and regular one...  I prefer BBI's honestly.

[Paul]

Finally found the single packs at Retail today.  Snagged the Cobra Officer and Flint.

Also saw the BBI stuff (Super Humvee, LAV and M1a1).

Has anybody seent the WalMart exclusive Adventure Team guys at retail yet?

[Brian]

Has anybody seent the WalMart exclusive Adventure Team guys at retail yet?

Forgive me for being a bit dumb on these, but if these are the 12" "doll" type figures in the old school looking packaging, then our local WM had a display endcap full of these the other day.  Again, I'm not very familiar with the larger Joe stuff, but they did have these on the shelves.

[efranks]

****, they're out already?  I'm worried that my WM won't carry them as they haven't carried a single Star Wars exclusive yet (or VTAC for that matter).  Guess I better start checking around.

And yes, the 12" vintage style Adventure Team figs are exclusive to Wal-Mart.  There is an 8" line of AT figures done in the Sigma Six format that are not exclusive and they just started showing up at my local Target this past weekend.

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[JohnH]

I'm not as heavily into the Joes as I am SW but I've gotten the impression over the last couple of years that maybe Snake Eyes and Stormshadow aren't as popular as they once were.  Or, at least, that people are tired of seeing them on the shelves. 

Ah, that makes perfect sense.  Honestly, these are the first Joe figures I've ever bought that were produced after 1987, so it didn't even occur to me.    I can absolutely see why collectors would be sick of seeing the two, given how tired I am of seeing Vader and others produced over and over again.

Oh, and I found a Cobra at Target today.  Sweet. 

John

[DarkKnight2k4]

ManI have yet to see any at retail. 

[efranks]

ManI have yet to see any at retail. 

Do you have a Target near by?  If so, and they reset their toy ailse, be on the lookout.  My Target finished the action figure set either Wednesday or Thursday and by Saturday they had the 25th Joe figures stocked.  They had one case of the singles and one or two cases of the 5-packs.  Not sure how they ship in a case but there were at least 2 of each (Joe and Cobra).

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[iFett]

I picked up the Joe 5pack over the weekend so I'm caught up on this stuff with the everything with the exception of the SDCC pimp Destros.

Lovin the boxed sets and the way they're set up, sadly I'm finally getting sick of the button and the theme song.   

I still plan on opening this stuff as all five of my carded figs have warped cards - but the box sets just look too pretty to open.  It's just kinda hard to give in, but I really need to populate my Joe/Cobra vehicles so I'm hoping to get around to it this weekend.