Foreign Figures: The Good, The Bad, The Mispronounced

Today I look at something that either pisses off collectors or dominates them, Foreign Joes, enjoy:

First up on the chopping block is "Abrute Negro" or Black Vulture, this figure looks decent, even though he's like 65% Dee Jay (AKA Space Gigolo 8000). The big problem is that when becoming a honky he also began looking fat. As a character he seems okay but I'm guessing he's some sort of paratrooper because motherfuck learning Portuguese.

I have a problem with the Black Vulture, as 90% of jerks who talk about him refer to him as "Abrute Negro" now I always hear it coming out of their mouths like so many cheeto crumbs as "A Brute Negro" and it bothers the hell out of me. The only other thing about him that is cumbersome is the number of custom figures of him of which 90% are part for part recreations (HAY I GET THIS, NERDS ARE CHEAP) or the occasional Conquistador because you know, Brazil is always the first thing I think of when I think of Spaniards coming and killing the natives of lands they find (for those of you who are slow witted, I'm being sarcastic. Brazil is Portuguese and I think of the Neil Young song Cortez the Killer)

The next one we'll look at is COBRA DE ACO; here's a guy who I think is pretty rad in character context, figure wise he's a neat looking but rather useless figure. Now I could talk about horrible customs or how R@RE AND EXPEN$IVE he is, but that shit is old hat, I'm gonna talk about how I always think of the greatest G.I.Joe board troll in history when I think of this figure.

Mike Fountain was a guy who was the BADDEST MAN ON EBAY. He spent a lot of money on Foreign Figures (like 500 bucks on a Ninja Ku). Fountain was best known for harassing Corey Stintson through e-mail over e-bay auctions and then going on the USENET board with his pal TONYMONTANA (who this modern day hero was we will never know, could have been Mike himself the e-mail addresses are mad similar) and harassing other dudes and coining the greatest name for Stintson in history "Corey Chump Stintson" the Google groups were also a dumping ground for his eBay auctions too. Mike had an ego too, such an ego that he had his own website. Straight out of 1998 with a gaudy background image, a bunch of random pictures and yellow text telling us how he's a warrior. A Warrior on the battlefield of internet auctions. Mike Fountain disappeared around 2000. I figure it's because he got signed by Ottawa, no one likes Ottawa. Rumors persist (between me, and Henry Miller) that he was the original Stiches, but that's probably a cop out answer as we all know that Stiches was the Mexican guy who lives with Tom Jacks, Esq.


The final ones I'll do today are Satan and Ninja Ku the South American Ninjas we all wish we have. I like these guys because it shows me that the Argentineans were awesome and not afraid of offending jerks and crucifucks when they weren't too busy making people disappear and killing communists and trade unionists with CIA money. Satan was rad because he shot arrows that turned into lasers and had a cool name (Whoa Danzig could have wrote a song about him man) and Ninja Ku was a black man about 20 years before Hasbro realized "HAY MAYBE WE SHOULD DIVERSIFY COBRA THEY'RE STARTING TO LOOK LIKE THE KLAN" which makes him cool in my books, he also had Nunchucks which is a sign of a good figure well, if you count any figure other than Storm Shadow v1 a good figure. Too bad jerks try to give Satan a lame PC Yellow fever name of "Sei Tin" which is goofy and the dudes who make Ninja Ku customs seem to forget he's got black skin and isn't another white guy.

On that note, it is the end. Remember if you don't want to look like an asshole say the english version of their Portuguese names, and when you do a custom do a decent one that's got some artistic license not a copy of something designed for children in Brazil.