Direct To Consumer Action Figures: A look at stuff I didn't buy!

The DTC line of figures were a funny gimmick "YEAH MAN WE GET TO ORDER THESE OVER THE INTERNET NOW, AND WON'T WASTE GAS LOOKING ALL OVER TOWN!" was the original battle cry for people defending Hasbro's plans, those arguments were still used even after the Toys R Us Stores started stocking them. Also there's lots of websites run by jerks, fanboys or guys who aren't Eugene Son that have pictures of these toys, open a new window and then you can see pictures and read ths stuff.

So all 5 of you who read this, let's look at the bad figures:

Red Zone: Boy this figure has some horrible facial hair, and a terrible name "Red Zone" I wonder if we'll get Night Force All Spice and Slaughters Marauders Right Guard next. His filecard makes him out to be an asshole, saying he beats prisoners during interrogations. "HAY GUYS I ASSAULT MINORITIES AND THE INNOCENT LET ME ON YOUR ANTI TERRORISM TEAM" maybe he should've been Tiger Force instead.

Scrap Iron: What the fuck happened to Scrap Iron? He used to be a rad guy with an awesome vest, a realistic outfit and great weapons, now he looks like a cyberspace insect man wearing a full body sweater and retarded armor. Honestly why did Scrap Iron (who's character is "I hate the world and imperfection") decide "hmm, I shall wear armor that doesn't match" And good god has the ability to sculpt a COBRA gone to hell that much since 1993?

Major Bludd: Gee Bludd, poetry and scarfs losing that eye must've made you really sad

Salvo: Why the fuck did they bother remaking you?

"Med Alert": Your name sounds like one of those products for old people who get swindled easily. Why'd they bother making you, everybody has Lifeline, and he wasn't (always) a schmuck in Orange who carried guns. He had an air mask, a medical pack- something this jerk is missing and a smirk (war crimes...fun) Your just another plain cracker in an ugly costume.

Monkeywrench: Yeah, who doesn't wear metal knee pads on their jeans? Don't worry I'm not gonna compare you're "punk look" to your original "punk look" seeing as you look and still look like a guy who was a huge fan of Slayer and the 10 000 other bands that sound exactly like Slayer. Also Monkeywrench, your hair makes you look like more of an asshole than Keith Morris.

That BAT 6 pack that came out that one year: Well two of these figures were released like 12 times in two years, and the other four look like goddamned Burger King Toys, so the only thing constructive I can add is if you swap a bunch of parts and get the straight arms and antennae'd head you can get a pretty rad old time-y 1950's creature feature Robot (that's how BATs should be used anyways. Fuck this clothed robots with the ability to fire guns noise

Hasbro; what the fuck were you thinking?

Tiger Force is a controversial sub-team in the G.I. Joe most people think "Damn man those yellow fatigues aren't good for Jungle warfare" but there's a few who go "Damn, do we really need a version of Lifeline that's gonna rape and kill a teenage girl and cut off her ears and wear them on a necklace?"



"Take that you little lemon bastard!"

While I realize "Hey, the Tiger Force war crimes stuff wasn't discovered until like 2003" but there are people who go on about G.I. Joe being state of the art and incredibly chock full of Military Realism, so wouldn't Hasbro a multi million dollar corporation have been able to do some homework and realize "Hey maybe this isn't such a good idea?" Of course they could have but damn those cardbacks are a little harder to replace than stigma of war toys not being neccesarily a healthy thing for children to play with.

Shit, it just dawned on me that Hasbro released the TRU Tiger Force 5 pack after the "Uh hey, you guys, we did some really really horrible things to a lot of innocent people forty years ago" news coverage, now that doesn't really seem to be a smart thing to do. I'm surprised more people didn't go "Hey why are toy companies releasing toys celebrating war crimes?" but people are usually too busy to notice that shit I guess. Fanboys should probably rejoice at that as if people made that connection which may be untrue (I for one sure hope Hasbro didn't call them Tiger Force in tribute) the newly relaunched Joe probably would've died a quick death and wouldn't be brought back to the extent it has, oh well would we have lost all that much?

The Tiger Force figures were hit and miss though. Half of them were terrible with yellow pants and chest armor (You know the real common military equipment) and those who were released after 1988 were bad too. But Duke and Flint were really decent figures, Roadblock v2 was pretty rad and had the coolest Joe Helmet ever. And atleast Tiger Force Stalker didn't have the usual "Subject served in the same LRRP unit as Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow during the South East Asian conflict" Stalker FC's usually have.