Space the final frontier..., but for GIJoe?
The Defiant with the complex gets much love, and deservedly so. It's big with a ton of fun built in. I've only seen two Defiants in my days, never had one myself..., not sure if I want one, either.
I did have the Crusader for a short while. It was a more expensive purchase for me when I bought it, but I'm glad it was the one I did buy. It was as white as the day it rolled off the assembly line, and I got to put it all together.
Back around 1995 in the summer, I found a whole bunch of Star Brigade figures on clearance for about $1 each. I kept them all in the package in the hopes of scoring a Defiant, then busting them all out to man the thing. "Space Joes" are just fine in my view, but, they're like pilots or divers or cold weather specialists; very, very, environment oriented. I had the Starfighter, too, kept that thing in a plastic bag to keep it dust free, as well as the Invader and a Stilleto.
In the end I never did open them up, life priorities changed, and mostly, I decided I'm not a MOC collector. I traded them in, with the Crusader, for the opportunity to get more of the original main line figures. Also, I had traded away my previously owned space vehicles well before I bought the Crusader, trading them since I felt like I would never get a Defiant and therefore no real "space force."
And it's all good, as I've trimmed my collection, and I've made mention to my cutting most "sub-teams," the Star Brigade and potential space missions were for me logical cuts. Eliminating the same character figure and keeping just one was part of that decision. Star Brigade Ozone was nixed and Eco-warrior Ozone was kept, as that made him a unique character, as an example of how that worked. Skystriker is my only Tiger Force guy as he is a unique character, and the others simply duplicated an original figure.
Where I haven't had an easy time in trimming is in the astronaut area, Countdown and Payload are both great examples. These guys are very much unique figure characters, but beyond space missions or at the very least, flying the X-19, just don't have much more to offer other than being "officers." That I've found, anyway.
Without a space mission, what do these guys add to the original ARAH team?