Us kids know Destro, he is a fairly well known household name in regards to Joe. I know I grew up with the cartoon where Destro was a fairly classy villain with the metal mask and wrist rockets (cool!). As such, this advertising worked on me. I wanted to get Destro, and spent a good amount of time staring at vehicle catalog inserts checking out all the stuff, wanting it all a more, of course.
My best bud at that time got the first Destro figure I had ever seen at that point, the 1988 Iron Grenadier Destro. Where I had Serpentor, he had the 2nd in command of Cobra. This is the figure I have today leading my Iron Grenadier forces. This aspect makes it even more of a nice thing for me to have: this figure once led a guys adventures back in the day and I know him!
I started my interest in the Iron Grenadiers when I bought the 1988 Iron Grenadier figure. Now, I always dug the Cobra Viper that I saw on the cartoon, and wanted legions of "blueshirt" Cobra troops, but the Iron Grenadier was really just sleek. The helmet is somewhat knight-like, but a little "star wars," the figure is not bulked out, but seems like a slick commando with the awesome pseudo-uzi. One of my favorite rifles ever. The red pistol never excited me, though, however, the ceremonial sword was a nice touch that really tied in to the '88 Destro figure.
I liked the guy so much, that even back in the day of limited kid funds, I easily bought a second, making the 1988 my first "army builder" officially. (I also bought Repeater at the same time.)
Since then I have added just about every Iron Grenadier force member or trooper on the classic style figures side of things, although I haven't had or kept every vehicle... There is quite a variety of figures for a sub team, or as I consider the Iron Grenadiers, an entirely separate and antagonist force of its own!
The Iron Grenadier set started out pretty tight in some respects, but kind of not in others. Destro comes clad in black and gold with his Iron Grenadier elite trooper matching quite nicely, gear and all. There's just enough red between the two, and it all carries over to the DEMON vehicle driver, Ferret. Ferret adds the khaki pants to the mix, which is still nice even as I would have preferred all black as well here. But the khaki really ties it over to the AGP pilot Nullifier. Now, this is a very different looking figure, and was long absent from my first Iron Grenadier vehicle, the mail-in AGP that did not have a figure included. I got Nullifier now, but after reading a tidbit of info that this figure was originally going to be a Cobra La figure, and he does indeed share some design similarities to the Cobra La team figures of 1987, I'm not as pumped up about these guys. Voltar breaks tradition before it even started coming in with a shade of red that I don't hate, but I don't know what to call it. He's got the gold, but as is doesn't seem like part of the team, ya know? He also has a condor that still needs explanation, as well as his radio.
Here's the actual Destro from the back in the day play days, the Despoiler is a second one that I'm not sure where it came from. My bud shaved off the little twin prong things that sit to either side toward the top front of the, well, not sure what to call them. I thought it very fitting for Destro to show up in his own personal ride after Serpentor had his Air Chariot, and it's cool that the Despoiler docks on the DEMON. My DEMON is one I found at a flea market mostly stripped with an X-19 as well. I was able to trade and get most of the parts I was missing for the DEMON over the years, but not until the 2005 GIJOE convention did I find the final missing gun, which happened to be the Despoiler docking pad. So, for almost 10 years, Destro simply couldn't dock.
This is my mail-in A.G.P., which was the first Iron Grenadier vehicle I owned, although I only recently got the Nullifier with a face mask. I was getting a little bored with lately, I had the missiles in the cockpit since taking it out of storage, but, after getting those missiles on it adds some nice attitude and lines to it. And it is Iron Grenadier black, red, and gold!Next post: DEMON