My 'Joe team has been made tiny, and Cobra simplified, and even the Dreadnoks weren't exempt from the trimming I did awhile back. From my dismissal of the swivel-neck jointed style figures, it was an all or nothing decision. I did it, and the Dreadnoks took the hit in possibly most recognized characters with the loss of Buzzer, Ripper, and Torch.
Does it feel empty without those three? Yeah, but, even the Dreadnoks had to evolve a little bit.
I chose the Ninja Force Zartan as my "keeper" in the end, too. I end up with ninja action gimmick-ery that I don't really care for, but I like the upper half of this Zartan. Sure, there were more subdued or less "loud" versions of Zartan I could have picked, but something about the mohawk and absence of the hood with a little flavor of biker that makes Zartan fit, and seem more modern to me.
I think he fits in with his siblings in this figure incarnation pretty good, too. (it's just too bad those pants are lime green....)
(yes, Zarana is shorter than her brothers.)
Every other "classic" Dreadnok made the cut, though. The more "road-warrior" like Thrasher and Roadpig. Man, Road Pig is huge. Back in the day, Thrasher was one of my toughest Cobra baddies (along with Sea Slug)
And the others, too..., the pirate, the poacher, and the boom-boom maker complete the crew to make for a still wild bunch of destructive enemies for GIJoe to tangle with.
Perhaps not character-wise, but figure-wise, I think Monkey Wrench is really close to a favorite , but I'm not sure if I want to say my absolute favorite Dreadnok, yet. Monkey Wrench has the classic blue jeans which match with the original trio of Dreadnoks, but really holds his own in my current mix of Dreadnok figures with that patched jean style.
The guy has a great simple vest has an awesome collar with a little shoulder chain (which sort of circles back with the biker-looking style to the ninja force Zartan). The grenades also stick out really convincingly to me, too, not like some figures where a sculpted grenade might be half-buried into a figure, and yet on Monkey Wrench they are not sticking off so far where they feel obnoxious or get in the way of figure-to-vehicle interplay.
The shoulders are really interesting to me still, possibly my favorite looking bare-arm shoulder arm muscle joint feature on figures like this. Everything about this figure looks really natural as a little human figure. Being a 1986 figure, the head wasn't embellished up a little bit, either, furthering my like of this guy.
Overall, the small mix of Dreadnoks here have a lot of neat features. Right here I have "ninja action," multiple knife-sheaths on the figures, color-changing parts, and removable body armor and wrist weapons.
