Wow, this is an awesome looking fortification.
Back the day, the half-hour entertainment commercial that we were watching featured this imposing structure. We were in the boondocks at this time. Thinking back now we were lucky to have been able to get very basic cable service (from both being to afford it and simply having it available) and when most of the populated areas were getting this brand new at the time, we were really getting the re-runs of it all up there. If we even saw it.
The magical 1980's experience was not universal for all. I knew kids that didn't even know what G.I.Joe was at that time. Lucky for me, one half of the genetic tree came from the metropolitan cities and were usually the source of the main stream toys being gifted for birthdays and Christmas seasons. And the other half of the genetic tree, while from the poor side of the small town in the state across the border, still contributed to my young self's small but still good G.I.Joe collection, just through the smaller items.
Combined together, I had some good G.I.Joe stuff. If you've been around here for awhile, you might know I consider 1986 my "big G.I.Joe year." Being a little older and being able to have more stuff added to the G.I.Joe toys really started to have the larger G.I.Joe collection start to really stand out and become more fun.
Considering the wealthier side of the genetic tree being in the metropolitan area with lots of larger stores, larger items like the 1983 Headquarters were hanging around a little longer. I suspect the Headquarters and the Killer W.H.A.L.E. were bought from the Sears Surplus and by the time it made it up to the boondocks it might have been late 1985. In the G.I.Joe toy world while kids were getting the U.S.S. Flagg, Maulers, etc., I was just likely getting my G.I.Joe Headquarters joining my Dragonfly.
Needless to say, if the little catalog inserts didn't have pictures, I probably didn't know a G.I.Joe such and such thing even existed.
I even remember the plastic G.I.Joe dishware set around this time, it has at least the cup and bowl. The cup has Grunt, but I just generic green army guy, I didn't know Grunt existed until years later!
It's gone now, and yes that is a mostly unused bottle of G.I.Joe shampoo with a Sgt. Slaughter label on it from around summer camp travel kit.
But in the cartoon here's this giant base!
It does not look like my 1983 Headquarters did.
Now with the scale and size differences between my toy world and the G.I.Joe Sunbow cartoon world, were drastic. The younger me wanted all of it, of course. Definitely upset that I couldn't have it all. Still upset that I can't have it all.
Now I can have it all. It's taken some time and now I'm a few months out from reaching a relatively solid existence 10 year mark (as solid as it can get, anyway). I can easily start to get all of this stuff I had and some I haven't had and create a pretty awesome set up.
As I sit with my smaller trimmed down collection now, I can look at some of my rubbermaids that still contain items I packed in them in 2011. One rubbermaid in particular, the contents have not come out since then at all. 10 years. One my most favorite G.I.Joe vehicles is in one, too. I have the "modern" counterpart of this vehicle sitting a shelf, and it does not compare to the original, but it just sits there.
So, I can go buy up old stuff but I don't know if I really want it. As I sit over this first real do-nothing week of paid-time-off in a long time the largest creative play urge I have had was to make my own G.I.Joe base.
Making G.I.Joe vehicles was my primary interest incoming to this town where my HQ shell is located. The "higher education" investment route. A couple classes short of the degree, it came to the point of do I take out loans as my full-time working and double-job summers were just not supplying the funds?
I decided to go skip a semester, and it just fizzled from there. The "job creators" of the time were not sending their army of recruitment people looking to pick up people to add to the higher-earning middle class jobs that had been fizzling out since the 1980s. I didn't realize it at the time on the scope of it all. The obvious clue that "investing in my educational" path wasn't going to pay off was when upper-classmates were coming back to start on dual-degrees after a year in the job market with no jobs. The other clues were other students still hanging around the institutions surrounding town still working at the same regular working class jobs they were working at while "investing in their futures" with higher education.
Decades later I still would like to go to school. I can afford it now. But to what end? Is that G.I.Joe vehicle designer job going to be around again? No, that kind of fun career is dead and gone with the 1980's. The new "entertainment" company of Hasbro has moved beyond the "property" company of Hasbro already and I don't think there is any real "toy" company left in that global conglomeration.
HasLab could be the hope for the future you say?
Doubt it. But I see a potential better way to make the HasLab G.I.Joe side of it really good, really fun, and profitable. It's all in who you know, though.
No one cares if I'm going to back the HasLab Skystriker.
It's a cool looking Skystriker, don't read me wrong there. This is really THE Skystriker I would want.
I actually got rid of my Silent Strike Skystriker some time back. After living with it for a while it was big and even when it was very available for a quick play mission pick up, aside from zipping across the sky, shooting missiles, etc, maybe a dogfight, it was just done. It kind of just sat there collecting dust. And it took up some space volume on a shelf.
But let's look at what I was thinking about the Skystriker in 2011. This is 10 years ago. A very different me at that time, but reading through it now, this is still what I would want in a Skystriker now. I would still be very content with my idea of a Skystriker that as I stated would put it into a $100 range.
So why won't I back this HasLab Skystriker NOW as that Skystriker has almost everything I would have built into it in 2011?
It's $230. Yes, I can swing that now. In fact, I could "max out" at five. BUT, let's break it down for you and my future self here:
What I like:
The Skystriker itself: independent gear and wing control, moving air foil, extra sculpted details, LOVE the dual nose cannons (especially that fuselage panel) ladder, , the F-14D variant nose equipment addition, new drop tanks and tail hook. Oh, and TWO seats.
This is THE Skystriker, just the jet itself, I would have bought for $99 back in 2011 (even without all the extras I had mentioned on that). If it was on the retail shelf down the street now, I would buy it for $99.
I really DIG the trailers, too. These are things that would just fit in my collection and add to it. In my 2011 post I wanted the fuel car and fuel tank, this is an ordnance car and fuel tank. That's just as good. At this point, with the added Skystriker details that are a little more than I wanted in 2011, it's very near what I wanted and a little more.
So with just the Skystriker and the two utility trailers, I'm going to say $139.99 is my happy purchase price. Once again, on the retail shelf down the street today, I would easily pay $139.99.
What I DON'T like:
The "kickstarter" funding bullshit and HasLab.
I thought the sail barge was kind of interesting for Star Wars, and I didn't realize that was something anyone had interest in as a toy. Looking at it now it does look cool, I wouldn't want it, though. I don't have Disney+, and I don't know much about the Mandalorian, but space ships, laser guns, and battle armor are up my alley.
The Razor Crest is the item that grabbed my interest towards even looking at a HasLab picture. THAT is one awesome looking toy. In fact, I was on the fence in dropping money on that.
Yes. Me. The almost strictly "o-ring" little guy collector that doesn't want a lot of stuff just sitting around the HQ collecting dust was considering backing the HasLab Razor Crest at $349.99. THAT is the level of AWESOME I want. And I still do want it. When the Skystriker popped up at first I just was not that blown away and that's when I remembered that cool looking Razor Crest was also on this HasLab thing so I was going to go put money on that.... but it was already done and funded.
That's how UNDERWHELMING the Skystriker is to me as a toy in comparison to the Razor Crest. And I am NOT A STAR WARS collector or even much of a big fan at all.
Now, for $349.99, look at that new Razor Crest awesomeness. Now, $229.99 on that slightly tweaked Sksytriker with fluff extras. To me, that Razor Crest is the much better deal.
Plus, to say nothing of the take our money now and make interest approach by a global asset company! A startup company with no capital needs dollars to get off the ground, Hasbro can and should go to the investors and the banks and assume the risk. They might get a little less profit if their product sucks, and rightfully so.
The Skystriker fluff:
"Blast effects" have NEVER been a thing I desired on a G.I.Joe toy. Especially under ejection seats. I have no desire to have a Skystriker canopy displayed open to allow more dust into the inside. I am not watching the Sunbow cartoon and getting excited about G.I.Joes ejecting out of a Skystriker.
Parachutes might have been great back in 1983 if I had been born to another social class where I could run around the backyard with all my buddies that had Skystrikers and we all enjoyed throwing our figures into the air to watch them float back down with a parachutes and then all went out for our daily lunches at Chuck E. Cheese to play all the arcade games without a budget. The parachute would have been just another action feature to me and I would have left it bundled up and eventually might have been found along with my Battlecorps spring-fire launchers and Deep Six's bellow pump.
These HasLab parachutes are wasteful extras for me.
The display stand is nice. Totally not a thing I really need or want. For the amount of plastic involved in shape I would easily trade it for a simple action figure field station. In fact, why didn't some "control tower" like battle station that doubled as a stand get created here? If that had happened this HasLab Skystriker thing would have become MUCH more appealing. A vehicle, two support utility trailers, and a BATTLE STATION that doubles as a display stand.
"O-ring" figures
I am an "o-ring" collector for the most part. So, you the casual reader is probably wondering why I am not jumping up and down because Hasbro said, "o-ring?"
Not all "A Real American Hero" era figures are the same. I've always liked coming across other G.I.Joe fans out there, in particular Forgotten Figures is one of my favorites. There is a wealth of information across the board here but what I really like is that the content there does not stop at 1985 and has so much information on what I know through 1994 and beyond but continuously provides awesome knowledge on rare and foreign releases I never knew existed.
Interacting on the internet with G.I.Joe fans over the last 20 some years, there is a good portion of people that come and go out "the hobby" and some of them make it well known that they don't collect anything past a certain year because it all "sucked." The term of the "neon-'90's" where everything was neon and those collectors stop at 1989 because everything past if "neon" and sucks, is another example of what I've come across. And I am a weird loser because I liked 1990 but the "true fan" is the 1984 G.I.Joe collector.
Yes, I'm an "o-ring" advocate but I also don't really like LESS ARTICULATION over more. I get the vibe with Hasbro that they think the old basic less detailed little figures are what get all the adult collectors pumped up. With such a large range of years and unique access to stuff at Hasbro I would have been MUCH MORE interested in the HasLab Skystriker if the 1992 Ace was included. At the HasLab level this Ace could have been given a new head gear set or even detailed out with removable pistol and holster.
But we get space-suit Ace from 1983. I was looking at pilots back in 2011 here. I had that space suit Ace from the 1998 Conquest but even at that time when I was much more wanting everything from before the excitement of that 1983 Ace mold being brand new and fresh to me in 1998 dropped so fast I can't even remember what did with that figure now. You can see I kept the A-10 Ace even after I traded off my A-10, that's how much better I liked that figure.
But now in 2021, here's the cutting edge of toy design at HasLab with a 1983 Ace. I don't want it. I wouldn't pay $20 on a card for it right now at Walmart.
The most lame inclusion is the figure inspired by the name of Wayne Ruthel. Does not look like an interesting sculpt. The marketing team that decided to market action figure "Wayne" should have put the code name out there immediately. Wayne Ruthel is actually Wayne Luther. Check out the Cobra Tank Smasher here and you'll find some cool vehicle work out there that is what I wanted to do for a living. This is more of a, hey, Mr. Luther, were putting an action figure of you in the Skystriker Hasbro move.
Needless to say, keep both those Haslab figures. I want the ball joint head from here out. I want the molds that have usable knife sheaths expertly and tightly sculpted in to blend and be useful. I want fabric detail, I want that late 1980's and early 1990's depth but with paint applications that enhance it.
HasLab, the cutting edge of global corporate powered toy design, needed to take all the details the modern 4" "anniversary figure details that have been clunky, floating, and full of gaps since 2007 and tighten that up and back into the 3.75" "o-ring" 1:18th form at this point to create the best of all worlds. It can be done, but here HasLab took the easy cheap way out.
For example, a later (supposedly lesser by some peoples standards) "o-ring" mold next to the wonky super-articulated "modern" (supposedly superior by some peoples standards) 30th anniversary figures:
The Cobra Hack
These are three figures tossed in for "free" that I have ZERO interest in. A couple stickers apparently allow you turn your $230 Skystriker into a Cobra Skystriker. This is frankly downright lame. The story of the Cobra Hack, as part of this whole "telling the story" weirdness theme in the whole project comes across almost a little insulting.
I mean:
Does this mean Hasbro knows this is not a "super" product, some nitwit made this package up? If you don't give us your money NOBODY gets this?
If it is "Finally, an offering worth backing!" at this point, I feel like a I was even more correct in it NOT being an offering worth backing before.
If I really wanted a "mickey mouse" Cobra Commander, I would have had it. Same as with any number of "rare variants" out there. I am familiar with more rare and uncommon domestic A Real American Hero product.
I know that a "Heavy Metal mic" has value, I know that knock-off scam could get me if I was going to go procure one, and I also know of a smaller company that makes very nice service-able accessories that can fulfill my need of a "mic" for Heavy Metal at a great quality and excellent cost.
Now, if this Cobra Hack Cobra Commander was really, really, really different and featured something no other Cobra Commander figure has ever had then, hell yes, I would likely toss some dollars into this package. But it would have to be something stellar.
At the high-end global powerhouse of HasLab this Cobra Commander should have been one that has a removable metal-vac face-plate helmet that has reflectivity. Underneath, lets say it just has some general face-mask or full ski mask to still conceal identity. Take the battle helmet off and the real bonus of this figure is the first real cloth hood.
That's a simple idea that I would have been much more likely to add $230 to the corporate bank account for the next year to make interest off of.
To conclude, and no one out there cares, this G.I. Joe HasLab is just such a half-ass product. It's a nice Skystriker but not much more going on with it. I'm not stuck on the Sunbow cartoon and Skystrikers flying around. Such a small part of the worlds of G.I.Joe that is now spanning decades and scales and play patterns.
Here's a real simple HasLab project idea:
G.I.Joe XLMR-3A laser rifle Nerf Gun
