The old Badger custom quickly revisited

 

Old G.I.Joe photos

 

There's a lot to look back on in photos but at the same time I didn't take enough photos!  I do miss having a lot of everything.  I didn't have it all and have never, nor will.  But it was fun.  Sometimes I regret selling or trading away so much but at the same time when I ramble around into the HQ's corner Pit here I still have stuff that hasn't hardly been touched in years. 

I still haven't unboxed my 1986 Tomahawk, my one core end-all vehicle in my collection in the 10 years since got packed for moving into the current HQ. 

I scanned many photos years ago and hosted them on the photobucket for use on the old forums but that site switched up vibes long ago.  I'm glad I did not simply just toss all the prints and whatever else.

 

G.I.Joe Eco Warriors and Quickstrike

 I've looked at the Eco Warriors I've had here before.


Here I was looking at the 2004 Quickstrike and considering what to make of it all.  I liked this 6-wheel armored look that provided some crew protection in the front seats and I liked the turret gun despite the loose connection.

It wasn't too long after this that I found myself ripping the "action gimmick" of the raising one-shot missile to get some more space or something more out of that back end.

1990 Cobra Rage

 
This Cobra Rage in the photo is what I would consider my first vehicle purchase more as a collector than whatever you want to call what I was before that.

This Rage, I think I bought from a Kay Bee, and definitely bought in late 1991 shortly after moving to a new HQ at that time.  This HQ was located in a much larger city than the comparative middle of nowhere location that the HQ was before.

The strangest thing about this Cobra Rage purchase was the most Deja Vu moment of this fan's life.  While mostly situated in the new HQ in 1991, I had this Rage on the red carpet of the new room near the radiator and it is still a moment of life that was really strange.  I had seen this Rage in the room, on the red carpet but the radiator in a dream or something before.

This weird moment of life has always stood out in general.




This Cobra Rage is long gone.  Here it has the G.I.Joe versus Cobra Alley Vipers, the one that came with Big Ben(s).  That helps to date the photo, and unlike other film photos in 35mm I did at the time with the SLR, this one didn't turn out totally suck.

The "Duke legs" bugged me on these figures.  I didn't want to admit it to myself 20 years ago but was able to come to terms with that aspect of the figures 11 years ago as of this post.   I would have much preferred to have the 1993 Alley Viper as a squad, and actually still do.   I had one.  But then as the urban trooper would have been a good fit with an urban combat vehicle, the not-exactly-matching figure/vehicle color schemes sort of made me reconsider that route of attempting to build a dedicated Cobra urban fighting unit.

Cobra Parasite 1992

I'm going to scan some old photos of vehicles that I don't have any more. 

The 1992 Cobra Parasite is a vehicle I bought off the retail shelf on May 24, 1992 for $9.99 at Kmart. 


I have various pictures with the Parasite in it that will be on the old 35mm film or somewhere in old digital somewhere that I may dig out later.  Below is one from 35mm film taken about 2003 or 2004.  I can't remember for sure right now but I think I this one ended up being traded to fellow collectors at a small meet up a couple months after the 2005 G.I.Joe collection.

So I guess the Parasite was in my collection for at least 12 years.  This is a vehicle that could definitely get loaded up with figures.  In some ways the interior was almost luxurious compared to the 10 figures that rode the outer boards. 


Here is the Parasite next to the 1992 G.I.Joe Patriot.  I didn't see the receipt as I looked right now to see exactly when I bought this one, but the photo is from that 2002-2004 range as I can see my old cardboard box storage box covers that were slowly replaced by Rubbermaid containers.  The overall size is somewhat comparable to each other and these felt like "retail shelf" counterpart vehicles in a way to me. 

Around this 2002-2005 range I was somewhat getting the urge to get more realistic vehicles into my collection.  At the time I had fortune to get more vehicles like the Thunderclap and the Rolling Thunder, and these were more "real world" in design and overall colors compared to these two vehicles.  In an effort to get more of the Rolling Thunder-like vibe vehicles and also more figures, I started to trade more items from the 1990's to do so.




Today, I still have the old "custom" Parasite and thought I would pull it out to toss some of the details in photos onto the internet here.  This is a second "goodwill store" find from 1996 that was missing some parts and I had spare paint sitting one day.

I like the rear gun but always wondered who operated it.   Years back, my imagination had the crew inside the Parasite having more control over the vehicle, even one station inside the compartment was the "driver seat," freeing up the front gun turret figure to be fully focused as just a gunner.

The interior of the Parasite has some interesting detail.   The spacing between the seats almost feels like there should be some extra gear that would fit here.   The interior floor even has the tread detail.

The turret weapon is huge and not too outrageously detailed, the upper 4-barrel gun can elevate to an almost straight up position really giving it a great amount of range.

The suspension stands out much more with different color compared to the all orange body unpainted.