G.I.Joe Pictures Photos A Real American Hero

It's a little past Thanksgiving and real life is rolling like a freight train.  With very little G.I.Joe anything left in my possession, what used to be is in old photos.  Some are scanned, some were digital, some were taken by other people after I sold some stuff.

What's it mean?  Well, it's the people that I've interacted with on the internet and sometimes in real life around G.I.Joe that have meant a lot.  I've never been the big time collector and I've never been in it for the "investment." 

We'll see how the 400-some photos end up on this blog post but it's all here for the past, present, and future, G.I.Joe fans to take a look through for some bit of joy that was here that's now all gone and out in the world for others to enjoy.

Grateful.

Real life strikes, evolutions, and the ending of a collector?

 Accumulation happens with collecting.  So many good things that I have acquired and had passed through my hands with G.I.Joe.

But after a decade of not getting the H.Q. and life in general going in a direction I thought it would, I trimmed down my collection HARD this past summer. 

Yes, again.  More trimming, but this time, with not much held back.  Things that weren't bringing joy had to go this time.  And even with a small collection there was still A LOT OF STUFF.

The next few pictures are where that all ended up.  The very core, the last of my G.I.Joe collection, my G.I.Joe collection all out on the shelves, save for some books that are not in the pictures.


But wait, there's more!

An impending real life divorce, which was going to happen eventually anyway, was put into motion.

So, this trimmed down G.I.Joe team versus everyone shelf set up will be even smaller the next time I post!

Cobra Command, rank and file, and characters

 During a recent attempt to look for a picture that might have been on that photo hosting site that I had used for sharing pictures on the old G.I.Joe forums, I couldn't find what I was looking for.  With what the photo hosting site would allow be to retrieve, this is one of the older photos.  Not what I was looking for, but this one brought back some memories. 


Here is a mix of figures that I don't think a I have now at all.  I might have Big Boa's head and arms but the rest...., I think it's been over a decade since I trimmed way down on my collection.

I like the arrangement of figures I had here.  I generally disliked mixing the "anniversary" style with "a.r.a.h." figures.  I generally disliked the "anniversary" style comparatively, I suppose.  But when I did this set up I was going for individual characters.  Sure, I could have used the 1984 Copperhead, for example, in the set up.  But it was around this time in my HQ that I the "swivel-head" jointed figures started to feel a little less detailed and fun as a part of the whole.  I ended up axing all the "swivel-head" jointed figures ultimately, just like all the G.I.Joe vs Cobra "t-crotch" and "new-sculpt" styles.  Not that they were bad, I was just going for more a detailed feel overall and the 1985-1994 "a.r.a.h." figures really had that.


In this photo, looking back, I like this even more.  It's too bad a '85-'94 style Scrap-Iron with the ball-joint neck didn't come around.  I tried combinations of parts with the 2000-2005 "a.r.a.h." figures in the many multi-packs to try and make something better but what you see is as far as that got.  Copperhead and Wild Weasel actually look really good to me here.  A few tweaks to these and I might have kept them, but that neck joint and double joint knees were things I didn't agree with.

I should have kept the desert patrol parts for Big Boa and the Lt. Claymore.  And heck, Croc Master is gone but looks awesome to me now.

The photo set up wasn't to capture a style of "the Plague," or that time in the comics that an elite crew of individual Cobra characters were "the answer" to G.I.Joe.  More individual characters in Cobra could be good. It can only play out with nameless, faceless legions so many times.  


Sadly, looking back at the blog, not much more has happened at the HQ (other than "real life") to where my desire to create a more permanent corner of toy fun in the sub-level just has not fired.  There are some starts, a few different arrangements, added some shelving, bought some new things.....  but while still things are not anywhere near numerous as once was, the "smaller team" concept has yet to prove a more convenient and fun interaction.

The lost web

 
Kicking around the wayback machine looking at some local history things, the thought of websites that have come and gone made me think more about what's lost and maybe still out there on the G.I.Joe side of things.

Like this shot from 2002 above.  That's 20 years already.  And the HQ is still nowhere near where I thought it would be 10 years ago, and nowhere near what I thought it would be like 20 years ago.

On the local history side one of the websites featured a photo with a recently departed neighbor that I didn't know back then.  But that hit me in the feels, as they might say.


But, yeah, the "web ring." 

Lots of stuff that might be here and even though it is in that G.I.Joe Vs. Cobra era that is like "new" to me, I'm definitely feeling some nostalgia.  Like G.I.Joe:Refiled.   I get this nostalgia feel but it still seems like this stuff just came out.

There might be some fun links to search through.

JoeSightings

JoeSightings is rocking live right now and that was a really nice surprise.  


A real world thing happening at the HQ thing has had me trying to figure out when I made a thing and anyway, I was wondering if anything on JoeSightings might still be on the internet.   From the old slots where users, like me, could put collection pictures, or that sightings index of where G.I.Joe was showing up at the "brick and mortar" was something I was definitely using.

But at JoeSightings it is really plainly explained out.   20 years, awesome!

My original G.I.Joe team

This is a revisit to a revisit type of a note.

What's the point where we go from, more or less, kids getting stuff to "collectors" getting stuff?

This "original G.I.Joe team" here is about where I was at.  Minus the A.W.E. Strikers in the background, of course.  I can't re-snap this photo as most of the figures are long gone, trimmed away for a more simple "edited" A Real American Hero collection that remains today.

The actual year that I "became" more of a "collector" was in late 1990 and into 1991.  Tripwire is a substitute for the 1988 Tigerforce Tripwire in the photo as well as 1985 Frostbite sitting in for 1988 Tigerforce Frostbite.

You can see how 1988 (4) has a strong showing with 1986 (5), my "big year" of starting to get G.I.Joe when I was younger. 

Even in 1991, my newest figure was the 1989 Snake Eyes figure.  That is probably the year I bought the figure, or maybe it was in 1990, back when the HQ was in the middle of nowhere.

The old Badger custom quickly revisited