Lame G.I. Joe Week: Part 4

In honor of the upcoming G.I. Joe movie looking terrible, I'm going to spend the week profiling the lamest G.I. Joe figures. Lameness will be based on Looks, Specialty, and Character. This is Part 4.

Tracker is today's subject.



First, a note. I've tried to limit this list to toys I actually own. There are actually quite a few Joes much worse than the ones I'm listing here. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a whole bunch of them, Tracker included. So, to compensate, I searched the net trying to find a pic and had to settle for this stock photo of Tracker (the version sold in India, no less).

Looks: You'll notice he's wearing what appear to be yellow capri pants, really high socks, and some super funky sneakers. He also has a silly looking visor, as you can see on the card art. As for the rest of the card art...the less said the better.

Specialty: Tracker is a Navy S.E.A.L. and is not surprisingly good at tracking things. Oh, and he has a raft. The S.E.A.L. part makes sense, but I doubt G.I. Joe had many missions where a white water rafting specialist is needed.

Character: His file card mentions that no one was able to find him during his initial training, which is impressive considering his uniforms color scheme. Even more impressive is that he was able to hunt down Spirit and Snake Eyes, which in the context of the G.I. Joe universe is actually kind of awesome. Clearly, he's meant to be the teams top tracker...it's a shame about his uniform though.

Lame G.I. Joe Week : Part 3

In honor of the upcoming G.I. Joe movie looking terrible, I'm going to spend the week profiling the lamest G.I. Joe figures. Lameness will be based on Looks, Specialty, and Character. This is Part 3.

Today brings us "Sea Slug", the pilot of the Cobra Sea Ray.



Looks: The blurry picture can't disguise that this guy is wearing a purple jumpsuit. It's kind of hard to take these pictures at work and run the risk of people asking what I'm doing. So yeah...purple jumpsuit, with matching giant purple helmet (giving him a giant head). He also has strangely muscular upper arms...but whatever to that. It's a good thing he sits in a vehicle, as I'm sure he's the laughing stock of all the other Cobra soldiers. I should probably mention, Sea Slug is not a singular character, but an entire platoon of specialized Sea Ray pilots. I guess it's kind of better to be part of a group of poorly dressed soldiers, if nothing else.

Specialty: Eels are Cobras underwater infantry. and Sea Slugs are more advanced Eels. Nothing wrong there. They also pilot the Sea Ray, which is a "tactical submersible" with a bunch of missiles. Sea Slug gets a pass in the specialty area.

Character: As one of the nameless, faceless legions of Cobra, there isn't much in the way of character to work with here. If it means anything, he comes with a ridiculously oversized pistol. I don't know, it just seems like Sea Slug was slapped together as a bonus figure so whoever bought the Sea Ray had someone to pilot it.

Overall, the only problem with this figure is his uniform, and oddly disproportionate body. He's the type of guy you leave in a box and forget about.

Lame G.I. Joe Week: Part 2

In honor of the upcoming G.I. Joe movie looking terrible, I'm going to spend the week profiling the lamest G.I. Joe figures. Lameness will be based on Looks, Specialty, and Character. This is Part 2.



Pictured here is Raptor in his natural habitat.

Looks: Let's get the obvious out of the way...he's dressed like a bird. He has an impractical set of wings (which I'm pretty sure are just part of the bird motif and not intended to be an actual glider...right?). He's got feathers everywhere, plus a bird headdress which incidentally gives his figure a gigantic head. I don't really see the need to go on.

Specialty: WOW. Raptor is a tax consultant and falconer. I can kind of see why having trained killer falcons can come in handy, but a tax consultant? I just don't see a ruthless terrorist organization being all that concerned with paying taxes (presumably to the very same U.S. government they work so hard at trying to overthrow). Even with his falcons, I don't quite understand why he's kept on the Cobra payroll. It's not like there's a lack of highly advanced fighter jets, or troopers with jet packs to fill your air support needs. Maybe as security or a hard core version of the trusty carrier pigeon?

Character: Again, he's a guy who dresses as a bird. His file card states that he also sits in a giant bird cage, which might just be taking things a bit too far. I only have one comic that he appeared in (since lost to the sands of time), but I remember him being kind of sneaky and following some ninjas around. It takes a lot of guts to follow ninjas, so he's got that going for him. He was one of the many late 80's Cobra characters to be killed off, so there's probably some untapped potential here. Or not.

For some reason, I can't bring myself to hate Raptor. Maybe a man dressed as a bird is kind of endearing, or maybe I just felt sorry for him. I even feel kind of guilty writing about him for Lame G.I. Joe week. RIP Raptor.

Lame G.I. Joe Week : Part 1

In honor of the upcoming G.I. Joe movie looking terrible, I'm going to spend the week profiling the lamest G.I. Joe figures. Lameness will be based on Looks, Specialty, and Character.

Up first is Dr. Link Talbot, a figure I ended up with because he came with a version of Cobra Commander.



Looks: I think the picture says it all. He's wandering around in a G.I. Joe tank top (with yellow shoulder pads), and bright green pants (with yellow pads on the sides). You can't tell from the picture, but hes also got elbow pads attached directly to his skin. Overall, I'd say it's a bit unprofessional and not quite fashionable.

Specialty: According to his file card, his primary specialty is being a veterinarian. Let that sink in for a bit. G.I. Joe, an elite anti-terrorist unit, has a vet. (There's actually a semi-good reason for this, involving a Cobra plot to genetically engineer their soldiers using animal DNA, but that's something I'd rather not get into.) Anyway...he's the team vet. His secondary specialty is..."special operations", which is kind of meaningless and nondescript. I'd like to think G.I. Joe is a special operation in and of itself, so "special operations" is pretty much everyone else's tertiary specialty. Or do I just not understand the military as well as I thought I did?

Character: Link (who you may have noticed doesn't have a proper codename) is a third generation vet. Which I guess is okay, but there's not much else going on there. Apparently, he's also a former SEAL and a trained martial artist and loves animals. I think the most interesting aspect of Dr. Link Talbot is the fact that he comes with a grenade launcher of all things. When you primarily deal with animals, I think a grenade launcher is a bit much...it's not like they're tranquilizer grenades either.

I've considered this guy to be pretty much the lamest of the lame, but who knows? Maybe my research will unearth some other priceless gems of lame.

There it is...

My long awaited crocus. I wish my digital camera still worked, and I wouldn't have to resort to using my blackberry camera...

The Ritual of the Business Card

Oh Business Cards. You're so silly. Have you ever been in a meeting where a bunch of macho tough guys casually start tossing their business cards onto a table in a passive aggressive manner? It's kind of funny...instead of merely handing the card out with a smile and a "Nice to meet you", they TOSS it onto a table, making YOU pick up THEIR card. Very alpha male. Kind of like this:



At least, thats what they think they look like. All I know is, when I get a business card in such a frightening manner, I make sure not to throw it away for AT LEAST ten minutes. Haha, kidding...it goes straight in the garbage tough guy.

Train of the Dead?

While waiting forever for a train the other day on the way to work, I saw a strange occurrence. A W train, which does not EVER stop in Brooklyn, went through my station, stopped for a while, and left. The doors never opened, and every window was blacked out. Clearly, the next stop on the this ghost train was Purgatory. I didn't get a chance to snap a pic (mostly out of fear for my soul), but it looked something like this:



Spooky, no?

The Avengers are jerks

Because I (literally) have nothing better to do with my money, I've been buying a bunch of books from the Marvel Essentials collection...black and white reprints of the 1960s era Marvel Comics. My latest purchase was the first volume of The Avengers, Marvels premier superhero team, traditionally featuring their greatest heroes (and some not so great...). I was more of an X-Men/Spider-Man fan growing up, so I never realized until now...The Avengers are jerks. Big time. Evidence? Oh, there's plenty.

1) The first issue features the formation of The Avengers (details = not important for this). Basically, Thor (the thunder god
himself), Iron Man, Giant Man and his partner The Wasp...hunt down The Hulk. It's all just a misunderstanding caused by
Loki (oh you trickster!) and they decide to form a team...including The Hulk who they JUST attacked. Not too bad.

2) The next issue, a Space Phantom impersonates The Hulk, again causing The Avengers to attack him. No warning, just an
all-out attack. AGAIN. They all beat the Space Phantom, but Hulk (rightfully) realizes they all hate him and he quits.

3) Issue three: realizing The Hulk is too dangerous on his own, The Avengers hunt him AGAIN. There's a whole bunch of
other stuff going on involving The Hulk and Namor (the Prince of Atlantis, and also a jerk) trying to destroy humanity,
mostly because of mistreatment (perceived or otherwise). Avengers win, Hulk escapes, moving on...

4) Captain America joins to try and bring a little class to this team...and promptly takes young teen Rick Jones as a
sidekick, stealing him away from The Hulk, his previous partner. Why all the Hulk hate guys? It's also worth mentioning
that Rick Jones is brought along on Avengers missions which tend to be insanely deadly. It's more than a little
irresponsible, especially when you consider that Caps previous partner, Bucky, was blown up by a missile. Not a very
good track record.

5) This is probably more of a sign of the times, but sprinkled throughout the first volume are various sexist comments
made by Giant Man (Dr. Henry Pym) towards The Wasp (Janet van Dyne). Come to think of it, Reed Richards was pretty
sexist towards Sue Storm as well...could it be a scientist character trait? Hmmm....

So, thanks for saving the world a bunch of times Avengers...just try and be a little nicer to your fellow heroes from now on, okay? Spider-Man may tend to work locally, and only saves one city, but at least he's pleasant about it!