Sonneilon; you didn't like Duke & co because of your anti-authoritarian nature, and then you didn't like Falcon for his portrayal in the movie? Geez, what's it take to make you happy...? ;)

lol. I turned a blind eye to Falcon in the movie. :D

Of course, in the movie, if Duke hadn't jumped in front of Serpentor's snake spear, Falcon's treatment in the movie would have ended in a flag-draped coffin.

I segmented the movie out of my official Joe continuity. I liked Duke and Snake-Eyes as characters, but when comic and cartoon conflicted, I would turn to comic as the authority, and cartoon as creative license (ex. Scarlett couldn't have a witty conversation w/ SE in a cartoon, although there were glimpses of this. Ergo, Duke gets the girl). However, what happened in my own Joeverse trumped everything else. And toy characters who died in a battle were not relegated to a pile. They were picked up the next day and the battle continued.

I never read any of the DD stuff, just Marvel, so my opinions on characters are not influenced by that.

I liked v.1 Duke, even with the goofy grin on his face. In 1983, that was quite a headsculpt, and I liked the card art as well. The grin isn't as bothersome when you remember the card art angry eyebrows... Very reminiscent of someone who has planted a large amount of C-4 and is waiting to hear the bang.

That being said, it is very interesting to tie back psychology into collecting. Perhaps the feelings of people toward characters is shaped by their perception of others in the world around them. We can't segment parts of our own personality, as easily as we mentally compartmentalize our Joe-verse.

I remember a wise person once told me not to hate people in authority who display bothersome qualities, but rather to strive each day not to become like them in the specific traits that bother me.

Perhaps another psychological study would be to try and track a common thread in our diverse pool of collectors. What drives us to collect? Did something in our reality steer us towards escapism? Did Joe provide us a safe haven to work out issues our minds were dealing with in the world? Does nostalgia drive us back, or have we never left?

Ahh, this is getting too deep. I think I need to go create a custom figure.... ;)