What's your G.I.*JOE History?

What is your history with these 3 3/4 inch Real American Heroes? How did you get started? What were your first figures and vehicles? What are your favorite and not so favorite memories of collecting? Take some time, write your story down and share it with the rest of us.

It was 1982 and I saw the first animated commercial advertising for the new G.I.*JOE comic book coming out. It wasn't long after that the toy line followed.

My head was still wrapped around the new Return of the Jedi toys that had come out that year, but there was this other guy hanging on the pegs next to him. Mom was OK with getting me Star Wars figures, once in a while, but she wouldn't buy me any G.I.*JOEs. She didn't like the idea of me having war toys. As a nine year old, I guess I never saw the irony of the situation where she wouldn't buy me war toys, yet she'd buy me toys with the word "Wars" in their name.

My friend Pete and his twin brother Jeff were comic book kids and knew all of the Marvel characters like an encyclopedia, so when G.I.*JOE came out, they were all over it. Their birthday came up and all they wanted was G.I.*JOE toys, especially anything Cobra related, so I got them a FANG and an officer to fly it. As party favors, the boys gave each of their guests one of the original 13 of their choice. I didn't quite know all the characters at that point, so I blurted out the only one I knew. My first figure was Rock & Roll, straight arm.

Since he was the only Joe I had, he was forced to mingle with my Star Wars figures, but man! What a far superior figure he was! Rotating shoulders, bending knees and arms, and a twisting waist. Yeah, I knew what was going to be all over my Christmas/Birthday wish lists. Not that it did any good, because, as I said, mom wouldn't buy me war toys.

Within a couple months I had acquired Zap and Scarlett. This wasn't out of any kind of real love for those characters, but more due to the fact that the Target near by sold out of every figure but those two quickly. Trying to mimic the card art pose of Zap, his hands were busted within a day. Rock & Roll's left arm was cracked at the elbow because I had seen in a catalog that he was supposed to have "swivel arm battle grip" and I tried to twist his arm, not knowing there was a difference in molds.

My first vehicle was the Polar Battle Bear. I bought it from a friend who received it as a birthday gift, but didn't collect G.I.*JOE. Zap and R&R rode the back of that thing while Scarlett drove. And boy did they kick the asses of those figures from a galaxy far, far away (Rock & Roll's time with them was learning what weaknesses to exploit, not to befriend them).

I figured that Scarlett might be a little on the cold side wearing only that thin body suit, so I gave her Yoda's cloth coat and his utility belt and the glow in the dark sword of a Dungeons and Dragons figure. Viola! My very first custom!

My collection grew slowly as I had to buy all my own Joes and I mainly had just figures. Thankfully the Flag Point thing started so I could get some of those toys I missed out on because I didn't have enough money at the time, so I got a HISS, MANTA and Hooded Cobra Commander amongst others that way.

About this time I met a guy who lived down the street named Cameron. He was about a year younger than me and his parents were divorced. That divorce worked to his advantage as his parents tried to buy his love. And boy howdy did they buy it! He had almost all the Star Wars toys released, all the Transformers and later all the MASK toys. But the pride of his toy box was his G.I.*JOE collection. He had everything that I had only looked at longingly in catalogs and box inserts and toy shelves.

The Skystriker, Dragonfly and MOBAT. The Wolverine, what the heck was this thing? I'd never heard of it. A girl driver? This thing is too cool.

As each year progressed and each new wave was released, I knew within a week it'd be in his room. Cameron and I played G.I.*JOE for hours on end. We'd start off picking what vehicles wanted and going from there. He was always G.I.*JOE, I was always Cobra. He'd use the Joe HQ, later combined with the Battle Platform. My base? Castle Greyskull. Seemed appropriate to me at the time, and the throne designed to fit a six inch tall figure was perfect for the six inch tall ego of 3 3/4 inch high Cobra Commander.

He lived in a four bedroom house and the hallway was a river where the Killer WHALE and the Moray would duke it out. One guest room was his domain, the other guest room was mine. His bedroom was where the FLAGG (actually his bed as the real FLAGG had not been released yet) was stationed or when it suited my needs, it was Cobra's heli-carrier.
He and I had some awesome battles. Although it sounds boring, some of the fun was trying to remember what missiles went with which plane or vehicle after the battle was over.

When ARAH came out on TV, I couldn't get home from school fast enough to watch it, even more so when Revenge of Cobra came out. Then when the series came out, oh my DOG!!!! I was in Heaven! But no! What do you mean it's on at the same time as Transformers!?! Fortunately Cameron had a VCR and we could watch G.I.*JOE and record Transformers and watch it immediately after. We later learned to record G.I.*JOE because we'd have rather have watched G.I.*JOE over and over. I still have pretty much all of the second episode of Revenge of Cobra memorized because we watched it so much.

Once the series started, the Saturday after Pyramid of Darkness was aired, the TV station showed it all the way through, which was good, because I had missed it through out the week. Even now when I watch it, I immediately go back to that same feeling I had then when the scene is shown down the tunnel and the flames from the space shuttle come rushing out as the shuttle is transported to the launch site.

Unfortunately Cameron moved a few years later. It was somewhere between the 86 releases and when Arise Surpentor, Arise was aired, as I remember having Dr. Minbender and Viper v1, but hadn't seen them animated.

So now I was once again stuck with my small collection. That was fine though, I had incorporated other similar scaled vehicles into the fold. I liked following in the lines of the first two mini-series. Cobra has a cool weapon that, similar to the MASS Device, runs on exotic elements from around the world. I had some cool looking rocks that played the part of the elements and I'd make small teams that had to go in search of them.

My uncle had a cabin in the mountains of Colorado. I generally refrained from bringing my Joes with me because my cousins had a a bunch of toys up there and generally brought their own Joes. One time mom, uncle and I and were going to be the only people who were going to be there for a long weekend, so I brought some Joes along. This was a chance for my go-to guys to enjoy the mountains with me. Duke, Footloose, Mutt and Alpine. I had a big four wheel drive truck that was perfectly sized for Joes and the mountains seemed the best place to have them use this truck. Since I felt these guys needed more than just the guns and packs they originally came with, I borrowed gear from some of my other Joes as well as gear from the Machine Gun and Mortar sets.
I had a great time using the truck and my Joes together over some of the rough terrain around the cabin. They didn't need and Cobras to fight, they were just out having fun. So was I.

Later in the weekend, some friends of my uncle came for a visit, and brought their five year old son. That kid wasn't in the house for five minutes before he started eye-balling my Joes. I tried to steer hi towards my cousins toys, but he wanted my Joes and their awesome truck.

Mom told me I needed to share my toys. I told her that five year old kids don't know how to play safely with small toys like action figures. I distracted the kid with something and snatched all my Joes and put them away before he messed them up. He didn't like that, I didn't care.

It got late in the night and the family decided to spend the night. The next morning I woke up and walked into the kitchen. From there I saw the kid. With my truck. And my Joes. I asked mom why she let him play with my stuff when my cousins had all these other great toys around (on a side note, I wasn't hoping the kid would break my cousin's toys and not mine, but my cousin's toys consisted of things like Tonka and Nylint trucks. Big, heavy duty toys designed to stand up to abuse). Mom told me I was being silly and not to be so selfish. No sooner had she said that then we looked out on the back to deck just in time to see that little booger eater fling my truck, Joes included over the edge and send it tumbling down the brush covered hill.
Duke, Footloose, Mutt, and Junkyard survived.
Over half the gear was lost
Alpine was MIA and presumed KIA.

When we returned to Denver, the rest of the Joes held a lovely funeral for their fallen comrade.

A few years later, although I still liked collecting and watching the show, may parents made the decision that I was too old for toys and needed to get into other things. I didn't see it that was so I'd have be sneaky about watching the show and making sure all my stuff was cleaned up before my parents got home from work.

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The United States will conquer Terrorism with the help of God and a few Marines.

Some people, when trying to avoid thinking about those things that cause them pain, turn to drink, or perhaps food, or drugs... I turn not to any of those... I collect action figures, turning my mind to the hunt, so that I might find a mote of peace... Over the years, I've found that alcoholism is much more socially acceptable by far.

By the time I was in 9th grade, yeah, I had decided I was too old for toys. I had moved to California to live with my dad, but didn't take any of my stuff like that with me.

I hadn't bought anything Joe related in years, yet I still looked whenever I might find myself in a toy store or department store.

Until 1992. Then for some reason I bought a Gung Ho figure. I guess I figured, I am now a Marine (having just joined the Marines and at the time was going through Motor Transport school), maybe I should get the guy who was THE Marine in my childhood world. In fact, to be perfectly honest, G.I.*JOE was about half the reason I joined the Marines. Gung Ho hung with me for a while.

After that I didn't buy another Joe figure for a few years, but I went back to collecting another figure form my childhood; Star Wars. Mr. Lucas aka "The Maker," decided to re-release the greatest movie trilogy ever made and with that re-release came a whole slew of new figures. I ended up with about thirty of them. I didn't really want any of the vehicles, coz they take up so much space, so I got the small Galoob (I think) collection.

One time whilst perusing the Star Wars isle at a We B Toys, I noticed that G.I.*JOE was now being released in three packs. I couldn't find any SW figures I wanted, so I plunked down the cash for ALL the three packs at once. I may not have been able to eat that week, but at least I had something to keep me entertained.

The new Joes were acquainted with my old childhood Joes and they got along fine, but got put into a storage unit because I had to move and could immediately bring them with me.
Here's the suck part; I was mailing in my payments for the storage unit. Apparently the book keeper wasn't doing her job very well and kept entering my payments into the wrong file, so when the owner was going over the records, it appeared as if I hadn't paid for storage in several months, so all my stuff was sold. Everything I owned, all my Marines Corps memorabilia, all but the clothes I had with me, my housewares and bathroom stuff and yes, all my old toys, including those Joe and Star Wars figures and toys.

G.I.*JOE was out of my mind for a while as I tried to regroup my life.

Fast forward a few years to 2002. I was working at a hotel as the night auditor. One of my co-workers is a comic geek and had some Joe, SW and TF decals on his laptop. One night he left a copy of the movie and I watched it and was brought back to my childhood.
Since my job as the night auditor was an eight hour shift with maybe two actual hours of work, I had a lot of dead time on my hands.

I cruised eBay looking for some of the old Joe toys I owned, just to see what they might be worth these days. Then I started getting it in my head about building small teams, like using Gung Ho, Leatherneck, Sgt Slaughter and Mainframe as a small team of Marines. Or maybe Repainting a Skystriker and using model decals make it look like a real F-14. Knowing the Dragonfly looks like an AH-1 Cobra, I thought about ways to fix that tail section to put a prop there. Strangely enough, I honestly thought I was the only person who had ever thought about customizing G.I.*JOE toys this way. None of this really went anywhere as I never bought anything, but it was just fun to fantasize for a bit. I did buy the entire series and movie on VHS, but that's about the only Joe purchase I'd made.

Again, hit the fast forward button to about a year ago. I walked into a surplus store that was going out of business. Amongst other things, they had a box full of G.I.*JOE and similar toys that they had on display in their storefront cases. I asked how much they wanted for the box and the girl said "I dunno. $20?" Cha-Ching! Sold!

The box had an almost complete, but badly yellowed Skystriker, a few 82/83 figures plus some others. Quite a few of them were complete or mostly complete surprisingly enough. With those figures, the Skystriker and a couple of other vehicles, I made over $150 on eBay. I had actually searched eBay for some of the missing parts and so total probably had about $50 total invested. Not a bad little profit. I didn't really have any ambition to start collecting at that time, but it was fun to refurbish those toys

One day out of pure boredom while reading an issue of Star Wars Insider, I saw a picture of the 501st and wondered if there were any G.I.*JOE related costuming groups. I looked up on line and sure enough there was G.I.Joe Costumers (a really good group of people). I lurked for a bit and decided to join up. Since I don't quite have the physique to be Gung Ho or Sgt Slaughter and they already had a Leatherneck, I decided to go with Mainframe (I'd have felt really out of place NOT wearing some kind of Marine Corps uniform)

This is where my current interest in G.I.*JOE came from. While trying to find references for Mainframe, I happened upon a site called Joe Battlelines, and read the review of Mainframe, but furthermore the great pictures. This got me to thinking a little less about a costume and little more about the figures and vehicles.

Now I wanted to get some figures. All because of a review of Mainframe written by Justin "General Hawk" Bell. Damn you Justin Bell! Damn you to where ever Canadians are typically damned to! (Probably Detroit) Because of your great pictures and awesome figure reviews, I am now a Joe-a-holic and have a really good collection going. Oh, not only did he get me hooked with his reviews, he hosts a web site site with something called a "Dio-Story." Something I read and now have endeavored to create myself.

I was reminded of one of my favorite episodes of the cartoon, "Let's Play Soldier." Within the show was what I thought was the perfect team made up of Gung Ho, Leatherneck, Beach Head, Wet Suit, and Low Light. So I thought I'd buy those figures., but maybe add Torpedo so there were two SEALs. Maybe Shipwreck too. Now they need something to get around in...HMMM, a Tomahawk would be cool. Maybe repaint a Moray in US Navy colours....

Crap.

Now I'm hooked.

Now I've got a decent collection of over 200 figures and almost 60 vehicles. I've started customizing a few vehicles and figures thanks to Joe Customs, a site that had made me realize that I wasn't the only one ever to think of customizing G.I.*JOEs. I don't know why I thought that, as I'm not that savvy, but I'm glad to have found the site and see what possibilities there are.

I've started my own Dio-Story thanks to JoeDios and General Joes, as well as having enjoyed taking pictures of the figures and vehicles for just regular pictures for fun.

Now, to counteract the suck part of when the book keeper lost my storage payments and I lost all my stuff, apparently my toys found their way into the on line world. A few months ago I bought a bunch of HISSes. One of these HISSes had the decals put on in a non-symmetrical way, much like those of the HISS I owned as a kid. I removed the turret from the hull and sure enough, painted on the bottom of the turret were my initials. My mom had painted them there so I could ID mine over those of my friends.

I was so happy to have scored one of my old toys for when I was a kid that I had thought was gone forever.

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The United States will conquer Terrorism with the help of God and a few Marines.

Some people, when trying to avoid thinking about those things that cause them pain, turn to drink, or perhaps food, or drugs... I turn not to any of those... I collect action figures, turning my mind to the hunt, so that I might find a mote of peace... Over the years, I've found that alcoholism is much more socially acceptable by far.

1982, my older cousin showed me the pamplet, the original 13. He informed me that this was the coolest thing ever. I believed him. Short Fuse first figure, it was bought on vacation, and the ram was the second I think. The 25th hit me like crazy!

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I submit to You. I lay at Your feet, Lord.

In 1982 I saw the figs in the toy store, grabbed Breaker, later Short Fuse, Grunt and Rock N Roll and was hooked.

Saw the comercials later, actually never picked up the comic until around #15 then didn't grab it again until #30 (was boring to me up until around #25 anyway). I mostly watched the toons when they came on.

Unlike most I keep going util the line ended. Even after that I would buy joes at yard sales ect. Kept going until lately where I have been scaling back after tons and tons of Snake Eyes and Dukes and ect.

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http://www.zedsjoesite.com Home Scale Wars updated Mon-Fri Every Week

I read through your whole 2 postings.......but this^^^^^^^THIS is *THE BEST* part of it all. CONGRATS man!!!



Oh, and Justin lives in New Hampshire.......

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Non illigitamus carborundum~Vos mos non effrego mihi

Coming soon: 'JoeSpecialOps'

^^^that is pretty amazing.

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All my customs in one place....Da Talent's Customs

Coulda swore he was Canadian.

So Canadian Hell will be REALLY bad for him then: "I repent, eh!" "Please, Lord, forgive me, eh!"

__________________
The United States will conquer Terrorism with the help of God and a few Marines.

Some people, when trying to avoid thinking about those things that cause them pain, turn to drink, or perhaps food, or drugs... I turn not to any of those... I collect action figures, turning my mind to the hunt, so that I might find a mote of peace... Over the years, I've found that alcoholism is much more socially acceptable by far.

Re-buying your HISS tank is the best. Amazing! I keep wondering if I'll ever run into my repainted Stinger jeep (neon decals and muddy tires).

My history: 1982, I was a moderate Star Wars collector. For my birthday, I got Breaker and the JUMP. Dunno what possessed my parents to buy GIJoe except maybe because it was new and they didn't know what SW stuff I didn't have. Breaker was an oddball for a while. I remembered the fragile Micronauts from the '70s and was weary of too much articulation. But the basic olive drab uniform, headset and jetpack were really different (SW backpacks were really hard to come by). Plus, ingenious Hasbro included a full color catalog of all the figures and vehicles. I'd comb that thing daily, dreaming of a chance to get the VAMP or MOBAT. Slowly, Joes and their three meager Cobras took the place of Star Wars. By 1986, I had most of everything save the Flagg & TTBP. Of course, when I hit high school, it all went into the attic.

In 2008, I finally decide to clean out my remaining stuff from the parents' place. So I travel back to Texas, not really prepared for what I find. Discolored, often broken and covered with inches of dust, my boxes of Joes wait to be reboxed for shipping. Intimidated, I grabbed my '82 figure case and returned to Denver. Since all their O-rings were shot, I checked online for a way to replace them. Ran into the FAQ at YoJoe.com. That was it: once I repaired those guys, the love was back, and I went to get the rest of my collection. I planned to sell most of it and keep the original 13 and vehicles, but it didn't happen. Once I found JoeDios, the cool shots of unknown figures and vehicles led me to eBay, not to sell, but to increase my collection. Checking out photos and diostories here has really brought Joe collecting back to life.

I wonder how many collectors kept it up since childhood, without that "growing up" phase in the middle?

That would be Flint & I

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Non illigitamus carborundum~Vos mos non effrego mihi

Coming soon: 'JoeSpecialOps'