You know... I never really watched cartoon or read comic - that as something that I wasn't very keen on. I got other great cartoons tht day - General Daimos for instance .
But the personality.. yes... EVERY figure has a file card. And if sometimes Cobras are shown as a complete dumbasses, these filecards DO give them life Yes... they are alive for me, as they are alive for you
That's why It's always a great problem for me to decide who's gonna die in my dios. (I'm counting only SINGLE characters. Vipers always die in dozens, as you know... target practice)

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My weekly TOP5:


The sacrifice of innocence the hailing of the gun
My way was death and madness, now let the Tower come

In my 1st dio, I killed off Big Ben, Rampage, Torpedo and a WHOLE slew of others. And for those who actually got thru it, Nunchuk is still in disguise as Viper and Firefly is still in a jailcell! I never did wrap those ends up. lol.

Big Ben?

*De-cloaks for posting*

This is a really great thread! Like some of you I grew up with the Joe's! I was born in 1985, in 89 I got Dodger. My first figure. I was hooked. The videos of the cartoon soon followed. I grew up with the toyline and stayed reasonably faithful to it. X-MEN and the Turtles tried to put me off Joe, but never succeeded! Because I watched the toon as a boy, the cartoon style sculpts and colouring of figures are usually always my favourite. My only regret is, that as a boy, I didn't have many cartoon style figures or vehicles. As a boy I wanted every Joe figure and playset made. My first ever ambition. One which I still try to accomplish today! I might have had it done had I not started army building! Oops!

GI Joe is more than a toyline, to all of us and to every other collector.

Realism still does not really bother me, though. I blame the toon for that!

Another thing for sure, is that in my case at least, is that the older I get, the more the Joe's mean to me. So many memories!

Also since starting to take pictures of my Joe's, even before I started posting here, I learned to appreciate the Joe's all the more. I love photographing the Joe's and that has played a big part in keeping me hooked, even still! I have General Hawk and Timelf to thank for that! Their dio's inspired me to start doing dio pics. Although these guys and many other dioists -I know that isn't a word, but you know what I mean- inspire me still, these days you guys on Joedios, inspire me and influence me to keep on snapping all the more! Now I just need to make more progress on that pesky dio of my own!

So now you know...

Dave

I got my first Joe in 1964, he was the Action Pilot, I played with him all the time and eventually got about a dozen Joes and various 1/6th scale figures. I remember having the Mercury capsule and having "splashdowns" in our pool. I was always a comic book/strip fan and used to make my own elaborate stories with my Joes. Somewhere around 1971, my Mom gave away all my Joes to a cousin. In 1973, I started doing stop-motion animation and bought a bunch of Mego figures (8" tall as opposed to 12" tall). Most of these guys survived and i still have some. In the 90s when the 12" Joes were reintroduced, I got a few and some Action Man as well as Captain Action reissues. I really started to go crazy about a year ago and have been all out G.I. Joe insane. I started to get some of the sets I had as a kid and also started doing photo-stories with them. I never got into the 3.75" Joe, too busy doing all that fun bad stuff we all do in our 20s and somehow I kept that up into my 30s. When Sigma 6 came out, I fell in love with the cartoony Joes and have been collecting them.

So, why do I like Joe? He let's me feel young and creative again. He inspires me to be a 48 year old kid!!!

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brine

I also play with other toys:
http://brineb.blogspot.com/

i first got involved with gijoes when i was 9 and i'm 11 now so when i get my allowance and theirs actully 3,3/4in joes on the shelves cause in VA theirs barely any new little joes we still haven't gotten the viper lockdown set but in johnson city theirs a toys r us that i have not been to yet and xmas is comming up so you never now

When ever I see a joe I grab it!

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Rangers lead the Way!

Yeah G, how can you kill off Big Ben?! I hope it wasn't the original!

Joes make me feel like a kid again. I'm 29 and in denial. A kid will say- adults suck, they're boring, stupid, and excessively serious, and for the most part I sympathize completely.

In the era of nu skulpts, the older archaic ones just didn't seem to match up. Big Ben and Surefire were quickly killed off in a pretty cartoony generic attack. Therefore, it was the W1.5 JvC versions that bit the dust.

Ah oui, R.I.P. --that was Big Bon, a member of the french SAS