Serpentor's Lair

By Destro Designs- Viper Den Studios 1986, the Year of the Joe, was put on a pedestal because of the explosion of imagination surrounding my entire habitat. I lived across the street from a Pizza Hut with an arcade game, and there was a laundromat down the street with 3–4 rotating arcade machines. I had family scattered in all directions throughout our grid-style neighborhood that stretched from the hill to the river, end to end, with my house sitting right in the middle of it all. With family “close enough,”…

Read More

By Destro Designs – Viper Den Studios To me, the best year of G.I. Joe is 1986. The combination of figures, playsets, and flat-out iconic awesomeness can’t be matched. 1985 does a great job trying, but forget it. 1986 is where it was at. By this point, I had seen so many movies in the horror and action genres that I had a pretty good idea of what real action actually looked like. I’m going to break down all of the different figures and playsets over the course of a…

Read More

By Destro Designs – Viper Den Studios The G.I.Joe figures of 1985 are often regarded as the best—or second best behind 1986—in my opinion. And the same goes for the vehicles and playsets. First off, we’ll address the elephant in the room: the aircraft carrier. It’s the biggest, most insane playset ever made for any toy—ever. It’s so large that most people I knew didn’t have it. Hell, I didn’t know anyone who had it until a few years later. That said, those who do have it often regard it…

Read More