2011: A Golden Year for Joe Fans – Exploring Iconic Figures and Exclusive Releases
Story by Mitchell Smith
Welcome to the Outpost. Today I’m taking a look back at G.I. Joe 2011 as a whole. This was a great year. Anybody who enjoyed the 25th style Joe from the past few years was happy to see more waves and more characters they grew up with. It was a great time to be a Joe fan and a great time to build new fans for the future. We got some Pursuit of Cobra, 30th Anniversary, Slaughters Marauders, Noks, and one of my favorite characters I did not get from the exclusive club Dial-Tone. This was a great character and I was sad when I saw he was not being released at retail. I did however walk right into 3 other great characters and it was the only time I ever saw them in store, Lifeline, Sci-Fi, and Airtight.
These are still 3 of my favorite figures I own. Not to take away from other great figures like Low light, Crazy Legs, or another I had to get years later Steel Brigade, as these are all awesome figures. I love the pleated or textured shirt version of Steel Brigade. I’m not sure which figure was the first figure to have this but I think it makes the figures really pop that have this type of shirt. Cobra had one of the best versions of the original Viper, the Zombie Viper(fitting for the time), and one of my all time favorites Techno-Viper. Huge shout out to The Lair’s own Adam who hooked me up with a couple of them back in the day. There were 2 battle sets this year that I had to pass on, both had 7 figures.
The Slaughters Marauders and Dreadnoks. Both were packed with awesome characters. Although I did not get either of these I sure wished I owned each and every figure. There were only a handful of vehicles this year. The club exclusive Python Patrol Stinger was probably the coolest one I will never own, Ross had a few exclusives and I would have loved one of those Tiger Claws. The only vehicles I remember seeing in a store were the Black Dragon and I passed on that because it had poor reviews, and one of my favorites that I did get, the Skystriker.
Over all this was a pretty great year. I always consider this the last great year of retail as the years to come would convert over to a heavy laden club and convention exclusive figure that were just a bit out of what I could afford. Who are your favorite figures from this year? Make sure to check back next week for those crazy hunts for 2012 releases.
