G.I.Joe 

1986: The Figures, Part 1

By Destro Designs – Viper Den Studios As my deep dive into all things G.I.Joe 1986 continues, I am going to rap about the figures first, and then the playsets and vehicles. As for the figures, I am going to sort of sidewind all over, but I will leave my favorites for last. One of the more important, but simple, figures is General Hawk. With his release, I was able to saddle him into the base that was comprised of the Bivouac, Machine Gun Nest, and various dio pieces I…

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G.I.Joe 

1986: Further Down This Rabbit Hole of My Life Surrounding G.I. Joe

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,”…

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G.I.Joe 

1986: The Event Horizon of My G.I. Joe Childhood

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…

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G.I.Joe 

1985 Continues Its Dominance Over My Imagination with the Vehicles and Playsets!

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…

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G.I.Joe 

1985 Opened Doors to My Imagination I Hadn’t Known Were There

By Destro Designs – Viper Den Studios 1985 started having things outside of G.I. Joe influence my head canon. For instance, movies that hit VHS wound up on my TV, and despite being almost 6 years old, I was watching things like The Terminator, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The Terminator scared the crap out of me, to be honest—but I loved it. That handgun with the laser dot… ugh, give me that, I used to say. But also, 55 episodes of G.I. Joe were released…

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