The hits just keep on rolling with the 25th Anniversary line. It’s almost hard to keep up! The third series of single pack figures is stacked with ‘fan favorites’. We get classic Joes Shipwreck and Stalker, as well as classic Cobra villains Zartan and Firefly. To sweeten the pot, Hasbro threw in the ‘Red Ninja’ Storm Shadow repaint, who is actually pretty darn cool. Expand the post for all the picture goodness.

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SHIPWRECK
Shipwreck is a stud! Okay, this is a cool figure. His look is perfect to fit the cocky sailor’s attitude, and he’s complete with his trusty sea-faring companion Polly the parrot. There were two versions of Shipwreck, the earlier having him sporting a shark tattoo on his forearm, while later releases adjusted the tattoo to an anchor to match the package art. I got the shark, but both versions look pretty neat.

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STALKER
Stalker turned out pretty well. At first, I was a little miffed that Hasbro reused the snake-eyes body for him, but with the new gear and paint-scheme, it’s hard to tell. Like Shipwreck, there were a couple versions of Stalker. Early releases had him cast in a brighter, more yellow color. This was fixed in later production runs to be the darker green camo. I got the latter, cuz the weird yellow color just wasn’t for me.

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FIREFLY
Oooh. Firefly! I always loved this baddie from back in the days of the old 80s cartoon and I was super-excited to get a nicely detailed superarticulated version of him in this collectors line. He reuses the Beachhead body we got in series 2, but you wouldn’t really know it unless you put the two side-by-side. Firefly’s gear is perfect and iconic - he gets his backpack, machine gun, and saboteur’s cell-phone. Ha! Firefly is also the first figure I’ve picked up from the 25th Anniversary line that has a modified crotch-piece. Hasbro has narrowed it to more of the t-crotch we had on the old 80s figures, allowing the legs to swing forward and get the figure in a seated position. Nice to see Hasbro making adjustments like this to improve the line.

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ZARTAN
Oh yes. The evil Dreaknok leader and master of disguise. Zartan is a thoughtful throw-back to the original figure from the 80s. He has the temperature sensitive color-change effect that darkens the skin of his face from fleshy to grey, and he comes with his backpack that snaps open to reveal a mask of a goateed baldy that Zartan can wear to disguise himself. Pretty nifty. This figure is a real must-have from this series.

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RED NINJA
The original ‘Red Ninja’ figure, if I have my facts straight, was called “Satan” and, as such, never released in the U.S. in the 80s line (for obvious reasons). It saw release overseas (in Argentina of all places) and became a heavily coveted piece by collectors. Well, ‘Satan’ aside, we can all have our own Red Ninja now. He’s a repaint of the box set Storm Shadow, and even shares a lot of that figure’s gear. But his big hook staff and new paint scheme differentiate him enough to make him worth picking up.

Tags: 25th Anniversary, Firefly, GI Joe, Red Ninja, Shipwreck, Stalker, Zartan

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