Here it is! Part three, the final installment of my history collecting GI Joe. After 1994, I had not paid much attention to the GI Joe brand. There were other things to distract me at the time... like ska and punk music, chicks, college, and beer (not necessarily in that order). Yes, being cool was the name of the game in the late high school and college era. It looks like I missed a great deal of cool things during that time, like the Stars And Stripes Forever set and the 1997 re-issues that popped up. Now, I kind of kick myself for missing out on all that cool stuff, when it was so affordable. Anyway, hindsight is always 20/20.
Fast forward a few years to 2001. The hectic life of college was over and I was just into my television career. I was living in a little house in north central phoenix (CenPho to all the hipsters). There was a Toys R Us on Camelback and 7th Street that I liked to check out when I was bored. GI Joe managed to find a way back in once again!
It all started back up again with the Real American Hero Collection. They were a bunch of re-molds of older figures and some cobbled together parts of other figures made into new characters. I ended up buying a couple of these, even though I was slightly less than impressed with the copyright friendly name changes. They were nostalgic to say the least. I even bought my first new vehicle in many years, Destro's Dominator. I had always wanted the strange Heli-tank vehicle and this was my opportunity to own one. The Destro figure included was lame and I was very disappointed with the bright yellow weapons and rotor blades.
So I stopped collecting again for a few more years, until about 2004 rolled around. I stumbled across my old boxes of Joes in the spare bedroom closet and once again I was bitten by the collecting bug. I remember scouring all the Toys R Us stores around, picking up the remnants of the Valor vs Venom line and some of the DTC figures I could get my hands on. The DTC figures I thought were awesome, and I was disappointed when they disappeared from the store shelves. Luckily It wouldn't be much longer unitl...
The 25th Anniversary Pack! I saw it at one of our seemingly daily runs to Target. I had to have it. The new articulation blew me away. No more O-rings to change! Only thing missing were the vehicles. In a few months those started to appear... and it was on and hasn't stopped since!
A few years ago, I kept having dreams of getting the USS Flagg again. I never thought I would end up owning one again. Well, I finally did manage to get one. I used up my Father's Day cash and bought one up in a collection. It wasn't a smooth transaction either... the guy totally ripped me off on shipping, charging me $200 to just drive it across town and drop it off in front of my house. But... I had to pay it, it was eBay. I sold off the rest of the stuff and kept the aircraft carrier and now it is the centerpiece of my collection, its deck is overloaded with Skystrikers, Tiger Rat, Dragonfly, Sky Hawk, Sky Sweeper, Night Attack Chopper and anything else I could cram on there.
As of this writing, us Joe fans are facing an uncertain future. The stores are no longer carrying the Retaliation figures and we are still waiting on word as to when the Figure Subscription Service 2.0 will ship. These pauses are frustrating to us collectors, but I find them a good time to re-evaluate my collection and to fill in those gaps. Believe it or not, I do not have a V1 Dr. Mindbender figure! Hopefully, I can pick up one for a good price. I look forward to GI Joe III when it comes to theaters and the line of figures and vehicles that will accompany it.
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