Seems like there was a thread on this a while back, but...I did a search and it didn't turn up. So...

Scrap-Iron found me a single-carded (silver-head) Destro last week. Got to checking out his filecard and thought I noticed some differences between the original from '83 and the current one. So, I dug out my old Command File drawer of filecards and started doing some comparisons.

For Destro, the differences were fairly subtle:

1) Secondary Military Specialty was originally "Terrorist". It is now "Thief"
2) MARS is not referred to as "MARS" but is only strung out as Military Armament Research Systems (where in '83 it was referred to both ways)

For Storm Shadow, pretty much any reference to "assassin" was completely removed

1) Primary Military Specialty was originally "Assassin". It is now "Sabotage"
2) Original filecard text: "...through thirty generations of assassins". 25A filecard text: "...through thirty generations of ninjas".
3) Original filecard text: "The great Ninja assassin clans disappeared...". 25A filecard text: "The great Ninja clans disappeared...

Geez, what a watered-down world we live in this day and age.

So, who else is finding differences like these between the original filecards and the 25A ones?

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Yeah, if they strip away all the criminal activities from the bad guys, then why the hell are the Joes fighting them?

Cobra Commander: Politician (non-Party affiliated)
The Baroness: Immigrant waiting on Green Card approval
Destro: Distributor of unique goods and services
Major Bludd: Veteran

This is kinda funny, but wasn't it only recently that guys like Black-Out, Barrel-Roll, and Cross-Hair are called 'snipers' instead of poor Low-Light, who's only a 'Night Spotter'?

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The adventures of Low-Light, the Night Spotter...
"Yep, I just saw them. They're definitely doing some very bad things. Can I come in now? It's kinda cold out here."

Yeah. Quite ironic.

That reminds me...whose filecards were changed during the course of their initial run back in the 80s? Zartan, Major Bludd, Buzzer, and Spirit I know...but who else?

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Guys you gotta understand. Hasbro will be sued if they hint that the good folks at M&M and Mars are connected to Terrorism.

Terrorism? What the hell is that? You must mean thievery.

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Destro was a bank robber in the S6 toyline.

Hasbro can't have the kids thinking of Stormy as a killer bong smokin' Ismaili Muslim now can they?

from the wikipedia etymology:
The term 'Assassin' derives from Hashshashin, a militant Ismaili Muslim sect, active in the Middle East from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries. This mystic secret society killed members of the Abbasid and Seljuq élite for political and religious reasons.

It is speculated that the assassins were drugged for their murders with hashish and opium; assassin derives either from hasishin, the influence of the drugs, or hassansin, after their leader, Hassan-i-Sabah. Hashishinnya was an offensive term depicting this cult by its Muslim and Mongolian detractors

I was goofing around and building a chain o' command for my 25A Joe team with the '82-'83 Joes as one squad and the figures from the '84-on as a second squad and noticed that there were some rank changes on some of the figures (for instance, the lowest rank on the '82 team was E-5, Breaker has been "demoted" to E-4), as well as some changes in the bios. I can post what changes I've noticed if anyone is interested.

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Sure '53, post away...that's why I started the thread.

But, ah, E-4 was the lowest rank on the original team, shared by Breaker, Zap, Grunt, Flash, Short-Fuze, and Clutch (per a quick check of my Command Files). Scarlett, Snake-Eyes, Stalker, Rock-N-Roll, and Grand Slam are all E-5 (circa 1982).

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Admittedly, I was miffed about the change to Destro's secondary specialty to "Thief". But with this refresher glimpse back to 1983...

...I guess the guys working on the 25th line weren't really that far off when they changed it.

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Is posting changes to file cards verboten?

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I didn't want to get involved since it isn't my topic, but I didn't see anything iffy here, either, in my personal opinion. Unless it's the part about the word "assassin" deriving from a militant Muslim sect that smoked Hashish, but that's an historically accurate reference, so I wouldn't think that was the issue.