1982 was a banner year – when we set aside all knowledge of what comes after, and JUST go on the info and toys we'd gotten so far at that time, we in essence had the basics of a solid infantry:
Bazookaman,
Rifleman,
Officer/Commander (Hawk)
Counter Intelligence,
Commando, etc.

In essence a small and capable bunch of soldiers for fighting in the field.

1983 brought us true specialization: a frogman (Torpedo), arctic soldier (Snow Job), Physician/Medic (Doc), Marine (Gung-Ho), etc.

I know as a kid the 82 Joes were my base "army" to fight with, and the 83 troops were called in based on special needs the regular army had. Keep in mind when I played Joe, I had no cartoon or comic influence till...84? 85? I read the first comic issues in reprints.

What do you/did you think of the extremely specialized troop types we got in 83?

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1982 Joes were pretty much larger scale versions of the little classic green army men. Unless you knew of the comic or read the file cards there was no Joe universe. It was all in your little kid mind.

1983 Brought the cartoon. Character in it like the ones in the toy line had more individualized outfits and characterization. They weren't just army guys but came from all branches of the armed forces. While there plenty of good Joes from 1983. None were among my true favorites. One problem that year is it is the same year of ROTJ. I don't think I got any Joes from it during that year.

I agree! '83, is the year for me! And everyone else is just greenshirts. (Apologies Roadblock).


I do believe that there was a serious reboot in '86, with Flint taking over for Duke and Hawk taking over for himself. That was the first wave that I every fully collected (every cardback figure), because those sculpts weren't as tippy, mishappen as some of the figures I didn't collect*


*I remember not getting characters from '83, '84, that I would have liked because they didn't balance well standing (Recondo, Ripcord), had weird bodies (Torpedo, Gung-Ho), or shared heads (Zap, Grunt). The situation persists today!

I fell backwards into GI Joe.

In 1982, at six years old, I somehow obtained a Rock N Roll, MOBAT w/ Steeler, and a Sgt. Savage figure. I knew of GI Joe from the commercials but it wasn't until the first cartoon mini-series in 1984 that I started to know the mythos. Therefore, most of the original 13 were merely green-shirts to me.

I thought Duke was the original leader and thought it strange how they kept adding higher ranking officers like Flint and Hawk above him in later years. I had heard about older GI Joes that my uncles used to play with and assumed that my Sgt Savage figure with his limited articulation must have been an OLD version of Footloose. In mid-late 1985 I started buying the comic - - and was awesome - really hooking me to the series - and with the release of the little digest GI Joe magazine in 1987 which reprinted three early issues in each I started picking up on the origin of the team. However, at the same time the likes of Cobra-la, Crystal Ball, and Raptor, was turning me away from the series. Our 7-11's got bought out by a chain that didn't sell comics, and I was really taking notice of the red-head next door, so I dropped GI Joe at about the same time I was starting to understand it. And when I picked it up again in 1997 I was a confused little puppy.

But just yesterday I pulled out what is my favorite 25th Anniversary GI Joes so far - and its the remakes of the original 13 plus Frostbite + Torpedo and just as you wrote in this post I was imagining these were my new corp GI Joe team with Torpedo and Frostbite being advisors for special environments. All the other GI Joes are reserves, like the M.A.S.K. team, they have day jobs until they get a beep on their communicator - called up for special missions.

-CJack

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Don't you mean Snow Job.

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I think 83 was a great year. Hasbro got away from the "green shirt" character and really started to expand the idea of the more unique figure. It was really a picture of where Hasbro was going to go with 3 3/4 inch Joes. They are fun to collect too!

You must mean Sgt. Rock, since Mssr. Savage didn't come along 'til 1995.

That was probably the year i was most excited about collecting Joes because i had never envisioned it continuing past '82. That whole year i dreaded getting the MOBAT in a way because that was it as far as i knew!

I first learned of new Joes on the way via TV news. In December '82 they ran a story on Joe, noting how our society had changed enough from the Vietnam era to allow a war toy to go on to such success. At the end was mentioned that some new good guys and two new bad guys were on the way.

The comic had enriched and encouraged my collecting since day one, but the storytelling got turned up a few notches in '83 with the introduction of continuing storylines. And the cartoon miniseries that year remains among their best animated efforts, even tho at the time i was buggered by stuff appearing in it that was destined never to make it to toy shelves.

I found the swivel arm battle grip totally revolutionary and it inspired new levels of play. My first specimens were tan Grunt and the Viper Pilot. I wore those swivels out pretty quickly!

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