While looking for Guzzle (and succeeding, yay Meijer) I also checked the GIJOE pegs. Holy crap, they had a Steel Brigade dude! Man, I don’t pay any attention to GIJOE anymore. He was a surprise. Anyway, I totally grabbed him.
Steel Brigade was this promotional thing when I was a kid. You send in this form where you fill in a name and choose a primary and secondary military specialty and also send in some money, and a few weeks later you got this Steel Brigade dude with a personalized filecard. It was pretty damn sweet, not gonna lie.
Anyway, my guy’s name was Tyranno. Look, I don’t know, I really liked dinosaurs. If I recall, his primary specialty was something related to flying and his secondary was probably related to weaponry. So, yes, he was a guy named after a dinosaur who flew and had lots of weapons. Maybe this is why I dig Wexter so much. I mean, he is clearly the trifecta.
I am assuming that, true to Steel Brigade Guy’s origins, that Steel Brigade is a bunch of mixed existing parts and a new helmet. The new helmet goes over a masked face, probably Beachhead’s. The new Joes continue to come with a buttload of stuff. This means he comes with two backpacks, which feels even stranger to me than more guns than he can carry. I’m not sure why. Anyway, one of them’s full of removable rockets for his rocket launcher and the other is clearly for camping. There’s also two black rifles, one of which can sit in the tripod.
Since Tyranno was a weapons expert, I gave him the backpack with rockets and the rocket launcher.
That’s right, I’m calling him Tyranno.
Am I the only one who thought this post was gonna be about the Dinosaucers?
The evil leader wants his name back.
Or Dina’s cousin Tyler Ranno Recks.
Me and my brother both has Steel Brigade as kids. Don’t remember there names sadly.
But I had to buy him when I saw him just for nostalgia. He’s now facing off against the new Hazard Viper who got bought because guys in Decon suits with suitcases full of Zombie virus (seriously) are almost as cool as nostalgia.
It’s funny, I just picked him up tonight! Man, he’s awesome as he was when I was younger. (Called mine Drop-Dead when I was a kid, and this one carries the tradition!
)
I believe I called mine Striker. The ‘personalized’ toy thing was ludicrously cool.
I really dig the new Joe stuff. It captures what made G.I. Joe great while branching out into new territory. I always preferred Joes to Transformers (no offense!). The irony is, I am a pacifist.
Thanks for the heads up on Meijer Guzzle, I got him this morning. I have no attachment to the character and don’t really collect cyberverse, but for some reason I’ve been looking for him. Now I know the reason. He is awesome. Are there any non-movie character cyberverse commanders other than Guzzle and Powerglide.
That looks like Matt Tracker’s helmet.
Actually, Matt’s helmet does not look like that. Really. At all. The details are different, the colours are different, and the shape is different.
http://sydlexia.com/imagesandstuff/MASK/matt2.jpg
Your assumption on mold flogging would be accurate. Instead of getting into all of the dirty details, here is the page which can tell you all about it. http://www.yojoe.com/action/87/steelbrigade.shtml
That’s odd – this Steel Brigade figure should come with three rifles. The third – a heavy machine gun – is actually supposed to connect with the tripod. The bayonet one isn’t meant for that.
Also I love the Steel Brigade and Cobra Trooper from the same wave, mainly because they are some of the first 3 3/4″ Joe figures who can kneel and position a rocket launcher over their shoulders, due to excellent leg articulation + hinging wrists.
Yeah, it looks like you’re missing the machine gun!
Anyway, he’s an army builder (with the card describing him as the “green shirts” of the joes now, I guess) so he comes with a lot of weapons so you can outfit multiple guys in different ways. So you’ve got a couple with the assault rifles, maybe a machinegunner or two, and a couple with the launchers – ah, you know what I’m talkin’ about. Point is: I love ‘em! Great figures. In face, this whole wave is army builder heaven with Cobra Troopers and Vipers (probably the best Viper they’ve made so far). Keep a lookout for Renegades figures in the next wave – they should be out soon!
me and my brother each had a Steel Brigade trooper when we were kids. I always kind of wondered why they never added them to the comicbooks and GI Joe’s answer to the cobra troopers.
My Steel Brigade figure was called Airfox (d’uh!), and his specialities were jet pilot (or something to that effect) and computers. I went into an IT career, but still can’t fly a plane.
-airfox
His helmet looks like he should be flying Airwolf.
Now I have this horrible, awesome idea of GI Joes flying around in Airwolf. Best crossover ever.
ERTL did, once upon a time, make a Joe-scale Airwolf toy. Then they remarketed it, after the show had ended, as the Viper X. I wonder if they still have the molds.
Reminds me of the Battle Armor Cobra Commander i used for my superhero..Volt..he could fly and used electricity as a weapon..
Love the Steel Brigade. I picked up six when from the Pursuit of Cobra line, and I’ve had to resist buying the three or four I’ve seen on the newer cards.
this post ended up convincing me to buy one of these dudes yesterday, and now as hard as I try to use some other name for him, I can’t think of his as anything other than tyranno.