Hey, how about those Target Joes? Easy to find, ample supply, well stocked online, Cobra Troopers coming out the arse…
Yeah, Hasbro’s new Cobra Island initiative has been anything but smooth sailing. You know it, I know it, about twelve thousand red-shirted Target employees who are being driven crazy by obsessive Joe fans know it. You’ve heard the term “going postal” but apparently there is a brand new wave of people that are “going Target.” Never go full Target.
I got lucky at a ridiculous hour and managed to grab Beach Head when they went up briefly on Target’s website during their “second chance wet your pants” dance. I managed to get Roadblock and Beach Head, but Baroness and the Cobra Troopers still elude me. As they elude so many.
Beach Head is what I would call a definite step in the right direction. There’s not a gold shinguard to be found. Sure, he has shinguards, due to the Joes still being the most tibia-protective people the world has ever known, but it’s not all “look at me, I’m protecting your shin!” I have been hesitant-to-lukewarm on the redesigns, mainly due to the overdone nature of some of them, but I’ve tried not to go on and on about it. Which is hard due to how much passion I have for the Joe brand. But I don’t want to be “that guy.”
Beach Head is the one that pushes me in the right direction, and even makes previous figures better by comparison just by virtue of existing. Sure, he’s still not a faithful recreation o the vintage toy, but there’s enough here that is Beach head while not tacking on those other redesign elements that I can safely say that I dig it quite a bit. I am content. I’m not having to look around certain elements. Like gold. Hopefully the gold can stay away.
Beach Head has always been one of those instantly badass looking Joes, with his face hidden behind his signature bala…baclallalal…balidaliholla…BelaLugosibacktothefutureLennyKravitz.
Balaclava, is what I’m shooting for there.
And we all know masked people are instantly awesome just by virtue of masks. It’s the same today. People that aren’t wearing masks right now kind of suck, so Beach Head is pretty much 2020’s spirit animal or something.
Beach Head comes with green weapons, which has divided the fandom. I don’t really mind, because it reminds me of the random gun colors of the vintage era. Red guns, green guns, white guns, black guns…it was a hodgepodge. But I understand people wanting them to be just basic black as well. I think it’s been said that Beach Head’s primary weapon here essentially has the same design as one of the Nerf guns, but that seems to be a strange thing that’s happening with the Joes. I know technically it’s a laser gun like everything else (like Gung Ho’s…urrgh…“shotblaster”) but it looks close enough to a real gun that I’m not sure I’m going to replace it. If I run across a good version of his vintage weapon, I might, but we’ll see. It’s not as overtly lasery as Roadblock’s thingamajig.
The sidearm fits in his holster, and the knife slides into a sheathe at his leg. He has a backpack and a crossbow, and the crossbow pegs into the backpack. I never used most of the backpacks that the Joes came with as a kid, so the backpack isn’t going to be a permanent part of Beach head’s overall look, but I definitely appreciate the inclusion of them, just in case.
He also comes with a red beret. It looks nice on him and fits nice and snug without coming off, but again it’s not something that I’m going to have as a permanent part of him. The beret was there on his original figure, connected to his vest.
The articulation is what we’ve come to expect with these new Joes. There are double jointed elbows and knees, butterfly shoulders, a head peg along with a lower neck joint that gives you some additional range, the drop down hips and the upper crunch along with a lower wobble joint on the torso.
The lower wobble waist on mine is pretty loose, and the vest gets in the way of his upper crunch but he can get a good swivel going. The drop down hips don’t seem to add a ton of range to the leg posing. That may have to do with the bulk in his pants, but I’m not really sure that the addition of that joint is going to end up adding much over the long run. It’ll be one of those case by case things. I’d have liked to have a camo pattern on the pants to give him that vintage vibe, but at least the colors are reminiscent.
The head seems to be coming with either brown or blue eyes. Mine comes with blue. I didn’t have a hard preference either way so blue is fine.
Despite initial hesitations, I am getting more and more excited for what’s coming in the Classified series. The designs seem to be getting less “out there” and the more characters added to the team the more it’s starting to feel like something. Now they just need to work on availability, because not being able to easily army build Cobra troopers is driving me as bananas as Beach Head was driven in the animated movie.
