I don’t know whether it’s the fact that I’ve been restricted to buying non-O-ring Joes for the past couple months or what, but Wave 5 has pretty much knocked my socks off. Every figure seems to come packed full of character, sculpting and terrific color schemes, and I really see a lot of these updates kind of overshadowing their original incarnations.
As I’ve been known to do with these new releases, I’m going to start at the bottom and work my way up until I get to my favorite new figure of the bunch.
Here we have Hasbro’s next victim of mistaken identity. Similar to the Sidetrack/Ranger messup, whoever the brainchild that was in charge of Wave 5 changed this classic character from Edwin Steene (I think…something like that) to Greg Scott. Not only that, but they rearranged his backstory enough to make me think that they meant this to be a completely different character. I just think that this figure is so cool, that it can be no one BUT the original Lifeline.
This figure follows Hasbro’s pattern of recreating some of the great 90’s molds and improving the colors to give us some terrific new figures. This is definitely no exception. As I have said many, many times, I think the late ’90 molds are often overlooked, and I think this version of Lifeline was a great one. The vest absolutely laden with pouches and different surgical tools scattered along…his padded pants and otherwise simple detail. The figure deserves a LOT more recognition than it got. Heck, even I used the ’86 version of Lifeline in my diostories, but not anymore. This 2002 version is now the ultimate version of Lifeline and will forever be the one that I use. Back to back (or side to side) with Sideswipe, the two look like the perfect medical/search and rescue team and in my Joeverse will be just that. Sideswipe laying down cover fire and evacing the wounded while Lifeline triages on the spot or preps for immediate evac. A great team that will get lots of exposure, I have a feeling.
Now the original Lifeline may have suffered from some color-neglect. The bright red vest may not have appealed to too many people, but whatever they didn’t like about his colors, should be rectified by this version. His vest is a perfect shade of black with a tad of red at the shoulder. His undershirt is white with the slightest hint of paint wipe, giving it a nice gray shade. The pants are just a tad brighter, being a muted white, with some cool red thigh-pads. The pads are washed with some white, which brings them together nicely with the pants. All in all, it looks like Hasbro took some time with this paint job and tried to get all of the different colors to mix together. They were definitely successful.
Accessories for this version of Lifeline pretty much match the original ’94 version. A cool looking metal suitcase, a nice flare gun and such…a great match with the figure, and unlike the ’94 version, these accessories are actually black! A great step!
All in all, this version of Lifeline is seriously my favorite of the whole series. Besides Doc, he is my favorite Medic and an absolutely great figure. Hasbro continues to impress me with their repaint line and I look greatly forward for Wave 1.5 and the Convention Crimson Strike Team, and can only hope that they continue the O-Ring, "classic" style in some form throughout the years.
