Snake Eyes

When I first saw the picture of Snake Eyes, my first impression was "what the heck is that on his leg???". The bright, glaring G.I. Joe logo really seemed to be counter productive to their role as a covert operations group. But, upon closer inspection, I realize that it is not quite so bad, and the Snake Eyes figure is actually very, very nice.

When the G.I. Joe comic was nearing the end of it's run, Snake Eyes was featured prominantly in it as a member of Ninja Force. His uniform in the comic was quite good, in my opinion, much, much better than the poor excuse for a toy action figure version of him. This new figure really captures the essence of that uniform nad pulls it off beautifully! Snake Eyes is predominantly black, as he should be. The blue highlights are a wonderful shade, a nice contrast to the black, but not overly bright to draw attention away from the black suit. He still retains that dark color, but has some variety to his uniform.

Now, as for that pesky logo. Here is the way I see it. G.I. Joe has always been a toyline marketed for children. Yes, adults can also take plenty of joy in collecting the figures, and even playing with them, but Hasbro's target group is kids, plain and simple. Snake Eyes is the focus point of G.I. Joe, like it or not. He is the Joe icon, and the one that people most recognize. As such, it would seem like good sense to sort of make him the G.I. Joe hero...by plastering the logo on his leg, it will draw kids in and show them exactly who the good guy is. It makes Snake Eyes more of a "Superhero", which as horrible as that may be to some fans who think he is drastically overrated (myself included) it may draw the kids in and give them a cool character to identify Joe with. This is a good thing, in my book.

Back to the figure's design, I actually think that this version of Snakes is somewhat superiour to the original '89 version which also used this mold. The colors are more subdued and he just looks...meaner. I like this figure...a LOT. A lot more than I thought I would like a Snake Eyes figure back in the dark days of Ninja Force.

Plastic quality once again is great. No O-Ring problems, and the weapons choices are fabulous. The backpack works well and I LOVE the sword he comes with and the color. The machine gun just plain rocks and I like this color even more than the original gray color of the weapon back in '89. Even the staunchest anti-Snake Eyes Joe fan should love this figure. Just snag some flat black to cover up that logo!

Package and File Card



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