 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. Welcome back to Class of Fridays And I would like to go back and look at the first wave of GI Joe classified series figures I don't think I've looked at these figures closely enough It's easy to forget these because so many great figures have been introduced more recently But for now, let's go back to where GI Joe classified began. Let's look at classified series Duke starting with the packaging We have the window pane showing the figure and the accessories It does say GI Joe classified series Duke and there is some artwork here that continues to the side This is kind of comic book style artwork and this is okay, but I prefer the painted style artwork We got on other figures. This is number four in the series very early in the series and on the back of the box We have the poster style artwork that we've seen on other figures There's a lot of real estate on the back of this box and although this generic artwork is nice It would be better to get something more specific to the figure on the other side of the box There are symbols which represent Duke's specialties. This one is five stars inside a laurel wreath This one is four bullets This one is a parachute and this one is a chess piece Let's go ahead and open this up and take the figure out and take a look at the Duke stir Shall we and here is Duke outside of the packaging and all geared up looking very serious This figure is inspired by Duke version one released in 1983 as a mail away offer It's not a one-for-one copy of version one Duke But some important design elements have been copied over some of the accessories on this classified Duke were inspired by the accessories on Version one Duke, but this assault rifle is definitely not one of them. This assault rifle looks pretty good It's got a magazine and a foregrip. It's got some gold and blue paint. It's got a little scope there I believe this is supposed to be a laser rifle judging from the barrel. I guess it's a blue laser Duke includes a pistol that fits in a green holster on his right leg This pistol like the assault rifle is in gray plastic with some gold paint on the slide I'm assuming this is another laser weapon Duke includes another small accessory these gray binoculars They peg onto the belt There is a peg on the binoculars and a hole on the back of the belt These are some high-tech Star Wars binoculars with some night vision scopes and a visor These are very small. In fact, they're kind of too small for the figure to peer through them These are very loosely based on the binoculars that came with the version one Duke figure But those binoculars had a strap that would go around the figure's neck. Finally Duke has a backpack It pegs into the back of the figure with this peg that goes into a hole in the back of the figure like that It's a good-looking backpack. It is in green plastic. It has some pouches It has a couple canteens one on each side and it has a black painted entrenching tool that entrenching tool is not removable It would be cool if you could remove it though This backpack is very loosely based on the version one backpack only the entrenching tool is the same The rest is different including the color Duke has a few other accessories that are on the figure They could be removed, but they're not really intended to be removed He has this green bandolier. It has some pouches and a buckle. It also has this blue circular Communication device. I assume that's a communication device This was a design element that was common to a lot of the first wave GI Joe figures That obviously is a very common look for Duke going all the way back to that first figure He also has a belt with some green pouches He has a metallic belt buckle and some additional green pouches on the back Finally, he has that green pistol holster on his right leg and a green strap that goes around the right leg Duke has the excellent articulation We've come to expect on GI Joe classified series figures great range of motion on the head all the way around up and down and Absolutely nothing to obstruct that motion. He has a butterfly joint at the shoulders, but mine does not move at all That's very tight, but he can move his arm up at the shoulders. That's a little bit limited He can swivel his arm at the shoulder all the way around. He has a twist at the upper arm He has double jointed elbows. He has articulation at the wrist He has a twist on both wrists and on the right wrist He has a twist and a side-to-side hinge I thought there was a hinge on this left wrist, but if there is it does not work on mine He's got a hinge at the rib cage. So he has an ab crunch He's got a twist at the torso. His legs will split apart with a wide leg split You got to pop those back in the sockets when you move them back. He's got a twist at the thigh cut He has double jointed knees He has a twist at the boot cut and he has hinged and rocker ankles with this classified Articulation you can get the figure in poses. You could never do on vintage figures Let's take a look at Duke and see if he looks like Duke. I think he looks like Duke He's got a good head sculpt. His face looks a little younger than I would expect He has a scar over his right eye and that's a nice touch. He looks like he's a bit battle-worn He has a khaki shirt very similar to the version one figure, but unlike the version one figure He has dark green panels from shoulder to shoulder on the upper part of the shirt and that is different I would have preferred a fully khaki shirt But I understand they were trying to add some additional details to the figure so I can accept that He has a white undershirt no visible dog tags though He has red epaulettes, which may be a callback to Duke's appearance on the Sunbow animated series He has a gold Parachutist badge on the right side of his shirt his arms feature rolled up sleeves His sleeves are rolled up just kind of to his forearms and that does kind of match the version one figure His sleeves are rolled up kind of in the same way then on his left elbow He has an armored elbow pad with kind of a dark strap that is painted on that goes around the left Elbow he has a wristband that goes around his left wrist. He has an orange watch that goes around his right wrist He has brown gloves with red knuckles around his waist He has that belt which we looked at before then he has dark green trousers with even darker green panels here and there to add Some additional detail. There is a canvassy texture on the legs He has pockets on the outside of his upper legs He has armored knee pads with gold paint and some blue stripes down the center He also has armored shin guards with some additional gold paint looks like he has some bullet strikes on those shin guards That's a nice touch. He also has some additional blue paint on the shin armor Then he has some brown boots. Those are standard boots, but they are mostly covered by the armor There are some dark green straps that go around the boot for that shin armor. So how about this Duke? I think it is fine I definitely don't like it as much as the vintage Duke action figure But you can tell this is Duke at a glance and that's a pretty basic criteria There is a variation on this figure some later releases had some very slightly different colors Slightly different paint applications and such but I would consider that to be a variation Not a different version of Duke with every new iteration of GI Joe We always get a Duke action figure. That's to be expected He was a popular character. In fact often we get multiple iterations of Duke So you can expect to see more of this guy if I were to change anything about this figure I would just take the green off the shirt and give him a fully khaki shirt and I like this face But I think Duke should look older. That was my review of GI Joe classified series Duke Yes, he's a little bland, but at least he looks like Duke, so I'll take it if you enjoyed this review Please give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel and check out my huge back catalog of vintage GI Joe Toy reviews you can find me on social media on Facebook and Twitter and I have a website HCC 788.com if you'd like to know if I've reviewed a toy That's the place to check I could not continue to do these videos without the support of my friends on patreon If you'd like to support the channel, that's a great way to do it You see the name scrolling on the screen right now your name could be there Thank you for watching. I'll be back soon with a vintage GI Joe toy review And I'll be back next week with a classified GI Joe toy review I will see you then and until then remember only GI Joe is GI Joe