 This episode of HCC 788 brought to you in part by the die-cast enterprise. Join us each week as we discuss the sexual proclivities of Commander William T. Riker. The bravado comedy of Lieutenant War. And the adorable monkey shines if one Wesley the sweater crusher. Or maybe we'll just talk about the golden girls. Or hairstyles. Or cartoons. That's equally likely. We also like G.I. Joe. There, we tied that in nicely. Well done everyone on that. By all our play sets and toys. So great talk here to love G.I. Joe. Great! I'm in hell! Swatterize it! Arch, arch, raid! Ready! Ready! Ready! Silence killed. Toy everybody, HoodieCobraCommander788 here. It's time for another vintage G.I. Joe Toy Review. And this one is special. Some of you may remember that a cool guy named Rob, who also goes by Max Rebo's ghost music, clever name, sent me a huge box of 1990s G.I. Joe figures. Well, it's time to review one of those figures now. We're going to look at G.I. Joe's strategic commander from 1993, Colonel Courage. And this is one that has been requested. Some of you said you wanted to see this figure. Well, I hope you meant it, because here it is. Thank you again, Rob, for your extremely generous contribution. We will be looking at several of those figures in the coming months. A couple quick announcements. I wanted to let you guys know that there will not be a new review next week. I am taking that week off. Now, don't panic. When I created the schedule for 2017, I purposely put in a few weeks off during the year. Not many, but everybody needs a break now and then. So this will give me a chance to have a little bit of a break and maybe even do a little extra work on the next review. I will be back the following week with something strange and bizarre, so look for that. One more thing, as some of you may know, my daughter Victoria has been helping me out with the title cards for some of the recent videos. She wanted me to let you know that if you would like a drawing of your favorite GI Joe character in her style, just check out her Instagram. A link will be in the description of this video. I'm doing something a little different with this video. I don't have any skits. I don't have any jokes, at least not many. Instead, reviewing this figure inspired me to think about something other than the toy. So with this video, you're going to get a toy review and then a statement by me that includes opinions about something other than toys. So if all you want is the toy review, then stop this video at this time marker. Then you don't have to listen to my opinion about life, the universe and everything. If you continue on, you've been warned. There are opinions ahead. So with that out of the way and with a special thanks to Rob, HCC's 788 presents Colonel Courage. This is Colonel Courage, GI Joe's strategic commander from 1993. This figure was only available in 1993. It was discontinued for the year 1994. In the earlier years of GI Joe, figures were available at least for two years, but they started to cut that back in the later years of the line. 1993 was the second to last year for the vintage GI Joe run. After that, it plunged into Sergeant Staffidge and GI Joe Extreme. For this figure, I have the full card back and I don't normally get full card backs, but this is thanks to Max Rebo's ghost music who sent me that big box of 90s GI Joe figures and that included some full card backs like this, which is great so we can look at how Colonel Courage appeared when he was on the pegs in 1993. Up here at the top, we have the GI Joe logo and then we have the battle core logo and battle core was essentially the core figure set for GI Joe in 1993 and 1994. The rest of the line was broken up into many sub teams. The direction of the line was really unclear at this point. GI Joe didn't know exactly what it wanted to be. Unfortunately, nowhere on this card front or back does it describe exactly what battle core is intended to be. We have some artwork of Colonel Courage here and this is not bad. At some point, I'm not sure exactly when. They transitioned from the traditional GI Joe card art by Hector Guerrero. I prefer the old explosion back card art, but this is not bad. The illustration does have some energy. He has a wild expression on his face. It looks like after he kills those Cobra Vipers with his machine gun grenade launcher, he intends to eat them. Here in the front, we have instructions on how to use the figure stand and the spring loaded missile launcher. We'll take a look at the accessories later. On the back, we have the cross cell where it has other figures in the line. Then we have an advertisement for a couple of the sub teams, DEF and Ninja Force. We have our one flag point. Then we have our file card and this file card is rectangular with rounded edges. The file cards were no longer shaped like a file folder like in the old days. As with some of the 90s file cards, this file card has descriptions of some of the features on the figure and I will refer to these descriptions as I look at the figure so I can figure out what some of this stuff is supposed to be. And we'll take a closer look at the file card a bit later as well. Let's take a look at Colonel Courage's accessories and with the exception of the missile launcher and the missile, these accessories came on an accessories tree. Kids would have to break or cut the accessories off of the frame. Also, none of these accessories are new. They are all reused from other action figures. This was an unfortunate cost-cutting measure by Hasbro. The accessories that came from the tree are in a bright, nearly neon green. This is unfortunate. Some of the original weapons were pretty cool but they are made less cool by molding them in this garish color. Colonel Courage came with an assault rifle and this was originally used for the 1990 Airborne Version 2. Airborne's rifle was originally in black. This is my favorite of Colonel Courage's accessories because it sort of looks like an M16. It's a bit oversized but I can imagine it as a real weapon. He came with a machine gun. It is very long with a very large scope and this machine gun is reused from the 1987 Tunnel Rat and this is a pretty cool weapon in black plastic but it's just not quite as cool in bright green. He came with a laser pistol. I guess that's what this is. It has this protruding thing and this is reused from the 1987 Battle Force 2000 character Blaster and honestly, this is a wash. I don't really care for the original either so putting it in neon green doesn't hurt it any worse. It started out pretty goofy. It's really boxy. It looks like an 80's camcorder with a protruding... Let's hope that's a microphone. He had a machete and this machete was reused from the 1988 Musgrat. I don't have Musgrat's machete to show you but it's basically the same thing but in light blue plastic. He came with a knife and this knife is reused from the 1988 Hit and Run and pretty much everything about Hit and Run is better. Let's be totally honest about that. The last accessory from the accessories tree was the pistol and this pistol was reused from the 1988 Shockwave looking much better on Shockwave in dark blue. Finally, we get to the spring-loaded missile launcher and this was an innovation from the 1990s. 1980s GI Joe figures did not have these. A lot of figures from the 90s did. Now this is in gold plastic. It has a grip here on top. This is meant to be held under the arm but that grip looks a little bit thick and so I'm not going to risk breaking the action figure's thumbs by putting it in the hand. It has a gatling gun up here, a missile launcher underneath and here in the back it has a trigger. This missile launcher appears to be a reuse of the missile launcher that came with the 1992 Barricade but Barricade's missile launcher came with this rack so the missile launcher could be worn on the back. Colonel Courage's missile launcher did not have that feature and that's unfortunate. I think that would have improved it. Colonel Courage's file card calls this an armor-appearsing assault gun. Then finally we have the missile that the missile launcher fires and again this is a reuse of the missile that came with Barricade, Barricade's missiles in yellow plastic. Let's demonstrate how to use the missile launcher. You place the missile in the launcher with the notch side up. It only goes in one way. Push it all the way in until it clicks and let's use blaster for target practice, why not? You just press down on this trigger in the back and fire the missile. I'm generally not a fan of these spring-loaded weapons. When I was a kid, I didn't need this kind of thing. However, I have to admit shooting blaster with this missile launcher is kind of fun. This missile launcher is made of gold plastic so it may be susceptible to gold plastic syndrome which is an unfortunate condition of some of this gold plastic in which it becomes very brittle over time. It'll almost crumble in your hands. The final accessory is the figure stand and this did come with the figure and this is a great thing that the 90s did. It would have been nice to get figure stands with the figures in the 80s. Unfortunately, it is in that bright green color. Let's take a look at the articulation on Colonel Courage. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1993 and in fact, this articulation had become standard by 1985. He had a head that would turn from side to side and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to move at the elbow a bit and he had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far he could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Colonel Courage starting with his head and on his head he has a non-removable helmet. That's unfortunate. The file card calls this a Fritz helmet and this is a Pazged helmet. Which is sometimes called a Fritz helmet because of its resemblance to the German Stahlhelm helmet. The helmet has a sculpted eagle and this would be his rank insignia. The rank insignia for a Colonel in the U.S. Armed Forces is an eagle with a shield and clutching arrows. Colonel Courage is a full bird Colonel as distinguished from the lower ranked Lieutenant Colonel. He is African American with a beard and this is a pretty good face sculpt. In fact, the helmet is sculpted pretty well too. It's a pretty good head sculpt all the way around. I do wish that helmet were removable but for what it is, it is pretty well done. On his chest he has a creamy off-white color shirt and this is probably intended to be the shirt of his Army service uniform but it's not quite the right color. It is very close in color to the uniform of the 1990 ambush. His chest has a lot going on with it. First of all, on his collar he has these two black triangles. This is probably rank insignia but they're too small to tell. Then he has the tie. This is a black tie tucked inside his shirt. The file card calls this a GI Joe officer issued dress tie. This is the most unusual part of this figure. He is heavily armed and equipped for combat but he's wearing a tie. In addition to the tie, he has a pistol. The file card calls this a Colt 45 quick draw pistol. He has a grenade. The file card calls it a J2J pineapple grenade. It looks like an old Mark II pineapple grenade. He has a knife. The file card calls it a standard issue combat knife. He has these light green straps front and back and this color is dangerously close to that neon color on the weapons. Now these straps could carry a backpack but he doesn't come with one. I think that's an unfortunate omission. One good thing about these straps is the paint continues down past the belt line. So when the figure is leaning back or leaning forward, you know, it's on the back as well. It still looks like the straps connect to the belt and this is nice. Older figures did not do this. For example, Flint, his, the paint on his straps just kind of ends right there at the belt line. So if he's leaning backwards, there's a gap between the straps and the belt. His arms feature rolled up sleeves and otherwise plain and no watch, no gloves, anything like that. The waist and legs, in fact, the entire lower half of this figure is reused from the 1989 recoil. So you have the same belt, the same pistol and the same boots. On his waist, he has a light green belt. He has olive drab green trousers. On his right leg, he has a green pistol and a holster. The file card calls this a standard issue nine millimeter pistol. This is probably a Beretta M9. The Beretta M9 replaced the M1911A1 as the US military sidearm in 1990. His left leg is plain. Then he has tall, brown, Wellington boots. These are not standard combat boots. Let's take a look at Colonel Courage's file card from the back of his card back. And it has a portrait of him here and it has his code name as Colonel Courage. And this is a cheesy, alliterative code name. It's too bad Hasbro didn't release figures for his brothers, Brigadier Bravery and Major Macho. His file name is Cliff v. Mewitt and he has exactly the same file name as another character, the 1990 Air Wave. They even have the same middle initial. It's very unlikely these guys would coincidentally have exactly the same name. Most likely this was an error or just plain laziness. Primary military specialty is administrative strategist and this to me implies that he's going to spend most of the time at the base behind a desk. Secondary military specialty is Patriot driver. The Patriot was a GI Joe vehicle that was released in 1992. But the strange thing is it was only available in 1992. It was not available in 1993, the year that Colonel Courage was released. Birthplace is Boston, Massachusetts. Early GI Joe file cards were written by Larry Hama who gave the Joe's birthplaces all over the country. Later file cards were written by Hasbro employees and they tended to favor characters from New England. Hasbro headquarters is located in Rhode Island. His grade is 06 and that is the paid grade of a Colonel. So that fits his code name. As an 06, Colonel Courage has the same rank as the GI Joe leader Hawk did in 1982. Of course, Hawk famously was promoted to Brigadier General for his second version in 1986. It's unclear where Colonel Courage would fit within the GI Joe command structure. In the GI Joe universe, commander responsibilities were often allocated without regard for shoulder rank. For example, in the cartoon series, we're told that the chain of command goes from Hawk to Duke to Flint to Beachhead. That means it goes from a general to a first sergeant to a warrant officer and then to a staff sergeant. Despite the fact that there are officers and other sergeants in GI Joe that based on their rank should come between these guys. In the GI Joe comic book series, Stalker was often in charge of missions commanding soldiers that outranked him. I don't really have a problem with this. It just means that Colonel Courage's rank doesn't tell us much about what his role would have been in GI Joe. Unfortunately, he came too late in the line for him to appear in a lot of GI Joe media. So he wasn't a very well-developed character. So we never got to find out exactly where he would fit in. This quote here says, I'll never surrender when I'm wearing a tie because I can't be beat when I'm neat. So he's Johnny Cochran now. This paragraph says, proper address and discipline have always been the backbone of the Colonel's leadership. He works hard to impress these qualities upon his subordinates and insists that anyone who follows his lead will quickly transform themselves into a lean, mean, efficient fighting machine. Because of his efficient work ethic and organizational skills, he is usually assigned to intelligence tasks behind the lines and behind a desk. So whenever he has a chance for combat duty, he eagerly jumps at the opportunity with an armor-piercing weapon in one hand and a machine gun blasting in the other. The emphasis here is on his neatness and his organizational skills. Although I think it's funny, he's a stickler for proper military dress, but he wears a non-standard uniform. If you're going to insist on proper military dress and grooming on the GI Joe team, you're gonna get some pushback on that. Unfortunately, it's all too easy to talk about Colonel Courage's GI Joe media appearances because he didn't have any. He didn't have any animated appearances that I can find. And as far as I can discover, he didn't appear in the classic Marvel Comics run either. Looking at Colonel Courage overall, this figure barely makes it to the middle tier. It has a few problems. The neon green accessories from the accessories tree is a real drawback. Nothing is original and it's a bad color. The spring-loaded missile launcher is not too bad. There have been far worse spring-loaded weapons. The problem is the color. It's gold. It doesn't match anything else on the figure. If there had been some gold anywhere on the figure, it might have worked better. And they could have put gold on the figure, a spot of gold paint for the rank and sign on the helmet would have looked great. The non-removable helmet is a problem, but it doesn't look too bad. According to the file card, Colonel Courage spends a lot of his time behind a desk. And I doubt he's wearing his helmet while he's shuffling papers. But you can't take it off. The alliterative codename is too silly to take seriously. And the whole bottom half of the figure is reused from an earlier action figure, so not all of his parts are original. The figure is saved from the bottom tier by a few strong points. Although the helmet is non-removable, it is well sculpted and it looks good. The overall color scheme is pretty good. The cream colored shirt is a little light. But I like the olive drab green. And if the lighter green highlights had been done in a slightly darker green, the colors would have been about perfect. I like the tie. I like the idea that Colonel Courage takes care of business behind the desk, but he's ready to spring into action at any moment. So if he's called into battle, he doesn't even need to change clothes. He just tucks the tie in the shirt, puts on a helmet, straps on a weapon, and he's ready to go. The tie kind of symbolizes a work ethic that I recognize and appreciate. Colonel Courage is not bad for a 90s figure though. It's not wild and crazy like a lot of other 90s figures were. I think the figure suffers from being released in the 90s. If it had been released in the 80s, it would have had a better codename, better accessories, and probably all original parts. What I really like about Colonel Courage is that he added to the diversity of the G.I. Joe roster. G.I. Joe was one of the most diverse toy lines of the 1980s and 90s. A common way American entertainment dealt with diversity of the 1980s and 90s was tokenism. They would add a token African-American guy or a token woman to a group of mostly Caucasian men. Token characters only exist, so the creators can check that item off of their list of things to do. They are seen as representatives of a race or a sex, not as whole people with fully developed personalities. G.I. Joe was no exception to this. In 1982, they had a token black guy, stalker, and a token woman, Scarlet. But G.I. Joe took a step beyond tokenism through the superb writing of Larry Hama. These characters were fleshed out and became fully realized people with their own personalities and agency. Each year, G.I. Joe added to its diversity. G.I. Joe drew its membership from every corner of American society. Some examples are better than others. Spirit was a stereotypical Native American, but I'm still happy he was in the line. Women were represented too, and they were not just objects for the men to rescue. They were leaders. And I'm happy to see Colonel Courage continue the tradition of diversity in 1993. Diversity enriches life. For those of us who value diversity as a good in itself, a diverse society is a bespeckled tapestry of experiences and cultures, art, literature, food, languages, religions, and worldviews. It's a smorgasbord of experiences to draw from. If you can't appreciate diversity as its own good, there's a utilitarian reason to prefer a diverse society. As the world changes and grows, we don't know what challenges lie ahead. A totally homogenous society may seem comfortable to those who live in it, but when faced with a novel problem, such societies have a limited range of experiences and modes of thought with which to address it. When everyone has a similar background and worldview and religion and culture, they tend to all come up with the same wrong answer. It's like having a biological population made up of clones, where the entire population can be taken down by a new disease for which no individual has an immunity. Diverse societies with their hodgepodge of cultures and ideas have a better chance of coming up with creative solutions to novel problems. Diversity can be messy, there can be conflicts between different cultures and points of view, but mature societies find ways to manage those conflicts and live together, and that's what makes any country great. I've always viewed this channel as a journey that we take together, and I'm happy to see a wide range of viewpoints and background among my viewers. I want everyone to feel like they can go on this journey with us. I don't want to see anyone excluded, attacked or ridiculed because of who they are. Disagreement is fine, but attacks are not. This is my statement to everyone who goes on this journey with me. You are welcome here, regardless of where you're from, your skin color, your sex skin, your religion or lack thereof, or your political affiliation. You are welcome here. You are welcome here even if you disagree with me about everything I say. People disagree with me all the time. That doesn't bother me. You're even welcome here if you disagree with what I'm saying right now. I mean diversity, that's for hippies, right? You are still welcome to come on this journey with the rest of us, but under one condition, that you make everyone else feel as welcome here as you are. That was my review of Colonel Courage. Thank you again, Rob, for your contribution and thank you to everyone who watches these videos. I hope you understand that you are important to me on a personal level. This project has changed my life in immeasurable ways, and I am forever in your debt. Please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel and share this video. That's what helps this channel grow. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and support the channel on Patreon. Please visit the website, hcc788.com, to see this review and all my other GI Joe reviews. If you're wondering if I have reviewed something, check the website. If I have reviewed it, it will be there. Thank you all for watching. I will not see you next week, but I will see you the week after that for another Vintage GI Joe toy review. And remember until then, only GI Joe is GI Joe.