 Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here, and I'm back with another vintage GI Joe Toyer review. And we're doing something kind of special with this review. I am fulfilling a requested review. Now someone requested that I review this action figure. It was requested a long time ago, so it took me a long time to get to it, and I don't remember exactly who it was that requested it, so I apologize about that. But I am finally getting to this requested review. So this is the latest GI Joe Toy I've reviewed. This is a figure from 1990, and I haven't reviewed any figures outside of the 80s so far. So this one is going to be a little bit different. I'm talking about the 1990 Concealment Specialist Ambush. And since we're dealing with a Concealment Specialist, I decided to try my hand at Concealment, so I'm wearing a camouflage costume here. Let me know if you can see me. As you probably know from other videos, I was out of GI Joe before 1990, so I didn't have an Ambush action figure. This one is totally new to me, and I'm kind of eager to review them, so let's look at the toy. This is Ambush, GI Joe's Concealment Specialist. I hope you can see him. He's just so good at concealment. Do let me know if he's not showing up on camera. Ambush was first available in 1990, and he was discontinued in 1991, so he was only available for one year. There was a second version of Ambush in 1993. He was available with the Toys R Us Exclusive Dino Hunters Mission Play Set, where this Concealment Expert was wearing bright orange straps. That second version did not include his tent, netting, and backpack. Let's take a look at Ambush's accessories, starting with his helmet. If I can get his helmet off without knocking the other accessories off. This is not a standard GI Joe helmet. This is unique. If you want to compare it to a standard GI Joe helmet on short fuse here, you can see Ambush's helmet is a bit taller, and it gives Ambush kind of a bullet head shape when he's wearing it. I think it's a bit deeper to accommodate Ambush's head sculpt. His hair is a bit more detailed than the hair on the old 1982 GI Joe action figures that had that original helmet. The helmet also has this sort of random crisscross pattern on here. I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to be, but it might be some kind of netting in which Ambush could put in some foliage for some extra camouflage, sort of akin to the helmet on Footloose here, where Footloose has some leaves stuck into the netting on his helmet. That may be what's intended here for Ambush's helmet. Now let's look at Ambush's rifle. Let's take his rifle out of his hand. Even though this rifle may look kind of weird, it is sort of based on a real world weapon. It's based on the Enfield EM2, which is a British rifle. As you can see, the magazine is behind the grip here, much like the weapon that came with the 1985 Dusty. I don't have that accessory to compare it to, but this thing is oversized. It is huge. It's nicely detailed, but the scale is too large for the figure. At some point in the late 80s and early 90s, they decided to scale up the weapons that came with the figures. I'm not sure why, but this does look kind of like a 1960s Batman prop when carried by the action figure. Next let's look at his pistol, and I've slung the pistol on the bottom of the backpack here. The backpack does have some very handy storage for the accessories. This pistol, like the rifle, is oversized. This doesn't appear to be based on any real world design. This is just a made up design. It is fairly well detailed, but it's just too big to call it a pistol. Maybe this could be a machine pistol or a submachine gun or something, but it's just huge. I don't really think he necessarily needs it though. I think one assault rifle would have been enough for this action figure. He comes with enough other accessories, and it's kind of cumbersome to have him carrying both weapons at the same time. But on the other hand, it is nice that they thought to give us some space on the backpack so we could store the extra accessories when he's not carrying them in his hand. To look at the next accessory, I'm going to remove this folded up tent cover here, so I can look at this body fabric or netting, which I believe is supposed to be some kind of a geely suit. A geely suit is essentially a camouflage suit that has what looks like leaves and foliage in it for some extra camouflage. It's more than just a camouflage pattern, but it includes the texture of the environment, so you can get some very good camouflage out of it. Geely suits are often used by snipers for concealment. As you can see, this fabric is incredibly thin. It has an opening here in the middle, that's a neck hole, so you can just kind of drape it over ambushed shoulders. This is so thin, of course, that this neck hole will rip extremely easily. It has some cut edges on here. I like the idea, and I like the accessory. It's really kind of cool to have this sort of extra netting for the action figure for some extra camouflage. The execution on this accessory leaves a little bit to be desired. This really should be a slightly more durable fabric. It just rips so easily. It's almost as though they made these by cutting up Lady J's stockings. Before we look at the tent, let's look at the backpack. I'm going to very carefully spin them around so you can look at the backpack. As you can see, the backpack is fairly large. I'm not going to take it off the action figure just yet, because I want you to see how you can fit the tent poles in the backpack. It has these prongs here, two on the back and one on the other side. You can fit the tent poles of the tent on there. You have to be very careful about that though. First of all, they don't hold the tent poles on very well. These prongs are very thin and they can snap off. If you lose even one of them, then that feature is not going to work at all. Then, of course, it has these other prongs here. As I showed before, you can sling the pistol under there. That's pretty handy. The backpack itself has some fair detail. Some pouches. It looks like a curled up rope sculpted on the side there. It's not a bad backpack, but it is prone to breakage, so do watch out for that. Now let's look at the bonus accessory that came with Ambush, his tent. I'm going to take the tent poles out here. On the card on which he was packaged, there were instructions for how to assemble this tent. I've looked it up and I'll show you how this thing is put together. You have four tent poles and three tent pole types. You have two of these that have the loops on them. You have one that has a hook at one end and a post at the other end. You have this other one that has a couple posts at one end. That one is going to hold everything else together. Let's put this thing together. Let's start with this tent pole that has two posts on it. One thick one and one thin one. The thicker post goes to one of these tent poles that has the loop on it. Just connect that on there, slide it on until it's nice and snug. The other thinner post goes to the tent pole that has the hook on it, so you'll put it on there. Do be careful about this. This takes some force and some effort to get on and off and you don't want to break that post off of this sort of master tent pole here. Be careful getting that one on and off. At the other end of the tent pole that has the hook on it, you have another post and of course that fits the other tent pole with the loop. Just slide it on just the same way as the other one did. Now you have this shape and that's the basic shape of your tent. Now you take your other piece of netted fabric, the one without the hole in the middle and you just drape it over to complete your tent effect. Or I guess you could call this like a concealment blind or something like that. But it just kind of goes over there and it just drapes. It doesn't attach in any way. And there you go. That's how you assemble it. And here's what ambush looks like occupying his tent or concealment blind, whatever you choose to call it. Now I sure hope you can see him. He's so well concealed. The main problem I have with this tent is this netting which is so thin and so wispy that the slightest breeze is going to blow this thing away. It doesn't attach in any way. And so if a kid plays with this outside, I don't see how this thing doesn't get lost. I'm surprised any of these even still survive just with kids playing with them normally as they're intended to. I mean you just leave this thing alone outside for 30 seconds and this thing's going to be gone. I really like to display ambush with the tent assembled. After all this is a very cool accessory. It's almost like a little mini bonus play set that comes with the action figure. However, it's kind of problematic to display him that way because even just walking by the shelf that it's sitting on will cause this thing to sort of float away. Here is an alternate way to assemble the backpack with the tent cover slung underneath the backpack like this. I got to admit though, any way you choose to assemble the backpack and put the tent on there, none of it stays very well. It's all very delicate and bits want to fall off. So you kind of have to be careful. That's another reason why I like to display this with the tent assembled. Because displaying it on the backpack, it really doesn't hold together all that well. Let's look at the articulation on ambush. He had the standard articulation for GI Joe action figures in 1990 meaning he could turn his head from left to right like that. He could also look up and down a little bit. Not a wide range of motion there. I could move his arm up at the shoulder about so far. He could swivel his arm at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow. He could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep. He could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with the rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. So he could move at the torso a little 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 look at the sculpt design and color of ambush starting with his head. His head as you can see he has brown hair. Some nice hair sculpted on there. His hair actually extends up a little bit above his head and that's probably why he has that unusually shaped helmet. He also has some facial hair. Unusual facial hair. Like he has button chops here that connect to a very bushy mustache. That is a bit unusual and I guess it kind of makes him look like a 19th century British soldier. It also kind of makes him look a little bit older. He does not look like a young guy with this facial hair. So his choice of facial hair there does sort of make him look like a throwback. On his chest he has a light tan shirt with a brown lined camouflage pattern. And this is a really cool camo pattern. It's very unique and I like it. He has some sculpted on pockets but some of the sculpting detail is lost due to the color choices and that camouflage pattern. But I don't mind so much. I'll sacrifice some of the sculpting detail for this really cool camo pattern. Then of course he has a green strap that goes over his shoulder. It looks like he has some grenades on that strap. On his arm he has that camouflage shirt with rolled up sleeves and under that he looks like he has a long sleeve brown shirt and what looks like a knit pattern on there. And that's very nice detail, nice texture there. No watch or gloves or anything like that but very good looking arms. They fit this action figure very well. On his waist piece he has a green belt that matches the color of the strap on his chest. Decent detailing on the belt, not a lot, no pouches or anything like that. And of course as you can see his trousers continue that camouflage pattern from his shirt. On the legs we have that camouflage pattern and on the right leg we have a leg strap, a green one to match his belt and the strap on his chest. And it looks like it has more grenades. This guy just really loves grenades. He'll take as many grenades as he can carry. Other than that the legs are fairly plain. No sculpted weapons on the legs, no pistol or anything like that but it does have that very cool camouflage pattern and that's enough. And then on the boots we have some sculpting on the cloth of the pant legs there and then we have some fairly well sculpted boots here. On the right boot we have a sculpted on knife that's strapped to the boot and both boots are pretty well detailed. Those are good looking boots. So that rounds out a pretty nicely detailed figure. Let's take a look at the file card. The file card was printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged. You can see some of the artwork on the front of the card there. It has his faction as G.I. Joe and it has a portrait of Ambush there. It has his codename as Ambush and he is the concealment specialist. His file name is Aaron McMahon, no middle initial listed there. Secondary military specialty concealment specialist, secondary military specialty infantry and his birthplace is Walnut, California. His grade is E3 which would make him a private first class in the U.S. Army. Now I'm not sure if Ambush is the lowest ranking Joe but he's the lowest ranking Joe that I've looked at so far. Here's a problem I have with Ambush's pay grade as E3. The way I look at G.I. Joe is it is an elite combat unit and in order to get into G.I. Joe you would have to have proven yourself probably in another combat unit. You would need to display attributes like great fighting skills, leadership, coolness under fire and if you can do all those things really well to get onto the G.I. Joe team then I would think you would have attained a rank higher than an E3. Also Ambush kind of looks like an older guy, I mean he's not a new recruit so I think his rank is incongruous with the character. This top section says Ambush has no trouble staying out of sight. When he was 10 years old Ambush participated in a neighborhood game of hide and seek and then disappeared for 3 days. It wasn't until the National Guard was called to aid in the search that his well camouflaged hiding place was discovered under his parents front porch. After he joined the army he became so evasive that even his drill sergeant was unable to account for his whereabouts during the day. This bottom section has a quote it says when this guy goes on assignment expect the unexpected. There's nothing he won't do to accomplish his mission. Once he concealed himself as a shrub tumbled into a heavily guarded Cobra weapons depot captured their base commander then safely delivered him to G.I. Joe headquarters for interrogation. To this day we still can't figure out how he pulled it off. Well you actually partially explained how he pulled it off so I'm not sure why that's so hard to figure out. Okay here's a problem I have with this file card. In lieu of an actual personality we get a description of how Ambush is just super duper good at his job. Even going back to childhood in this kind of absurd story about him hiding for three days. Some of the G.I. Joe file cards did this they kind of just described the character as being the best at what he does. For instance on the file card for Chuckles it really describes him as just being so great at undercover work. I mean man he could just out undercover anyone. And for Ambush as the concealment specialist this file card really just wants to convey that yes he's really good at that. The fact that he disappears from duty a lot may explain why he hasn't been promoted past E3. I think Ambush's role as a concealment specialist really is more about these accessories. He came with these camouflage nettings and this tent and some really cool accessories. I love these accessories but really he is an infantry soldier who is able to conceal himself very well while doing that job. I really like this color scheme and this camouflage pattern. He's not green but this camo pattern would work pretty well in an environment like tall grass planes or something like that. In that sense he reminds me a little bit of the 1984 jungle trooper Rikondo who had not exactly the same but a similar color scheme. As for Ambush's appearances in G.I. Joe media he did appear in the Deke era animated series but I have to admit I'm not all that familiar with the Deke series. If he ever appeared in the G.I. Joe comic book again that is after my era so I'm not familiar with his comic book appearances if any. I was mostly out of G.I. Joe by 1988. I did get one figure from 1989 but by 1990 I was long gone. I got absolutely nothing from that year. However I have to admit if I had stuck around for 1990 I really would have liked the Ambush action figure. Ambush really kind of fits in with the G.I. Joe that I know and remember. I don't know that Ambush would have kept me going later into the 90s. What with the space theme and the aliens and the neon colors that stuff really would have turned me off. However if I had seen Ambush on the shelves it might have kept me into G.I. Joe at least through 1990. Ambush is a throwback in more ways than one. I think his facial hair makes him look older and a bit anachronistic but the figure itself is kind of a throwback to the more military days of the 1980s G.I. Joe. He has some great camouflage and so in one sense he looks like he comes from an earlier era. However he has the oversized accessories and the greater accessory number of the later 1990s G.I. Joe action figures so he's like the perfect combination of the early and the later G.I. Joe. I really like this action figure. I like the figure a lot more than I expected to like an action figure that came out after 1989. I mean in an era when G.I. Joe's were starting to look like Power Rangers Ambush really does look like an action soldier. Ambush remembers what G.I. Joe was all about. That was my review of the 1990 G.I. Joe Concealment Specialist Code Name Ambush. I hope you enjoyed it and if you did enjoy it make sure you give it a thumbs up on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe. I've got a lot of great new G.I. Joe toy reviews coming up. You don't want to miss them. And don't forget to like the Facebook page and follow me on Twitter. You get a lot of updates there. You don't get anywhere else. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next week for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review.