 Hello everybody HoodedCoreCommander788 here, it's time for another vintage GI Joe toy review and this time I am doing a requested review, a viewer had requested that I review Monkey Wrench. I had originally intended to save Monkey Wrench for a Dreadnock theme month, but I may never get around to doing a Dreadnock theme month. Other reviewers are better at doing theme months than I am, I just don't plan that far ahead. So, rather than wait for a Dreadnock theme month, let's go ahead and look at the Dreadnock from 1986, Monkey Wrench. This is Monkey Wrench, the Dreadnock introduced in 1986. He was also available in 1987. He was discontinued for the year 1988 when another Dreadnock was introduced, Road Pig. But Road Pig was not really a replacement for Monkey Wrench, the Dreadnocks did not really replace characters, they just brought new members into the game. The Dreadnocks were a motorcycle gang inspired by futuristic, post-apocalyptic movies like Mad Max and they were led by Zartan, the character introduced in 1984 as the Master of Disguise. In 1985, there were only three Dreadnocks, or four if you include Zartan. You had Ripper, Buzzer and Torch. In 1986, four new Dreadnocks were introduced, Zirana, Zartan's sister, Xandar, Zartan's brother, Thrasher and Monkey Wrench. There were also some Dreadnock vehicles introduced in 1986, so 1986 was a big year for the Dreadnocks. Let's take a look at Monkey Wrench's accessory, his only accessory, his Harpoon Gun, which looks like a Trident. A Trident! And I killed a guy with a Trident. This accessory is large and reasonably well detailed, I guess. It has this thing on the bottom here, which I always imagined is like a reel for a line, so he could fire his Trident Harpoon out with a line attached and then reel it back in. I have to admit, I don't like this accessory. This is another one of those weird Dreadnock accessories and I really don't see how this fits the character of Monkey Wrench. Why should he be carrying a Trident? Monkey Wrench had no other accessories, so let's go ahead and look at his articulation. He had the typical articulation for 1986, G.I. Joe action figures. That means he could turn his head from left to right like that. He could also look up and down. His neck was on a ball joint. He could move his arm up at the shoulder about so far, not too far. This is a little bit less than what you would see on a lot of other G.I. Joe action figures. 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 a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a little bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend 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 Monkey Wrench starting with his head. On his head he has some brown hair, nicely combed in kind of an 80's hairstyle. Not bad. He has a brown beard that's nicely trimmed and he has some really cool looking silver sunglasses. He's a fairly good looking guy and I think that's part of my problem with him. He doesn't seem ugly enough to be a dreadnought. Monkey Wrench is sculpted with an expressive face and it's an unusual expression. He's gritting his teeth and kind of drawing back his lower lip. To me, this expression says, oh no, I've broken Mummy's Royal Doulton with the hand painted periwinkles, whatever will I do? On his chest he's wearing a vest and I would call the color on this vest a burgundy. I'm on burgundy? He has a high color that goes all the way around and that looks really cool looking like the fawns. Across his chest is a single strap and the strap is black but it carries five silver grenades and I do think grenades were overused as details on these GI Joe action figures. But this is appropriate for Monkey Wrench. The file card gives us a hint at why Monkey Wrench might be carrying around explosives. He has a bare chest under his open vest and he has this silver necklace and that's a nice detail. I'm not familiar with what this symbol on the necklace is supposed to be. It kind of looks like a disco medallion. There were some pretty wicked necklaces sported by some of the male characters in GI Joe particularly by the bad guys. Now these were just modern guys that were very secure in their masculinity and they were comfortable wearing jewelry. Plus, they're all ready for a night out at the club picking up the ladies. His arms were fairly plain. They did have some nicely sculpted muscles, no tattoos or anything like that. Some of the other dread knocks had tattoos. He has some black gloves with studs at the wrists. On his waist he has a black belt with a silver buckle and a pouch on one side and that belt continues around to the back and there's even some tiny details on the back of his belt. That's very impressive. And then he has, he's wearing blue jeans with some stitching on the back pockets. That's just incredible detail there. And there's even some patchwork on his blue jeans. On his legs we can see Monkey Wrench is wearing blue jeans or dungarees if you will. Dungarees. And he has some patches here on his dungarees and I think that's very impressive and nicely sculpted. On his right leg he has a black holster with a silver revolver it looks like. That's pretty cool. It's nice that they did paint in this detail on some of the other dread knocks particularly on Ripper. We had an unpainted pistol and that did not look good. So kudos to Hasbro for not giving us an unpainted detail there. On his lower legs he has strips of red cloth tied around his shins and I have no idea why he would do that but it's a nice little extra detail so I don't really mind that. Then he has some black boots that have buckles on the sides. 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 the enemy. It does not say Cobra and of course Cobra was G.I. Joe's main enemy but he was a dread knock and the dread knocks were enemies of G.I. Joe and they did sometimes work with Cobra but they were more like independent contractors. They were not agents of Cobra. His code name is Monkey Wrench and that's probably more of an alias than a code name. He is a dread knock without any other specialty. His file name is Bill Winky and this is actually a play on the old nursery rhyme We Willy Winky. Larry Hama the writer of the G.I. Joe comic book who was writing these file cards at the time liked to give the dread knocks joke names like this. His place of birth is real north Wales and of course this is in Wales which is a country within the United Kingdom and that means Monkey Wrench is Welsh. To my American viewers what do you think of when you think of Wales? Do you think of the Prince of Wales or maybe if you're a fan of British television you think of the series Torchwood which was set in Cardiff. When I think of Wales I think of this. This top section says Monkey Wrench was born in real north Wales well that's redundant where he built explosive devices indiscriminately for a group of obscure terrorists. You may think Welsh terrorists is kind of a weird concept but in fact there were some Welsh nationalist militant groups operating from the 60s to the 70s and Monkey Wrench may have been making bombs for them. Having made himself a pariah in his hometown by the age of 16 drifted to London's east end to take part in a new wave movement where he developed rudeness and crude anti-social behavior to levels unheard of in the western hemisphere. I was trying to nail down what this new wave movement could be referring to and my best guess is this is referring to Oi which was a sub-genre of punk rock started in the east end of London in the late 70s and it was sort of a second wave of punk following bands like the sex pistols and the clash. Maybe this is referring to new wave music but that doesn't really fit the description of rudeness and anti-social behavior whereas the Oi movement does. But when I look at Monkey Wrench I don't really think of punk rock. I think more of Kenny Loggins. Eventually his wanderings brought him to Australia where he joined up with the Dreadknocks and this reference to Australia is a nod to the Dreadknocks Mad Max origins. Although some of the Dreadknocks are Australian a lot of them are not. They just sort of ended up in Australia and joined the Dreadknocks. This bottom section has a quote. It says Monkey Wrench was born on Guy Fox Day which in Britain commemorates the foiling of the gunpowder plot to blow up the houses of parliament. The villain Guy Fox is hanged in effigy amidst the continuous detonation of fireworks. Could this explain Monkey Wrench's preoccupation with explosives and loud noises? His record collection is limited to the 1812 overture, the Anvil Chorus and Wipe Out. Guy Fox Day or Guy Fox Night is commemorated on November 5th and it does have its origins in the foiling of the gunpowder plot in 1605. The main character in the graphic novel and later the movie V for Vendetta wore a Guy Fox mask and that mask has since been adopted by modern hacktivists. I am not a fan. Don't get me started. Monkey Wrench's favorite music is loud and bombastic. The 1812 overture is by Tchaikovsky. The Anvil Chorus is by Giuseppe Verdi and Wipe Out is by the Cerfaris. Here's a sample of Monkey Wrench's favorite music. The 1812 overture. Little Chorus. Anything to do with punk rock. So that kind of undermines my theory of Monkey Wrench being in the OI movement. OI! Looking at Monkey Wrench overall, what do I think about this figure? He's really just kind of plain, especially for a dreadknock. I mean dreadknocks tended to be kind of over the top, just weird looking, kind of grungy, even ugly and Monkey Wrench just doesn't fit. Monkey Wrench was a carded action figure. He did not come with a vehicle and the other dreadknocks that had been released up to that point all had some kind of specialty. I mean the three original dreadknocks all had special weapons and specialized ways that they would destroy things. Zartan and his siblings all had this color change skin. So they acted kind of like chameleons or masters of disguise. And of course Thrasher came with the Thunder Machine. And so Monkey Wrench was kind of the odd man out. Now according to the file card, Monkey Wrench is kind of an explosives expert and that I think is why he comes with all these grenades on his chest. But his accessory is this harpoon gun, which does not play up his explosives expertise at all. I did have a Monkey Wrench action figure as a kid and the way I treated the character was as a mechanic for the Thunder Machine. So he took his Monkey Wrench code name from his specialty as a mechanic. And I sort of tossed this harpoon gun aside and forgot about it. That thing was useless to me. Monkey Wrench did appear in G.I. Joe Media. In the cartoon, like a lot of other characters for 1986, he was first introduced in the miniseries Arise Serpentor Arise Part 1. In the G.I. Joe comic book, Monkey Wrench was introduced kind of late. He was introduced in an issue that also introduced a lot of 1987 characters. It was the issue penciled by Todd McFarland, issue number 60. In that issue, he and Zanzibar are caught stealing gasoline from Zartan. He also appeared in another Dreadnock focused issue, issue number 79. It's very rare that I prefer the cartoon over the comic book, but in this case, I think the animated series did a much better job of introducing Monkey Wrench than the comic book did. I kind of like the idea of a Dreadnock's tryout, where the Dreadnocks invite a bunch of nerduels and miscreants to find out who is nasty enough to join the game. How would I rate Monkey Wrench? Well, he's not a top tier figure. I can say that with confidence. He's not a bottom tier figure either. I mean, it's not a bad action figure. He's designed well enough. He looks fine. He's just not all that spectacular or exciting. So really, he's going to be rated somewhere in the middle of the pack. He is a middle tier figure. The Dreadnocks have a lot of fans and that's understandable because the Dreadnocks are a cool, fun element within G.I. Joe. But my question to Dreadnock's fans is, how do you rate Monkey Wrench among the Dreadnocks? And how did you use him? Did you use him as an explosives expert? Did you use him in some other capacity? What role did he fill? That was my review of the Dreadnock Monkey Wrench. I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, 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 find me on Facebook and Twitter. You get a lot of updates there. You don't get anywhere else. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next week with another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. I'll see you then.