 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here and I'm back with another vintage GI Joe toy review and I've got a new camera as some of you might have known I had some camera issues so we're back with a new camera and I don't know how this is going to work I hope there aren't any quality issues but let's give it a shot and see if it works out. This time we are going to review the 1984 GI Joe Manta. This is a requested review, this is the last of the requested reviews that I've received. So if you have a GI Joe vintage toy you would like for me to review don't forget to leave a comment below this video and let me know. The Manta was released in 1984 and it was only available as a mail away, it was not available as a toy in retail stores. You would order the Manta in catalogs such as this one that came with GI Joe toys and vehicles and you can see right there it is. It says figure sold separately and it was two flag points and $1.75 in this catalog. The Manta was available for mail order from 1984 all the way to 1987 so for a really long time you could get this in the mail and it was available in 1992 as a GI Joe convention exclusive. Now I don't know if there are any differences between the convention exclusive and the original there may be but as far as I know it was the same toy in 1992 as it was from 84 to 87. Manta is an acronym that stands for Marine Assault Nautical Transport Air Driven which is quite a mouthful. I really do think that acronyms were overused for these vehicles. You don't have to make everything an acronym, you could just create a vehicle and call it the Manta, it doesn't have to stand for anything. The Manta did not come with an action figure but I display the Manta with Stalker mainly because Stalker is depicted in the catalog art as driving it. Of course Stalker doesn't really have anything directly to do with it. His specialty doesn't really include working at sea or on the water. He's an army ranger but I think he looks pretty good with it and the colors go really well with it. I like Stalker with the Manta. One thing I don't like about pairing Stalker with a Manta is the fact that you have to put them on these foot pegs to hold them on and these foot pegs are a little bit thick and Stalker is made out of this super fragile light green plastic and I'm really worried that I'm going to crack one of the heels so I'm always very cautious and I never force the peg into the foot. Let's look at the parts of the Manta. It comes with this really cool looking machine gun that clips onto this horizontal bar here. It clips on with these two clips here. The blueprints call this a 30 caliber rapid fire machine gun and it's pretty impressive looking gun. It has this long wire with kind of a bulb here at the top and that is supposed to be a remote control for the gun so you're supposed to be able to put this in the action figure's hand so he can operate the gun while he's using the sail. The problem with that is that it really only clips to one side. If you were to clip it to the other side it would be facing backwards so the action figure would need to be on this side of the sail and if his foot is pegged into this front peg he's way too far up to really use the gun. I guess he might be able to fit it in that hand but you'd have to contort the wire a little bit and risk breaking it off. So really you can only fit this into the figure's hand comfortably if he's on this back peg here at the back. And I don't really like the way that looks for display so I do not display it like that. I just kind of just leave this wire dangling. The Manta comes with this missile which the blueprints just call a missile. It's got this slot here that fits into this peg here on the outrigger. And I have some serious problems with this missile staying on. It does not want to stay on at all even if I press it down pretty firmly. If I move the thing around very much it just pops right off. I have tried bribing the missile. I have tried threatening the missile and yet it still does not stay on. No matter how firmly I press it on if you look at it too hard the thing see it's already loose even though I pressed it on pretty firmly. So I'm gonna have to ask the cooperation of the viewers here for a few minutes just to try to keep the missile on. Please do not look at the video. Just look away, listen to my voice, don't watch because see there it goes again. Alright, which one of you guys looked? The Manta comes with this backpack pouch because the Manta is collapsible. It can come apart in pieces and for transportation over land it can be put in the backpack which pegs into the back of the action figure with this peg here into the back hole like so. I'll demonstrate how this works a little bit later. The Manta has this really cool looking camouflage sail. It is made out of vinyl and unfortunately the coloring on it can scratch off which is what has happened on this. So you gotta be careful of that and since I've got some scratches on this I will eventually be looking for a replacement sail. But besides the really awesome camouflage it has this cut out picture of a Manta ray and that's a really interesting choice. It's actually cut and stamped out of it instead of like having the picture of a Manta ray printed on. It's an interesting choice. I'm not sure if I really prefer it cut out that way but I have to admit it's different you don't really see any other vehicles with that kind of work on it and the camouflage pattern is only on one side. It is blank on the other side. I'm going to go ahead and break the Manta down and put it in the backpack so you can see the portability mode and then I'll put it back together so you can see how it's assembled. Once the Manta is in pieces this backpack part actually opens up with this tab here. I'm not sure exactly how much that really helps you with putting this thing together but you can fit these two mast pieces in these rings on the sides and that helps to hold them. Once you have the two halves in the mast here then you just kind of stuff the rest of it inside. The sail I just kind of fold up so that it's a good size to fit inside the backpack. I've seen this done a lot of different ways and I'm not sure that there is really a definitive way to put the Manta in the backpack. You know you just put it any way that it fits. Put the missile in there and just squeeze the machine gun in there somewhere and there you have it the Manta in portable mode. Let's see how this looks on the back of an action figure. So I guess when Stalker is not riding the waves in the Manta he is carrying it over land like this. Honestly this is crazy. I mean it really the pieces are long enough that there's no way to get them down in there any further than that and so you've basically doubled the size of your action figure. Hopefully Stalker doesn't walk in under any low bridges because he's not going to pass through. Honestly I can do without the the breakdown feature for this vehicle. I know that they were wanting to add just a little extra play value to it but honestly I think that if they had just made it a normal solid vehicle without the breakdown features they could have made something a bit more sturdy and that would have been just fine. Okay now that we have the Manta apart let's see if we can put it back together again. I'm just going to take all the pieces out carefully taking the sail out so that I don't scratch it any further and we're just going to slap this thing back together. The backpack piece I'm just going to set aside although I guess Stalker could wear the backpack when he's on the sail but I just think that looks silly so I just set aside. The main sailboard is two pieces and they lock together like so. The outrigger is held together with these two parts and they go in these holes. It looks like they go either way and they both both pieces look identical so I guess it doesn't really matter which way you put them then the outrigger goes on like so. Mast is in two pieces you put it together. These little knobs here need to be facing the same direction because that is where the sail will go. Then you peg the mast into the hole in the surfboard. There you go it's starting to look like a windsurfer. Once the mast is on I think that's a good time to put on the sail. These holes in the sail correspond to these notches here these tabs. Carefully put those in so that you don't tear the vinyl or scratch it looking pretty good. Now you have to put on this boom piece and this boom piece has a peg here that's going to fit in that hole on the mast and it's got this little guy here this tab here and that's going to go on the back of the sail so it needs to be on the same side that these tabs are on so it's going to go this way not this way so put that on and slide it over the top here push it into that hole in the front and then the sail goes onto the boom the same way it went onto the mast. I don't know how little kids did this it's difficult for my adult hands so it must have been kind of a pain for little kids to put this thing together. Clip the machine gun on the boom careful not to bend the plastic because it does take a little bit of force to get it on there and then the evil evil missile which goes on the outrigger and there you go fully assembled look look it's moving of its own accord look at that can it float no but of course the stupid missile floats that's the only thing it's got going for it the missile floats and that's the only good part about this stupid thing. The Manta is a really interesting vehicle it came out in 1984 but you know the way that it looks with the camouflage and the green and the gray I'd almost guess that it came out earlier than that it seems to have the character of a vehicle from 1983 or maybe even as far back as 1982 but it did come out in 1984 it was a male away I never had this as a kid I kind of wanted it I certainly saw it in all the catalogs but I never pulled the trigger I just really wasn't sure what I would do with it so how would I rate the Manta I have to admit I have to rate it pretty low I want to kind of elevate this thing and rate it a bit higher because it does have a really cool military look even though it is essentially a recreational toy painted with military colors but it's not very sturdy the break apart features means that it's a pain to assemble assemble and disassemble I think that the portability backpack is kind of silly and I don't like it the stupid missile will not stay on to save anyone's life I really want to like this vehicle I just I just don't it's a watercraft that doesn't float it breaks apart in a way that I just think is dumb and even though it looks really good on the shelf I just don't see it as a great toy now maybe some of you guys had this when you were kids and had tons of fun with it and so you know maybe I'm totally wrong that's just kind of how I see it that was my review of the 1984 GI Joe Manta I hope you like this video and if you're thinking of getting a Manta I hope you found this video informative if you did make sure you give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and make sure you subscribe I've got a lot of great new GI Joe toy reviews coming up you do not want to miss them and this is the last of the requested videos that I've done if you would like to request a particular vintage GI Joe toy to be reviewed make sure you leave a comment however the next video is going to be my choice I've done a lot of these small vehicles and individual action figures and I'd like to get back to doing something big so the next review video is going to be something a little bit bigger thanks for watching and I'll see you next time it will not stay on look at that