 This is the first review of 2024, and this is not the review I planned to do, but the vehicle I planned to review had technical difficulties of a mechanical nature. So I'm moving the review for next week up to this week. This is the one that was voted on by patrons. This is the winner of the Patreon poll, and they chose a weirdo. Hello G.I. Joe fans, HCC788 here, and it's the beginning of a new year, a year that will see the 10th anniversary of this channel. And we are starting with challenges and difficulties, which we must overcome. This review was chosen by supporters on Patreon. I put a poll up on Patreon, and of the three options, they chose Topside. G.I. Joe's Navy Assault Seaman from 1990. They could have chosen Blowtorch, the only figure from 1984 that I haven't reviewed yet, and we could have talked about pork chop sandwiches. They could have chosen Dusty, a figure that I like and would enjoy reviewing. But no, we're looking at Topside. Topside, the guy with blonde hair and blonde eyes, not an especially noteworthy character until you read the file card. Happy New Year. Now that we're more than halfway through January, HCC788 presents Topside. This is Topside, G.I. Joe's Navy Assault Seaman. That's Seaman from 1990. This figure was introduced in 1990 and was only available in 1990. It was discontinued for 1991. This is the only vintage version of Topside. There was only ever one later version in 2013 from the Collectors Club Figure Subscription Service. Topside was designed by Dave Hassell for Hasbro and was sculpted by Peter Twist. Alternate codenames for Topside included Barracuda, which was later used for a G.I. Joe submarine, Swabby, Marlin Spike, Gaff and Salty Dog. Topside was a member of G.I. Joe's Navy, which started in 1983 with torpedo. In 1984, they had Deep Six and Cutter, who wasn't really in the Navy. He was in the Coast Guard and he was the driver of the killer whale hovercraft. In 1985, they had Shipwreck and Kegelhaul, who was the commander of the USS Flag aircraft carrier. In 1986, there were two versions of wetsuit. In 1989, there was Deep Six Version 2. In 1991, there was Tracker. In 1992, there were a lot of G.I. Joe naval characters. There was Wetsuit Version 2, Deep Six Version 3 with the eco-warriors. And Cutter Version 2 with DEF. In 1993, there was Keelhaul Version 2 without the aircraft carrier. There was also Wetsuit Version 4 and there was a third version of Cutter. 1993 saw a fourth version of Deep Six. And in 1994, there was Shipwreck Version 2. Topside is a Navy Assault Seaman, which I guess means he works on ships and assaults the enemy. He's not a Navy SEAL and he's not designated as a sailor like Shipwreck. And some of the promotional materials he's described as having a job similar to Rampart. He protects the shoreline. Topside does it with missiles. Let's take a look at Topside's accessories starting with his primary weapon, which is this submachine gun, as far as I know, it's just called a submachine gun. It's in a very light gray, almost white plastic. It does almost look white. In fact, on the camera, it kind of looks white, but it's really a very light gray. It's a pretty basic design. It has a foregrip and a magazine. It's a serviceable weapon. The next accessory is the helmet in that same light gray, almost white plastic. It's a pretty basic looking helmet, a Fritz style helmet. We've had several other GI Joe helmets similar to this. It does have these tabs hanging down around the ears. Other than that, it's quite a simple looking helmet. According to the artwork on the card, the top of the helmet should be black, but the accessory was not painted. Also, based on presentation artwork by James Payette and box art for the retaliator, there may have been a clear visor planned for this helmet, but the final production accessory did not have that. Based on the two up sculpture for the figure and the helmet, there may also have been an antenna that was supposed to attach to one side of the helmet that was also canceled before production. That would make sense with top side secondary specialty. The next accessory is the backpack. This backpack is in the same very light gray plastic color as the helmet and the submachine gun. It has technical detail all over it. It is a missile launching backpack. As you can see, it has a couple of missiles in it. It also has a separate piece that swings out. This stand is hinged here. It swings out and the backpack doesn't have to just be a backpack. It can be placed on the ground and used as a weapon. And I think that is really great. That's a great play feature and great functionality. The backpack can hold two missiles, these small red missiles. And in fact, the figure comes with a third missile. So he has more missiles than he can actually carry. These missiles are very small. They don't have a lot of detail and they just slide into the launcher tubes. You can press them down and they will kind of wedge in there so they won't fall out too easily. They can wedge in there, they will stay in. But my problem is not so much the missiles or the backpack. It's this one. He has a third missile. There's no place to put it. And it's one of my pet peeves to have accessories that the figure can't hold. There is no firing mechanism for these missiles. There's no spring loaded missile launcher on this backpack. It was a little early in G.I. Joe to get the spring loaded missile launchers. Those really started coming a year after Topside was released. There's also not finger flick technology. So there isn't like a piece of the missile sticking out the back for you to flick and launch the missile that way. They are just static missiles that you manually pull out of the launcher to fire. The stand on Topside's backpack makes it more practical than another missile launching backpack from 1990 metal heads. He would launch his missiles directly from his back, which is crazy with the accessories out of the way. Let's take a look at Topside's articulation. He had the articulation that was standard for G.I. Joe figures well before 1990 so he could turn his head from left to right 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 bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel of the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. This was an O-ring figure, meaning 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 bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Topside starting with his head. And the head is interesting, depending on how you define interesting. He has very yellow blonde hair. His hair is in a flat top. He has a yellow beard, a yellow eyebrows and yellow eyes. They didn't bother to add a second color for the eyes. That's not a problem if the figure has brown hair. You can just give him brown eyes. But it doesn't work with yellow or red, both of which were used for 90s G.I. Joe figures. As it is, the hair color doesn't contrast very much with his pale skin. So the face almost looks blank on his chest. He has a bright orange life vest over a blue shirt. He has the word navy across the chest in black letters. There is a padded pattern all over the front and back of the life vest and some unpainted clasps down the front. There are no straps for the backpack, so I guess that just attaches with safety pins. I've seen this life vest called a May West, but it's not really. A May West vest is so called because when inflated, it makes the wearer look like they have a busty figure. It's named after the actress May West, who had a notably voluptuous figure. The arms feature blue rolled up sleeves and the rolls on the sleeves are painted white. So the inside of the shirt must be white. That's an extra paint application on the arms that we don't usually get. So that's nice to see the forearms are bare as are the hands. And on the left wrist, there is a gray wristwatch. The waist is light gray. It has a couple zipper details on the front. And instead of a belt, he's got a yellow rope tied around his waist. I'm sure that's regulation. His legs are in the same light gray as the waist piece. And down the outside of each leg is a dark gray seam. That's not a bad detail, but there are no other details on the legs. No weapons strapped to him or anything like that. He has tall black boots with dark gray bands around the top. And these dark gray details around the ankle that look like stirrups. In the presentation artwork, there is a compass detail on the left leg that did not make it to the production figure. Topside is kind of plain, which is my biggest problem with this figure. Not the orange life vest. I'm not normally in favor of bright colors, but I know every action figure line needs to have a variety of colors, even a military toy line. Well, this is a way to add bright colors to action figures without making them unrealistic. The orange life vest is not a problem, but the yellow eyes are a problem. Let's take a look at Topside's file card. His file card has his factionist G.I. Joe as a portrait of Topside here. His codename is Topside. He is the Navy Assault Seaman. His file name is John Blanchett. His primary military specialty is Navy Assault Seaman, as it should be. His secondary military specialty is telecommunications specialist. His birthplace is Fort Wayne, Indiana, and his greatest E6. This paragraph says Topside grew up on a small Indiana farm where he helped his father raise prize winning pigs. Pigs? After winning numerous county fair awards for his pigs, Topside quickly gained the reputation as Fort Wayne's Hog Master. Did he win the coveted Silver Sour award? When he was 20, Topside decided to leave the farm in search of a more exciting career. He enlisted in the Navy to see the world. And what did he see? He saw the sea and served as a deckhand on a ship that transported a G.I. Joe covert team to a mission site. He decided to take them all on at once because of his boldness and ability to look danger in the eye. He was offered a spot on the G.I. Joe team. That's how you get on the G.I. Joe team by picking fights with them. I have to assume this file card was written by Larry Hama, the writer of the G.I. Joe comic book. It's just too colorful. But there's a lot of text dedicated to pigs. What do pigs have to do with the Navy? I love them squealers. Pigs is a sailor's best friend. You got to have some pigs on the ship. You get bacon, you get ham, you get companionship. Companionship? Yeah, it's right. You get some pigs on the ship and the sailor don't even hardly need shore leave. And they squeal real good. Squee squee. Moving swiftly on this bottom paragraph has a quote. It says a really intense training program can produce a fairly tough individual. But Topside was born tough. He can down a plate of greasy scrambled eggs and hot wieners. Oh Lord, while sailing through seas, rough enough to send salty chief petty officers to the rail. I saw him take a full wind up uppercut punch from another seaman and not even budge. Needless to say, the other seaman didn't stay around to get Topside's response. Surprisingly, Topside's response was foul play, old chap. Topside's qualifications include picking fights with G.I. Joe and annoying other people so they punch him. This has got to be one of the strangest file cards you voted for this guy. We could have had pork chop sandwiches. Yeah, I got pork chop sandwiches. That's enough out of you. Looking at how Topside was used in G.I. Joe Media, well, he wasn't used much. He had a few appearances in the Deke era of the animated series, but not very many. He had the most screen time in the episode, An Officer and a Viperman. That episode title parodied the 1982 movie, An Officer and a Gentleman with Richard Gere. That episode was written by Michael Charles Hill, who recently engaged with the G.I. Joe fan community and talked about his experience working on the animated series in that episode, he ambushed and Pathfinder infiltrate Cobra by just signing up at a recruitment office. Cobra has those. They train in various Viper specialties at the Viper Training Academy. It's all very silly. He had a handful of other animated appearances, but nothing especially noteworthy. In the G.I. Joe comic book, as far as I know, he had no comic book appearances in the Marvel era. Looking at Topside overall, there are elements of a really good action figure here. I like the Orange Life Fest, as with Cutter, adding an Orange Life Fest to a naval character, adds some bright colors to the toy line without adding those bright colors to action figures that should be more camouflaged. The accessories are really good, all of them. The colors of the accessories complement the colors on the action figure really well. The backpack missile launcher has a lot of details and a stand. Really cool feature. The submachine gun is good. The helmet, even though it didn't have the black top like in the artwork, I think it looks fine the way it is. The missile launcher backpack does not really fire the missiles, but I'm not really into those gimmicks, so that's fine with me. The problems with Topside are not with the accessories or the color scheme or the overall idea of the figure. It's just some of the details, particularly some of the paint details, particularly the yellow eyes. We've seen figures with red hair where they paint the eyes the same color as the red hair, and that looks awful. It looks even worse when you have blonde hair and blonde eyes. That's a mistake I think you need to avoid at all costs. You could cut one of the other paint sprays on the figure to give him realistic colored eyes. The yellow eyes are just so off-putting, so off-putting that it's hard for me to see, no pun intended, the other things about the figure. I just look at his face and there are yellow eyes staring back at me. The rope belt is also kind of weird. I know G.I. Joe's dress code is rather lax. You have G.I. Joe characters wearing sweat pants and sneakers or wearing no shoes at all and this guy wearing a rope belt. I understand General Hawk is very lenient with the uniforms, but 7-Eleven has a more strict dress code than G.I. Joe. As colorful as the action figure is, the file card may be more colorful. Somehow we get from pig farms to eating eggs and sausages and puking over the rail and getting in a fist fight. I have to imagine this is how Popeye got started. You see, top side should have come with a can of spinach. G.I. Joe needed an expanded navy. They needed more guys to work on the water. So top side was an essential member of the G.I. Joe team. But because of the shortcuts and the cost cutting on this figure, it keeps me from really loving it. That was my review of top side. When will I get to the review I planned to do this week? I don't know. In fact, I don't know what I'm doing next week. My plans are all askew. I will figure it out. The 10th anniversary of this channel would be coming up in April of this year. I will be attending Joe Fest in Augusta, Georgia in June of this year. And in July, we will have Cobra Convergence 8. Check HCC788.com for updates on that. Next weekend, I will be at G.I. Joe Winterfest in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. I will leave a link to that in the description of this video. So please come out if you'd like to see me. The blame for this video goes to the names you see scrolling on your screen. Those are my supporters on Patreon and I love and appreciate every single one of them. And they chose this wacky review. Thanks for watching. I'll be back soon with something. I don't know. I'll see you then. And until then, remember only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe. Did he leave Fort Wayne, Indiana for adventure? Or was he evading the local authorities for pig f***ing?