 Hello G.I. Joe fans, HCC788 here. It's the return of Class of Friday, where I look at a G.I. Joe classified series figure on Friday. I had scaled back my purchase of classified figures, not because I don't like the classified series, but because I shifted my collecting budget to vintage, which had been neglected. But I found a couple classified dread knocks and I loved the dread knocks and I had to get these in front of the camera. The dread knocks in question are buzzer and ripper. I had been eagerly anticipating the debut of these characters in the six inch scale. I look forward to Torch eventually joining them. Buzzer was always my favorite dread knock and he will get his own Class of Friday video. I have some very specific issues with this figure, really one specific issue with this figure, really one specific issue with one of the accessories. But that will have to wait for Buzzer's video. For now, I want to look at ripper, which is I think the far superior classified figure. Let's start by looking at the box as we always do. This is the windowless style plastic free box. They have gone back to the window boxes for more recently released figures, but these plastic free boxes, I didn't really mind. I thought that would be a nice opportunity to get some more character artwork and we do have some character artwork, but with these windowless boxes, you can't see the action figure inside. They tried to have it both ways by having some character artwork and having the action figure in some toy photography on the front of the box. And that's not a terrible idea. They let's you see the figure and get some Easter eggs like some references to cold slither and the motorcycle in the background and the gas pump and some empty cans of grape soda. So that's nice. These little Easter eggs are nice bonuses. In the end, we don't get any more character artwork than we did on the old window style boxes. So we have a portrait here on the front and it's repeated on the side. This is action figure number 102 in the GI Joe classified series. It has the GI Joe classified series logo and it lets us know that this is a Cobra or enemy character. It has his name Cobra Dreadnock Ripper. They have the accessories on the front of the box, which is also on the back of the box. So it's kind of redundant and it takes up a lot of valuable real estate on the front of the box. On this side, we have that artwork again. We have Cobra, a half of a Cobra symbol on a blue background, which is interesting because Cobra had a red background on earlier box art. Then we have a QR code. Where does that QR code go? It goes to, oh, it just goes to hasbro.com, doesn't it? Under the QR code, there are these symbols that represent the character specialty. As you may recall, on the older classified boxes, these symbols took up really this entire side of the box. Now they're over here and they are really tiny. I used to enjoy looking at these symbols and making up meanings for them, but these are so tiny, I can't really see them very well. I'm old and my eyes don't work like they used to. So for me, this one is blur and this one is blur and this one is blur and this one is blur. I already showed you the character art on the other side of the box and I like it, but it looks like this is cropped from a larger image and I would have liked to get that larger image somewhere on this box. Check out the smiley face on one of his pupils. This looks like it's supposed to be a false eye. That's a cool new feature on Ripper. On the back of the box, we have some static photography of the figure, the accessories and some close-ups of the details. Hey, look, they do have those symbols slightly larger so I can make them out if I look very closely. This symbol means he invested in Twitter, not a wise investment. He is a dreadnock after all. What does he know about investing? This is an air freshener. This is a detailed rendering of the Tower of London and this is a digital camera. Let's get this figure out of the box. This is not a first time unboxing. I did post pictures of the figure out of the box on social media. I could not have done that if I hadn't already opened the box. So I have the figure and the accessories actually in this tray. The accessories originally came in this box and they were wrapped in this tissue paper. So I'm keeping that. I try to keep all of the packing material for these figures, keep all the packaging, but for now at least the figure and accessories are in here. At the back of this coffin style box, we have that character artwork again, but in grayscale. Here is Ripper out of the box. This figure emulates the details of Ripper version one from 1985. It has all the important details, but is updated for the six inch scale. The accessories are very similar as well. Let's look at those accessories, including some accessories that were just molded on to the version one figure, but are removable on the classified Ripper, such as his sunglasses, the red sunglasses, which are a separate piece and can be removed. This accessory is in gray plastic. It is a soft flexible plastic, which is important because with an accessory this small, it would break very easily if it were in a hard plastic. It has painted red lenses, much like the all red sunglasses of Ripper version one. These sunglasses go on the action figure. They go over the ears and over the nose, just like glasses on a normal person. And once they're on, they do not fall off too easily. That's something that has really impressed me about these glasses on classified figures. Once you put them on, they don't just fall off. That's got to be an engineering challenge and they've done a really good job with it. Let's move on to the accessory that makes Ripper Ripper, his weapon, his primary weapon, the can opener, which is a laser rifle with a large curved blade under the barrel. The rifle is in gray plastic. The blade is painted silver. It has a scope. It also has a removable magazine, which is a nice touch, but mine does not stay in very well. It falls out way too easily. Based on the diagram, I'm pretty sure I am putting it in the right way. At any rate, I've tried it all the other ways and it doesn't really help. So if I put it in the way that they want me to or any other way, this magazine still falls out really, really easily. And without the magazine, it just doesn't quite look right. Buzzer's original can opener rifle is iconic. So of course the classified figure had to come with this weapon. It wouldn't be Ripper without Ripper's weapon. So that magazine really needs to stay in. The profile of that original accessory is so memorable. The classified accessory really has to match it. Another accessory that sort of mimics a vintage accessory is this claw machine, but it differs in some important ways. I actually think this is better than the vintage accessory. I had Ripper holding it by this foregrip, which is a piece that will swing. It does pivot. So that's an extra part on there. It's not just molded on, that's nice. It has a pistol grip on the top and that will also fit in the action figure's hands. He's supposed to be able to grip it with both hands as seen on the box art. I had him holding the rifle so I didn't have him posed with this grip in both hands. But as you can see, he can do that and he holds it very solidly. This jaws of life-like machine is in gray plastic. It has some engine detail and some hoses. It has that grip on the top. It has the jaws on the front and those are articulated and they are hinged. So they will open and close together. That's a very nice touch. I like that a lot. It has the hinged foregrip, which we saw earlier. That's another extra piece that gives this a bit more to do. It's a really nice and well engineered accessory. There's some spots of silver paint on the engine and the exhaust. This is a well engineered and well detailed accessory that emulates the accessory on the version one figure, which was an all silver plastic. Also, this classified accessory has the engine attached to the jaws. Whereas on the vintage figure, the jaws had an engine on the backpack. The engine on the vintage backpack was connected to the jaws of life accessories with a black rubber hose, which for some reason was not in my bag of Dreadnock accessories. I don't know where it went. As it was done on the classified figure though, it combines both the engine and the jaws. So it's all in one accessory. That I think is a nice and economical way to do it. Classified Ripper has some other accessories that are sheathed and holstered. They were just molded on to the original figure, but at this scale they can be removed, such as the knife on the chest. It has a gray knuckle buster handle and a silver blade that's serrated at the top. And it fits very nicely in this sheath on the strap across the chest. The other removable accessory is this pistol, which fits in this holster on the right leg. You can remove the pistol. Like the knife, the pistol is gray with a silver blade. It looks a bit like a Mandalorian pistol. It has a large round trigger guard and this downturned blade with a serrated edge right below the barrel. It's a very strange looking pistol with that blade on the barrel, but the dread knocks are strange people, so I guess it fits. There are some other accessories that they don't intend for you to remove, like this necklace and these straps on the chest and around the arm and of course the pistol holster. But these are meant to emulate some of the sculpted detail on the vintage figure. You're not supposed to remove them, so I'm going to keep them on so you can get the full effect of this figure as it was meant to be seen. Ripper has the articulation that is standard for classified figures, which is always pretty good. So he can turn his head from left to right. He can look up and down. He has a ball joint on the head, so great range of motion on the head all the way around if you want to. You can lift his arm up at the shoulder, swivel at the shoulder, and he has a butterfly joint at the shoulder so they can move in and out. Mine are really tight, but they do move a little bit at this cut right here. Then he has a swivel at the upper arm, at the top of the bicep. He has double jointed elbows. He has a swivel and a hinge, an in and out hinge at the wrist. He has a hinge at the rib cage, which gives him a good ab crunch. I'm not a big fan of these big hinges right across the ribs, but they've done a better job of hiding them. They used to be more noticeable than they are now, so I think this maybe is a slight improvement. He has a ball and socket joint at the torso, so he has a wide range of motion at the belt. He has a wide leg split. He can move his leg forward at the hip and back a little bit. He has a swivel at the thigh cut. He has double jointed knees. He has a swivel at the boot cut, and he has hinged and rocker ankles. Let's look at the details on Ripper, and this is where it gets really interesting. He has brown hair. He has a foe hawk, much like the vintage figure, and a brown beard. His mouth has his teeth exposed in a growling expression. He does have red lips, though, perhaps a bit too red. We've had that problem on other figures. Lips don't have to be quite this red. He has angry eyes, and he does have that false eyeball on his right eye with a smiley face. It's really tiny. It's very hard to see. He also has a tattoo, a single teardrop tattoo on his eye, which means he's sad sometimes. No need to Google it. I'm sure that's what it means. On his right ear, he has a razor blade, which is mirrored on his necklace accessory with three razor blades. That's a really cool coordination between the head sculpt on the figure and the accessory. On his chest, he has a green tank top with a dark green camouflage pattern, much like the version one figure, but he doesn't have the ripped midriff, which is fine. Midriffs are a relic of the 80s and best left there. Around his neck, he has this beaded necklace with three razor blades on it, matching that razor blade that is on his ear. Across his chest and over his shoulders, he has this gray strap accessory. This is one of those accessories that's not intended to be removed, but it's a really nice touch and it looks really good. It has silver spikes on the shoulders. It has the sheath for the knife. That looks very leathery. It has a couple of pineapple grenades. On the back of that strap piece, there is a peg, and you can use that peg to store the rifle by pegging it in the trigger guard. Not the best way to store a rifle, but I do like to have storage for the accessories. So now he can have his rifle slung across his back. His arms are bare and he has bare hands. Around his right upper arm, he has this band with gold spikes. He has a spiked wristband around his right forearm. He has a black band around his left wrist and he has some tattoos on the left forearm. It looks like he has a claw and on the left upper arm, he has a devil and on the right shoulder, he has a grim reaper. Around his waist, he has a black belt with some leathery texture and a belt buckle. On the left side, he has a silver chain between the belt loops and that is just a nice extra detail and it does look very dreadnock-like. On the lower half of the figure, he is wearing dark blue dungarees. We know what side the dreadnocks are on in the war between the dungarees and the suits. These legs have a nice fabric texture and lots of seam lines and pockets. These legs look really good but these classified figures usually do. He has that gray holster strapped around the right upper leg. He has gray knee pads and dark gray boots. Most of the details on the lower half of this figure are not very distinctive. They're pretty ordinary classified details but they do look very dreadnock-like and appropriate. I really like this ripper classified figure. I haven't bought a ton of GI Joe classified this year but I have bought a few and this ripper figure is easily in my top 10, maybe in my top five. It emulates the details on the version one figure while updating them in important ways. The accessories all look great and they all work really well with the exception of the magazine on that rifle. This is a really good figure. We still need to talk about buzzer but that'll wait till next time. That was my review of GI Joe classified series ripper. Do you have this figure? Do you intend to get it? And what do you think of it? If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. I usually review vintage GI Joe toys. Occasionally I look at classified series toys. If that sounds interesting to you and you'd like to support the channel, please check out Patreon. You can get some special perks like early access and get your name in videos like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now. Thank you very much. I'll see you next time and until then, remember only Class of Friday is Class of Friday.