 HCC 788 supports Girls of the Finest, a G.I. Joe costume club. Be sure to order their 2017 calendar. Proceeds to benefit the charity, Canines for Warriors. Find them on Indiegogo.com. Get out of it, Canines. HCC 788 presents... A military themed toy line have a sub team called Star Brigade that is space themed. Well, we will discuss that later. Let's look at the packaging for Lobotamax. I have his full card back here. And this is how they tried to sell this thing to kids. We have some card art here, but it doesn't look very much like the card art we got on earlier, G.I. Joe. We have the traditional G.I. Joe logo, but it runs along the side of the car rather than the top. We have the Star Brigade logo here, so he is part of the Star Brigade subline. We have his name is Lobotamax. He's the stellar explorer. And up here we have a little logo that says Lunartix Empire. Bendable neck and tail. We'll take a look at that. Slipping the card around, we have the cross cell. Some other figures that were available in the Star Brigade line, including other aliens. We have some instructions here on how to fit the figure on the figure stand. I don't think that necessarily needed instructions. Then we have this coming soon, and it has a couple other subteams for G.I. Joe that probably would have been released in 1995, but they never were released because the line was canceled before then. We have Power Fighters and Manimals, and they both look terrible, and it's probably a mercy that they were never released as part of G.I. Joe. We have one flag point, and we have Lobotamax's file card, and we'll take a closer look at that later. Lobotamax takes his name from the word lobotomy, which is a surgical procedure that involves cutting away the connections to part of the brain, and that sounds about right. I don't think there was ever a more aptly named action figure. Let's take a look at Lobotamax's accessories, and again we are dealing with one of those 90s accessories trees, and you already know how I feel about these. I really hate them. They're really lazy. All of his accessories came on this tree, and you were meant to pop them out yourself. That meant that they were all the same color, this sort of Dijon mustard yellow. Also, none of the accessories are original. They were all reissued with other action figures, and some of these accessories got reissued many times. This laser pistol is a reissue of the laser pistol that came with the 1988 Iron Grenadier. Iron Grenadier is going to hang out with me while I look at the other accessories, just because Iron Grenadier is a better action figure, and I'd rather look at him. This laser rifle is reissued from the 1989 DJ. It's a very science fiction looking weapon. It has some nice details. This is the kind of weapon you would expect to come with a space alien. This laser gun he has in his hand is a reissue of the gun that came with sci-fi version 2. Now sci-fi's gun was connected to a backpack with a standard black hose that connected to this little knob on the end. Well the knob is still there, but Lobotamax did not have anything to connect to it. Then we have this submachine gun because of course a space alien would have a submachine gun. This submachine gun is a reissue of the submachine gun that came with the 1988 Voltar. I'm going to keep Voltar around too. I need plenty of help to get through this. We have Lobotamax's second submachine gun, and this submachine gun is a reissue of the submachine gun that came with the 1989 Snake Eyes version 3. This submachine gun looks like a modified Uzi, and Uzi is an Israeli submachine gun. How would an alien get an Uzi in outer space? I have to assume this Uzi is made by Jews in space? Thanks again, Mel. As always, you're the greatest. I'm keeping Snake Eyes around for the rest of this segment too. It's just such a relief to look at good action figures. Now we have this knife, this lightning bolt shaped knife, and this is a reissue of the knife that came with the 1988 Hydro Viper. Finally, we have the figure stand, which was standard on a lot of 1990s figures, and normally that was a good thing, but Lobotamax is a figure that does not need a figure stand. He stands perfectly well without one. So if you're short on figure stands, you can use this for a different action figure. Let's take a look at the articulation on Lobotamax. He did not have the standard articulation of GI Joe figures of any year. He did have that bendable neck as advertised on the card. It does not bend very easily, and I don't know if that's just 30 years of age on the plastic that makes it really stiff, or if it was like this when it first came out, but it does not bend very easily. You had standard articulation at the arms, standard GI Joe articulations. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder. It swivel at the shoulder, but his left shoulder is obstructed by this shoulder thing here. His right shoulder, though, will swivel all the way around. You had, of course, the hinge at the elbow and the swivel at the bicep. This was not an O-ring figure, so there's no articulation at the waist or the torso. You could move his legs at the hip a bit, and you could bend at the knee, but the legs actually get in their own way bending at the knee. Then, of course, you had the bendable tail, which is just as stiff as that neck. Let's take a look at the scope to designing color of Lobotomax, starting with his head, and his head is at the end of that long neck, and you actually have to bend the neck forward in order to see his head. Then you can see those eyes and those things around his mouth and that exposed brain. Wait a minute. Hold on here. That's not a brain. That's a scrotum. That's a scrotum. That is exactly what that is. Don't pretend that isn't what that is. You can see what that is. They sculpted a scrotum on the head of this figure. That is just so disgusting. These were grown adults who produced this toy. They knew what they were doing. Look, it even hangs over the neck a little bit. Hang on a minute. I gotta get a chair. I gotta sit down. Sorry, guys. I just gotta sit down for a minute. I've never given up on a review. I've reviewed Cobra Law. I've reviewed Ice Cream Soldier. I can do this. I can do this. Okay, let's keep going. Then we have that elongated neck and it has some sculpted veins on it and midway down the neck it has a couple more black eyes. This is really gross. Let's move on. We have a chest that has a vest and some sculpted details, some straps, a belt and some pouches. That's all in bronze. Then we have this one shoulder pad that sticks out really far here because of course all space uniforms have to be asymmetrical. We have some green veiny arms and a couple of arm bands and we have hands with three fingers on each hand and there are claws on the fingers and those are pretty well sculpted. I can't argue with that. Let's move on to his legs and Lobotamax does not wear pants because pants are for humanoids. His legs are green and veiny like the rest of his body. He has a couple of straps on his thighs that are in bronze. He has a canister on this side, some kind of gadget on this side. I don't know what that's supposed to be. Then of course he has two feet on each leg. These feet are sculpted well enough, I guess. I think it's funny that they put a foothold on each foot as if you would need that. Fortunately the way the feet are shaped they can interfere with each other. They can bump against each other. And of course if you want to bend one knee his back toe runs square into his other knee. Great design there guys. Finally we get to the tail and oh my god it's long and veiny. This goes right along with the scrotum head and yes he has a fist at the end of it. Oh, ah, sorry, sorry. Lunch was backing up again. Whoa. I'm okay, I'm okay. And yes, he can hold a gun in his tail fist if that's important to you. So maybe you were on the fence about this figure but the fact that he can hold a gun in his tail fist that just sells it. Let's take a look at the file card. We are mercifully near the end folks. We're gonna make it. By 1994 they were shrinking down the traditional file cards into about baseball card size. In fact they're not even called file cards anymore. It says GI Joe trading card to clip and collect. It has his name as Lobotamax and the card points out some features on the action figure including the bulging eyeballs, the bounty hunter battle suit. Bounty hunters don't have to wear pants and the powerful terror tail. Well it is terrible. For some reason they started numbering the action figures. I'm not sure what the point of that was you didn't have to buy them in any particular order but Lobotamax was number 50. His code name is Lobotamax. That's kind of redundant. It says Lobotamax down here. He's the stellar explorer, birthplace, Morris Sector 5, planet Zog. Shut up. Primary military specialty bounty hunter, secondary military specialty alien annihilator. What? No pay grade? This paragraph down here says a friend to no one. Lobotamax hates humanoids and fellow lunatics aliens alike. Lunatics sounds like lunatics. The creators are just taking the piss now. They're barely even disguising their apathy. Proud of his bounty hunter reputation he is known throughout the cosmos as one of the most unmerciful creatures ever hatched. His monstrous tail can disable enemies in one powerful whack. That's right, he whacks his tail. It's a tallywhacker if you will. Seldom does prey escape a bite from his venomous fangs. Unfortunately for him, his intelligence is extremely limited due to the loss of brain tissue suffered when the top of his skull was sliced off during a laser saber duel with Predacon. So Lobotamax has literally had a lobotomy. The file card references Predacon which is this guy up here if you care, which you probably don't and you shouldn't. It's easy to talk about the G.I. Joe media appearances for Lobotamax because there aren't any. He appeared in neither the G.I. Joe animated series nor the G.I. Joe comic book. That's probably a good thing. I mean, imagine what the animation would have looked like with this guy with the scrotum head and the veiny neck and tail. How would you get that past the sensors? Looking at this figure overall, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it. Clearly a lot of work went into this action figure and the designers intentionally made it look disgusting. Well, mission accomplished, guys. The elongated neck and tail are veiny and phallic and that brain on his head is not a brain. Now don't go in the comments section saying oh, it's a brain. You just have your mind in the gutter. It's not a brain. You know what that is. I think the designers of this figure cared so little about it that they made a dirty joke out of it. They thought we wouldn't notice, we noticed. So why are there aliens in G.I. Joe? How did this Star Brigade sub team come about? That was the question we asked earlier that we need to come back and answer now. We don't have to speculate. We know the reasons why and we know because Hasbro executives from back at that time have talked about their rationale for including these things in the G.I. Joe line. I'm not calling out anyone in particular. This was a team effort and when they made good decisions for G.I. Joe we applaud the whole team. Well, we've got to give them the same treatment when they make decisions that turned out to not be so good. So why Star Brigade? Why are there aliens in G.I. Joe? The reason is the Hasbro executives got wind of a rumor that Kenner was going to start reissuing Star Wars toys and the go-getters that they were Hasbro executives decided that they were going to attack their competitor at what they considered their weakest point. They were going to jump the gun and get their own alien action figures into the market first. After more than a decade of producing G.I. Joe toys Hasbro was starting to feel the pressure from other toy lines like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and rather than come up with a new toy line that would be their answer to those other competing toy lines they came up with ideas and just dumped them all into G.I. Joe because G.I. Joe already had the retail shelf space. Hindsight is 20-20, of course but looking back at it it should have been obvious that this was not a good idea. You can't compete with Star Wars by just producing your own alien toys. Star Wars had alien action figures because those aliens were connected to the blockbuster movie maybe you heard of it. Star Wars aliens had a connection to the universe that they occupied as seen in the Star Wars movies. These G.I. Joe aliens had none of that. Besides which you can't beat Star Wars by trying to out Star Wars that's not attacking your competitor at their weakest point it's attacking at their strongest point. What kills me about this rationale is there was a time when G.I. Joe did attack Star Wars at their weakest point and beat the hell out of them. And that weak point was articulation. Vintage Star Wars figures are stiff-armed, stiff-legged mannequins so when G.I. Joe figures came out they had articulation that blew Star Wars away and Star Wars just couldn't compete in that area. That's how you attack your competitor at the weak point. So Lobotomax is nauseating there should not be aliens in G.I. Joe and even if you love these aliens you think these aliens are the greatest figures ever made well fine you can have your aliens but they don't need to be in the G.I. Joe toy line. The aliens don't gain anything by being connected to G.I. Joe and G.I. Joe does not gain anything by being connected to these aliens. I wasn't fully aware of these aliens when I first started collecting G.I. Joe as an adult. I thought that Cobra Law was the only part of G.I. Joe that I truly hated but I hate these guys. And it never fails someone always comments hey that's my favorite guy I love that action figure and my uncle he had a scrotum on his head too and if that's the case that's great and I really mean that if you found something that gives you joy and happiness in life hold on to that some guy on the internet should not be able to dissuade you from that but I don't have to agree with that you don't have to agree with me but I don't have to agree with you either so Lobotomax bottom tier nauseating and feels like an insult to children everywhere but wait we have a new segment on this show it's called what does Mrs. Hooded Cobra Commander think let's find out so that leaves just one thing left to do oh dark one I summon you to place your icy fingers on this wait a minute down here once you have one before you know it you'll have a whole infestation of them you're right so I guess that means I have to live with this thing as part of the G.I. Joe toy line whether I like it or not nope alright this figure reminds me of a joke that I think Al Franken told and it goes something like this there's a guy he's got a red dot on his forehead and he can't get rid of it he goes to the doctor and the doctor you know says ok we'll take it out we'll do some tests you know come back tomorrow the guy comes back the next day still has the red dot on his forehead and the doctor says you know we've run our tests and we know what it is you have a penis growing out of your forehead the guy says no way it's just a red dot are you sure? and the doctor says yeah yeah we're sure it'll get a little bigger each day and in a couple months you'll have a full penis growing out of your forehead it's irreversible it's a very rare condition a very rare disease but we're certain that's what it is and the guy says I can't believe this I'm going to wake up each morning look in the mirror and see a penis the doctor says oh no you won't see it the balls will cover your eyes