 Merry Christmas from Ground Zero. You know what the holidays make me think of? Explosives. Once a year, a burglar breaks and enters into millions of houses and somehow no one has a problem with this. Well, I do. That jolly old elf better watch his step because my home is secure thanks to the minefield set by the subject of this week's review. Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. Before we get started I'd like to give a special thanks to some new patrons. Thank you to KB, Cody, Tom Marsh, Rip Tide O'Leary, JoeMotionVideos82, Casey Wheeler, and Big Gay Dave. Thank you for helping me continue to make these videos. I reviewed Tripwire a long time ago. That video was not very good and you should not watch it. Since I'm getting back into doing vintage GI Joe toy reviews, I'm taking a look at my back catalog. There are a lot of videos that probably should be redone and Tripwire is one of them. This video should arrive the day after Christmas. Boxing day. So what does Tripwire have to do with the holidays? There's a very obvious answer to that question, which I hope I will think of before the end of this review. HCC 788 presents Tripwire. This is Tripwire, GI Joe's mine detector from 1983. This figure was introduced in 1983 and was also available in 1984 as part of the second series of carded GI Joe action figures. It was discontinued for 1985. It was also available in a three-pack at JC Penney's with torpedo and snow job. In a time when GI Joe started to add more colors, Tripwire kept with the traditional green. Tripwire would have fit well in the 1982 lineup. There were two other versions of Tripwire in the vintage era. The version two listen and fun Tripwire in 1985 included a story cassette. The version three Tripwire was in the Tiger Force subset in 1988. Both later versions reused the same mold and accessories from the first version. Why does Tripwire even exist? Of course, he fills a practical role on the team, but so would a supply officer. Tripwire didn't include any weapons. Well, not weapons to shoot at the enemy. He had some mines, but we'll get to those later. He was similar to Breaker in that regard. Breaker was a communications officer who only came with communications equipment. Is this an exciting action figure to play with? I think in the early days of GI Joe, the designers mostly thought of them as generic armymen. The individual identities and backgrounds were added by Marvel Comics, especially with the help of Larry Hama. The first Joe's could be seen as upscaled renditions of the classic green armymen. A set of armymen would always include a rifleman, a machine gunner, a mortar soldier, a bazooka soldier, and, yes, a mine detector. Some of those roles were more useful for large unit warfare, but less useful for a counter-terrorism group like GI Joe. As the story of GI Joe became more defined, a greater variety of specialties were introduced. But we still got more Tripwires. This light green plastic is fragile. It's not quite as fragile as the light green plastic used on 1982 figures, but you still have to be careful with it. For example, I've got a piece of the heel cracked off on this figure, despite the fact that I do not display it on a figure stand and I haven't dropped it or anything like that. It's just easy to crack off pieces of this green plastic. Tripwire did get some international and modern releases. What you're seeing here is the action force version of the figure and the modern 25th anniversary version. This is Blades. This figure was released in 1984 as part of the UK Action Force SAS subset. And this figure was not a mine detector. This figure was a pilot. It was included with the Hawk, which was a recolored version of the Cobra Fang. This is a very nice figure. It is an excellent use of the Tripwire mold. It works very well as a pilot. This may be better than the US figure. This is Tripwire version 5 from 2008. This figure was done in the modern 25th anniversary body style with all updated sculpting and articulation. This figure was released in a comic two pack with Cobra Commander of all people. Why was Tripwire with Cobra Commander? I don't know. Maybe he's Cobra Commander's cousin or something. The figures came with a comic book, which had both Cobra Commander and Tripwire in it. But I would expect Coco to be paired with Duke or Hawk or someone like that. Let's take a look at Tripwire's accessory starting with his mine detector. This accessory is in dark gray plastic. It has some nice details. It's nicely sculpted, has a grip here, and it has a long, thin wire that wire plugs into the backpack in that hole. This wire can break off, so be careful about that. This is similar to 1982 Joes with accessories that had attached wires like this. Later GI Jo accessories that attached to backpacks used black hoses that plugged into pegs. That was a much more practical way to do it. It is easy to distinguish the version 1 and version 2 mine detector. The version 2 mine detector is in a much lighter gray. The version 3 mine detector, though, is also in a dark gray. It's very close to the version 1 accessory. It's in a very slightly lighter gray, but it would be very easy to mix these up. Let's turn our attention to the backpack. You could put the backpack on the other way, and I think some collectors do that, but I just think it looks better like this. And it has the hole for the wire on the right side, which is the side you would normally put the accessory in the figure's hand. The backpack is in light green, the same color as the action figure. It is nicely sculpted. It has some technical detail. It has a hole for that wire, and it holds three removable mines. The mines wedge into this space. You can detach all three of them, and this is probably the coolest part of this figure. You now have extra accessories. The version 2 and version 3 backpacks use exactly the same mold as version 1, and they both have the removable mines, but they are in very different colors, so they are easy to distinguish from version 1. These mines are flat discs. They have minimal detail, but the detail is adequate. They are in exactly the same light green color as the backpack. They are very tiny and very easy to lose. Anti-personnel and anti-tank mines come in many shapes and sizes. These look like they would be triggered by someone stepping on them, or by a vehicle rolling over them. They look a little like the M15 anti-tank mine. The version 2 and version 3 mines are the same as version 1, but in different colors, they are the same colors as their backpacks. Are these mines tripwire has diffused and collected, or mines he intends to deploy? Since tripwire is a specialist in demining, it would make sense that these mines are deactivated. The figure includes the mines so you can make use of the mine detector. However, when tripwire was introduced in the comic book, he was placing explosives, not detecting and deactivating them. I think the mines were included for tripwire to deploy against the enemy. Let's look at the articulation. For tripwire, he had the articulation that was standard for GI Joke the years in 1983, so he could turn his head from left to right. He could lift 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 at the bicep that allowed him to 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 legs at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of tripwire, starting with his head. On his head, he has a sculpted on non-removable green helmet with a chin strap. He has black goggles and a painted on face that paint could wear off on the nose. On his chest, he has a light green uniform shirt or jumpsuit. He has a dark gray chest plate with dark gray straps that go around the back of his neck and the back of his lower torso. His arms feature long light green sleeves and light gray gloves. I like the contrast between the light and the dark gray. That's very nice. He has a red tampo application on his right upper arm. It looks like it's supposed to be rank insignia, but this would not be correct for tripwire. He is an E4 specialist. There is a variation on this patch. There's a thin stripe and a thick stripe variation. This is an example of the thick stripes. His waist piece is in light green plastic with minimal detail. It has a belt, a pocket in the back, and it has some gray padding in the front. His legs are minimally detailed there in the same light green plastic as the rest of the uniform. He has a dark gray pistol on his right leg. No such detail on the left leg. And he has tall gray boots. For his specialty, he would be wearing a protective bomb disposal suit. It should be thicker than it appears here. I think that's what they were trying to do with this figure, but it's sculpted on the standard bucks, so it looks a lot thinner than it would in real life. Let's take a look at tripwire's file card. His file card has his Factions GI Joe. It has a portrait of tripwire painted by Hector Garrido, who did all of the early GI Joe card art, so of course it looks good. He has the Mind Detector codename tripwire. His file name is Tormod S. Skug. That's an unusual name. Tormod is a Norwegian and Scottish Gaelic name that refers to the God of Thunder. That makes sense because tripwire deals with things that go boom. The best reference I could find for Skug was Douglas Skug, a famous chemist. That also sort of makes sense for tripwire. His primary military specialty is explosive ordnance disposal, secondary military specialty demolitions, birthplaces hibbing Minnesota, and great as E4 specialists. This paragraph says, tripwire dropped out of a high school at a naval base in Yokosuka, Japan. In parentheses, father is career navy. This is a reference to the United States fleet activities Yokosuka, which is a real naval base in Japan. Spent two years in a Zen monastery pondering the meaning of life, expelled for breaking too many dishes and spilling every conceivable liquid. Joined the army at 19 and received spiritual awakening on the grenade range. That's an unusual place to find it. And he hadn't figured out the meaning of life by age 19. Come on. Proficient with all NATO and Warsaw Pact explosives, detonators, ignition, initiators, and blasting machines, qualified expert in 1911A1 Autopistol. This bottom paragraph says, tripwire freaks people out. He's always clumsy, jittery, and dropping things except when he's working with high explosives. Explosives are the only things that calm him down. Tripwire's clumsiness is played up in the early issues of the comic book series. Looking at how tripwire was used in GI Joe Media in the cartoon, he first appeared in the 1983 animated miniseries, A Real American Hero Part 1. But he didn't have any lines until Part 2. He was with a small team that tried to get radioactive crystals needed to power the mass device. Tripwire had a few other appearances, but most of the time he was in the background with no lines. He had the most screen time in the episode, Cobra Claws Are Coming to Town, but despite that, he was still mostly a background character. That was a Christmas episode of the animated series. It's a little known fact that Tripwire also appeared in a live action movie that was also Christmas themed. In the comic book series published by Marvel Comics, he first appeared in issue number 16, where his clumsiness was his main characteristic. He was on a team of Joes that entered the swamp to find Zartan in issue number 25. He was in the bee plot during the two-part origin of Snake Eye's issues in number 26 and 27. Tripwire wasn't anything close to a main character, but he showed up when his skills were called for, such as in issue number 56, when he defused the explosives Cobra had set to destroy a terror drone. In later issues, Tripwire's clumsiness was mostly forgotten. Looking at Tripwire overall, this would be an excellent figure if it were released in 1982. Compared with the 1982 lineup, this figure has more paint, it has all unique parts, it has lots of accessories with extra features. With the 1983 lineup, he's an average figure. He stacks up fine with torpedo and snow job, but he's not as cool as Airborne and Gung Ho. If you put him against any Joes after 1983, he looks pretty dull and uninteresting. He has nice military colors with two shades of gray, but he's a little short on details. The details he has are appropriate for his job, but it's nothing noteworthy. Later versions of Tripwire went not so with the colors. They had to, since the figure didn't have enough other features to stand out in 1985 and 1988. The accessories are appropriate for his specialty and they look great. There's a lot of play value with the removable mines, but he doesn't have a rifle, so he won't be in the thick of battle. He can lay mines, but then the mines will be more directly involved in the battle than Tripwire. Even the animated series and the comic book didn't seem to know what to do with them. You know who did know what to do with them? Action Force. This uniform works great for a pilot. Blades is an excellent use of the Tripwire mold. So why am I doing this review the day after Christmas? Well, the G.I. Joe animated series had a Christmas episode. It was called Cobra Claws are Coming to Town and Tripwire was in it. Merry Christmas! That was my review of Tripwire. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, share it and subscribe to the channel for more vintage G.I. Joe toy reviews. Support the channel on Patreon to help me continue doing these videos. You see all the names on the screen right now? Those are all cool people. Your name could be there. You can find me on social media on Facebook and Twitter and I have a website, hcc788.com. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time. Happy holidays and remember only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe.