 Are you reviewing Lifeline? Yep. Aren't you worried? Why would I worry? A lot of people are annoyed by Lifeline. This could be a controversial review. You could get trolling in the comments. No way. My viewers are the smartest and most reasonable viewers on YouTube. If there's one thing I've learned from my years of producing videos is that I can trust my audience. I don't expect to have any trouble in the comments section. Hello everybody, hoodedCoverCommander788 here. It's time for another vintage GI Joe toy review. And this week we are looking at a somewhat controversial figure, Lifeline. If you're a GI Joe fan, you already know why he's controversial. I don't even have to tell you. But I will tell you later. People have strong feelings about Lifeline. The character rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I understand that. I don't hate Lifeline nearly as much as a lot of people do. But I do understand why some people don't like him. Why does Lifeline annoy people so much? Let's find out by looking at the figure. HCC788 presents Lifeline. This is Lifeline, GI Joe's rescue trooper from 1986. This figure was first available in 1986 and was also available in 1987. It was discontinued for the year 1988. However, there was a mail-away variant that was available through an offer in Rice Krispies cereal in 1991. This variant is often called the Rice Krispies Lifeline. We will look at that variant in this video. There were a couple other versions of Lifeline in the vintage era. The second version was released in 1988 in the Tiger Force sub-team. It used the same mold as the first version, but with wildly different colors. The last version was released in 1994, the final year of the vintage GI Joe toy line. They finally gave Lifeline a new look. It's the only Lifeline figure in the vintage era that wasn't based on the first version. As a rescue trooper, Lifeline serves as a medic. GI Joe's lineup of medics is sparse. The first medic was Stalker, who had medic as a secondary military specialty. At that time, the GI Joe team was too small to have a dedicated medic. The first medic specialist was Doc in 1983. Doc was a full-fledged medic, complete with a stretcher and a flare launcher. He's probably the most remembered GI Joe medic. After Lifeline in 1986, 1987 Falcon had medic as his secondary specialty. In 1989, the second version of Stalker was released, and he still had medic as a secondary specialty. In 1991, we finally got a dedicated medic stretcher. He was called a medical specialist, but that's close enough. He's more of a traditional medic in the vein of Doc. There were gaps in the line with no dedicated medic. Kids may not have considered a medic to be a very exciting character. Did Cobra have their own medic? Well, Dr. Meinbender was a dentist. Other than that, Cobra didn't have dedicated medics in the vintage era. Given the design of their vehicles, it seems Cobra wasn't very concerned about the safety of their personnel. Cobra did eventually get medical specialists after the vintage era. Scalpel was introduced in 2003 and Mediviper in 2005. Here is that Mediviper figure. It's pretty much just a recolored scalpel figure with a different head. This figure was sent to me by Larry Laura. Thank you, Larry. I'm reviewing a vintage figure, so I don't want to focus too much on it, but I thought you might like to see it. We don't do a lot of modern figures on this channel. While we're going through figures sent to me by Larry, here's another one that's relevant to this week's review. This is Med Alert from 2005. Even though this figure is not called Lifeline and doesn't have Lifeline's filename, they were clearly trying to copy Lifeline's look. Lifeline has a character trait that many fans consider annoying. If you're a GI Joe fan, you probably already know what I'm talking about. We'll cover that thoroughly after we look at the figure. Let's start by looking at Lifeline's accessories. Starting with this big thing that he's carrying. The card contents call this an EMS kit. EMS stands for Emergency Medical Services. It's a white case with a handle that can fit in the action figure's hand. It has an oxygen mask and it's looped around the handle right now. I'm going to remove that for the time being and we'll look at that later. It has plenty of molded-in detail. On one side it has a red emergency symbol and the word rescue. They are molded in the plastic and painted red. This EMS kit is a remarkably elaborate accessory. It has two clips that snap onto two knobs on the top. And if you pop those out, you can open it up. And inside it has a silver plastic piece with molded-in oxygen tanks. On the side there's a hole for the oxygen hose. There's also a hook on that side, presumably for hanging the oxygen mask. I don't find it works very well. I usually loop the strap for the mask around the carrying handle. On the opposite side there's a small peg. It almost looks like this is intended to connect to another accessory. But Lifeline doesn't have anything that connects to it. The EMS kit is easy enough to close back up. Just press those clips back on the top knobs. Next we have that oxygen mask. It is in black, soft, flexible plastic. It has a thick, ridged hose that pegs into the EMS kit on that hole right there. Plugs right in fairly securely. The oxygen mask is designed to fit over the mouth and nose of a figure. And the strap has a loop buckle so you can secure that mask on the figure. Here's what that oxygen mask looks like on the figure. There is some similarity to the oxygen mask that came with the 1984 Ripcord. But Ripcord's mask covers the entire face, not just the mouth and nose. Next we have Lifeline's pistol. The card contents call this a Browning Double Action 9mm pistol. This is probably a Browning High Power DBA with DBA standing for Browning Double Action. The high power is a Belgian pistol introduced in 1983. The pistol is in silver plastic. It's often mistaken for the 1985 Keele Hall pistol, also in silver plastic. Keele Hall's pistol is rare and expensive while Lifeline's pistol is common. If you're looking for Keele Hall's pistol, make sure you get the right one. For fans of GI Joe, this pistol stands out as an unexpected accessory for Lifeline. He should probably not be carrying a gun. We'll discuss that more when we talk about the character. Finally, we have his backpack. This backpack is in silver plastic. It has an antenna and lots of technical detail. It looks like a communications backpack and is similar to the backpack that came with 1986 mainframe. I could see how these backpacks could get mixed up. With the accessories out of the way, let's take a look at the articulation on Lifeline. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1986, 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 at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. 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 swing 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 take a look at Lifeline starting with his head. On his head, he has a helmet, a red helmet with white stripes and a white band around it. It has silver goggles on the forehead and a red chin strap that goes under his chin. This helmet is non-removable. I usually prefer removable helmets, but they probably could not do a removable helmet like this with multiple paint applications and the chin strap that goes under his chin. He's wearing green glasses and this is a callback to the green glasses on the 1983 Dock. In the back we can see Lifeline has black hair. He has a slightly expressive face. He's kind of smiling. It's not a big toothy grin like Duke. It's more of a Mona Lisa smile. In a lot of his media appearances, Lifeline is shown to have a microphone attached to his helmet. That feature did not make it to the figure. I will say something in favor of this head. Besides the Caucasian skin tone plastic, this head has four additional paint colors. That's four paint applications just on the head. On his chest we can see his skin color just over a slightly open zipper on his shirt. His shirt is very red. On the right side of his shirt he has three white pockets. If you look closely at those pockets, they have little rings on the zippers. That is impressive detail. There's no denying that. On the left side of his shirt he has that same emergency symbol that's on his EMS kit. It's a white square patch with a red circle that is broken up into three vertical sections. Also on the right side of his shirt under that emergency symbol he has a white empty pistol holster, presumably for the accessory pistol. But that holster is much too small to hold this accessory. Around both shoulders he has silver straps. Those straps continue around to the back where they meet kind of in the middle of his back. Those straps would be for his backpack. I do appreciate that they made the straps silver similar to the color of the backpack. He has a sculpted zipper that goes right down the front of his shirt. There is a lot of very minute detail on this chest. You may not like the red color. I may not like the red color, but they did put a lot of effort into it. On his arms he has red sleeves with white cuffs and bare hands. On his left upper arm he has a white pouch with a white painted on band around his upper arm that's painted on but not sculpted on. Both arms have an unpainted V shaped detail sculpted onto the upper arms. I've seen this detail on some other figures like Cross Country also from 1986, kind of has that V shaped detail on his upper arms unpainted. I don't know what this is supposed to be. It's not a fold in the cloth. It's not rank insignia. Does anybody have any idea what this is? On his waist piece he has a white belt with a silver buckle. He has an unpainted pouch on the left side of the belt so that pouches the base red plastic color. On both the right and the left side he has vertical straps that are in white that lead down to details on the legs. His legs are red like the rest of his uniform. There is a big white pouch on the front of his right thigh. On his right leg there is a silver painted flashlight and there is a white strap for that and a vertical strap that goes up to the belt. On his left side he has a white pistol holster with a black pistol. This is Lifeline's second pistol including the accessory. This pistol is on his left leg implying Lifeline is left handed but the pistol holster on the chest is on his left side in a position for the pistol to be drawn with his right hand. So maybe Lifeline is ambidextrous. Right down the front of his left leg is the word rescue in big white letters. It goes all the way down to his knee. The letter E at the end is actually on his lower leg. And finally he has white boots, pretty plain boots but he has a silver knife strapped to his left ankle. This is a good opportunity to look at the Rice Krispies Lifeline. This figure was available as a mail away offer in cereal boxes in 1991. The overall look is very similar to the retail release. In fact at first glance you might not see the differences between these two figures. The mail away variant comes with fewer accessories than the retail version. The EMS kit is almost the same as the retail one. The red coloring on the emergency symbol and rescue is a little bit lighter than the original release. The EMS kit still opens up and still has the silver oxygen tanks inside. But it does not come with the oxygen mask and hose. The backpack is almost exactly the same as the original release backpack. The plastic color is the same. The only difference that I can see is there's a slightly longer peg on the mail away backpack. The pistol is not included and this figure did not come with a file card. The figure itself reuses mostly the same parts as the retail release. But the legs are different. The Rice Krispies Lifeline reuses the legs of 1985 Frostbite. That means he does not have the pocket, the flashlight, the pistol holster, or the ankle knife. Frostbite's legs are pretty plain so Rice Krispies Lifeline's legs are also pretty plain. He does still have the word rescue in big white letters running down his left leg. But as you can see, the font is different. They did not just reuse that old tampo, they redid it. Even though this figure was only available through a mail away offer, it doesn't seem to be very rare. You can find them, even still sealed in the plastic bag, for reasonable prices. Before we move on, let's step back and look at the figure again. This guy is red. Really red. Any part that isn't red is white. This is a guy who wants to be seen. If he were a civilian emergency rescuer, that would make sense. As a combat medic or a combat search and rescue troop, it doesn't. When you look at pictures of modern medics and rescue personnel, they look like soldiers. A lot of modern combat medics have even abandoned their non-combatant markings. This is one of the reasons I didn't have much use for Lifeline as a kid. I couldn't send him on a combat mission dressed like this. He'd give away the position of the whole team. Let's take a look at Lifeline's file card. His file card has his faction as GI Joe. It has a portrait of Lifeline here. And in that portrait you can see the microphone detail that is not on the figure, but does appear in the artwork. His codename is Lifeline and he is the rescue trooper. His file name is Edwin C. Steen. His primary military specialty is medic. He has no secondary military specialty. His birthplace is Seattle, Washington, and his grade is E-5. This top paragraph says, Lifeline was a paramedic with the Seattle Fire Department for five years before he discovered that EMS and parentheses emergency medical service personnel who were disabled while giving aid off duty were not eligible for pensions. In his mind, rescue personnel were never off duty. He decided to make his status permanent by enlisting in the Army as a corpsman. As far as I can tell, corpsman is a Navy specialty. The Army uses medics. I'm open to correction on that. All the references I found for corpsman were for the US Navy. This first paragraph could be taken two different ways. He joined the Army so he could always be on duty, or he joined the Army for the pension. He's either selflessly greedy or greedily selfless. The file card doesn't mention the most important thing about Lifeline. In all his media appearances, he is described as being a pacifist. He is opposed to violence. That is something worth putting on the file card. This is why Lifeline is so controversial. A lot of people think Lifeline is a poor fit in G.I. Joe. G.I. Joe is an elite combat unit. Lifeline is opposed to combat in any form. I don't think it's necessarily a bad fit. Lifeline would have been selected for the G.I. Joe team because he is the best at his job. For someone who is committed to saving lives, Lifeline will want to be where his skills are the most needed. And regardless of his personal beliefs, the Joe's would want the person who would do the best job with their lives on the line. The bigger problem with Lifeline is not that he's a pacifist. G.I. Joe's first medic, Doc, was also a pacifist. But Doc does not engender the negative reaction that Lifeline does. No, Lifeline's problem is that he never misses an opportunity to remind you he's a pacifist. He's like your vegan friend who mentions that he's vegan every five minutes. Looking at Lifeline's appearances in G.I. Joe media, he first appeared in the animated series in Arise Serpentor, Arise Part 1. That episode introduced most of the 1986 G.I. Joe and Cobra characters. Lifeline didn't like the idea of arming the tomahawk. The cartoon series put Lifeline's pacifism front and center. And it was all downhill from there. He was the focus of the episode Million Dollar Medic. And again, Lifeline refused to fight, even to rescue the woman who was in love with him. And what is Lifeline wearing? I did notice the animation model didn't include the pistol holsters. That's a good change to fit the character. The best appearance of Lifeline in the animated series, and best is a loose term in this case, is the episode The Most Dangerous Thing in the World. In that episode, Cobra hacks the Department of Defense Computers and promotes Lifeline, Shipwreck, and Dial Tone to the rank of Colonel. With General Hawk out of town, that put them in command of the G.I. Joe team. That went about as well as you would expect. Lifeline stops the team from doing anything violent, which is a problem for a combat unit. Lifeline is super annoying and useless. If your perception of Lifeline comes from the animated series, I can understand why you'd think he's annoying. The Lifeline in the animated series was written to be as irritating as possible. My Lifeline doesn't come from the animated series. He comes from the comic book. He first appeared in the Marvel Comics series in issue number 56, but it was only a cameo, and his uniform was miscolored. I like the grayish color they used. I wouldn't mind seeing that on the figure. Lifeline didn't have much to do in the main comic series. He's mostly known for one issue of the Special Mission series, issue number four, he was on the cover. In that issue, Lifeline's pacifism is on full display. A small squad of Joes are trying to retrieve the black box from a cobra firebat before the Russian October Guard can get to it. Lifeline's nonviolent convictions irritate Leatherneck. That's a brilliant move. Leatherneck is a gruff Marine who would prefer to solve most of his problems with violence. Lifeline is not helpless or useless in that issue. At several points, Lifeline is able to find nonviolent solutions to problems that arise during the mission. Both the GI Joes Squad and the October Guard are captured by river pirates. Lifeline is forced to fight the biggest and strongest October Guard member, Horror Show. To everyone's surprise, Lifeline wins the fight, and he wins without fighting. Sort of. Lifeline is a black belt in Aikido. Aikido is a martial art that allows the practitioner to defend himself without injuring the attacker. It consists of throws, joint locks, and redirection of the attacker's momentum. This makes sense. Lifeline knows he's going to be in combat zones. He's there to save lives. He won't fire a weapon at the enemy, but he would still want to defend himself in a way that doesn't violate his convictions. He mastered a martial art that would enable him to do that. This is a great issue. I enjoy rereading it. It gives me more respect for Lifeline. He's not the annoying, useless guy he is in the cartoon series. Except for one thing. At the end of the issue, Lifeline bargains to save the lives of the October Guard. He gives away the Firebat Black Boxes, which was the mission objective. The river pirate queen dumps them into the river. Leatherneck erupts in anger, and he's right. The mission objective wasn't Lifelines to give away, even to save people. However, I choose to believe that Joe's returned to the river and retrieved the Black Boxes. There's no way the mission ended on the last page of the comic. Lifeline just bought them some time. Looking at Lifeline overall, eh, middle tier. I'm tempted to put him in the bottom tier. I really don't like the red. Lifeline wears this uniform to announce as loudly as possible that he's a non-combatant. The red says, look at me, I'm a non-combatant. This is why I didn't have much use for the figure back in 1986. I couldn't send him on any ground missions. He would give away the position of the whole squad. He could ride shotgun at the Tomahawk on rescue missions. He could stay at the base and patch up injured Joe's, but he couldn't go anywhere else. Another reason I didn't use Lifeline back then is because my play scenarios did not often involve giving medical attention to the wounded. I wasn't playing mash, I was playing GI Joe. I didn't use Doc that much either. Although I do like the Doc action figure much more now than I did as a kid. The figure does have some good points. He would work well as a civilian rescuer. The red would work perfectly in that role. His accessories are pretty cool, especially the EMS kit. It's a surprisingly complex accessory. I'm impressed. I don't have a problem with Lifeline's pacifism. He has his convictions and he sticks to them. He maintains his convictions in the face of open hostility by his own teammates. That takes guts, not everyone can do that. Lifeline would have to be very strong-willed to do his job. People mistake pacifism for weakness or cowardice, but in Lifeline's case it's exactly the opposite. He'll put himself in the same danger as his teammates, but without shooting back. Saving lives in emergency situations is not a wimpy job. And it takes a particularly strong and courageous person to do it under enemy fire. Lifeline carries on the tradition of the combat medic. Lifeline runs toward the screams of the maimed and the dying, and he gives them a chance to live. If we can't respect Lifeline, then are we respecting the people who do Lifeline's job in real life? And that was my review of Lifeline. I hope you enjoyed it. Next week's review won't be quite so heavy. No philosophical discussion in that one. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter. This channel is funded through Patreon, so check that out if you want to help. I also have a website, hcc788.com. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next week for another vintage GI Joe toy review. And until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe. And in honor of Lifeline, peace.