 Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here, and I'm back with another vintage GI Joe toy review. But before we get into that, I wanted to cover something else. The International GI Joe Convention is in Springfield, Illinois this year in April, and I wanted to know if any of my viewers were planning on going. I intend to be there, and so maybe I can see some of you great people. If you're going to be at JoeCon, leave a comment in this video. So let's get started with the review. This one is kind of special. We're looking at the 1984 Zartan on his Swamp Skier, the Chameleon. It took me a long time to complete this one, so I'm really jazzed about being able to review it now. So let's take a closer look at Zartan. This is Zartan, the master of disguise, and his Swamp Skier, the Chameleon. Zartan was first introduced in 1984. He was also sold in 1985. He was discontinued in 1986, and we did not get another version of Zartan in 1986. Instead, we got Zarena and Xandar, Zartan's brother and sister. Like Zartan, Xandar and Zarena had the ability to change color in sunlight. Zartan and the Swamp Skier were worth two flag points, as you can see on this file card, which included part of the box that came from, and there are the flag points right there. Zartan had a special gimmick. He was made out of a plastic that would change color in sunlight. Additionally, he came with some heat-sensitive stickers that would go on the inside of his clear plastic accessories, and of course those would change color in reaction to heat. I'll demonstrate the color-changing plastic a little bit later in this video. Zartan was an enemy of G.I. Joe, and he was affiliated with G.I. Joe's main enemy, Cobra. But Zartan was not a member of Cobra. He was more of an independent mercenary, and he was the leader of the motorcycle gang, the Dreadnoughts. And in 1985, the first three Dreadnoughts action figures were introduced, Huey, Dewey and Louie. I'm sorry, that's Buzzer, Ripper and Torch. The Dreadnoughts were inspired by post-apocalyptic movies like Mad Max. However, Zartan doesn't seem to take his influence from the same direction. Zartan's design is more unique. Let's take a look at Zartan's accessories, and my goodness, he came with a lot of accessories, starting with this laser pistol. And this laser pistol was actually the last piece of Zartan that I needed to get in order to complete him. It took me quite a while to find one at a reasonable price. It's a pretty good-looking laser pistol. It's not really modeled after any real-world design, but it does look nice. Not a bad little weapon. The laser pistol is really Zartan's only personal weapon. In addition to that, he came with several removable armor plates. And starting here with the chest plate, we'll take a look at those. And Zartan originally came with some heat-sensitive stickers that you were meant to put on the inside of these clear plastic parts, also on his thigh pads. This one still has the heat-sensitive sticker adhered to the inside, and I don't think it works anymore, and I definitely can't get it out of there. Now without the heat-sensitive sticker, it was just clear plastic, like this one. So let me pull this off so you can see what it looks like without the clear sticker. You can see it's just clear plastic with, looks like, a paint application on the inside for the black shoulder strap. There's some nice detailing on the chest plate, and this is a really unusual accessory for a GI Joe action figure. And continuing with unusual accessories, he had these two thigh pads, and the thigh pads were removable. You just pulled them out, and they slotted into these two slots on his leg. You can see the pegs there for the slot, and these are made much the same way as the chest plate. They're kind of an unusual shape, and they are not identical, of course. There's a separate left and right one, so if you're looking for the thigh pads, you got to make sure you get the right one. And of course, there were heat-sensitive stickers that came with Zartan that would also go inside the thigh pads. Of course, there's no heat-sensitive sticker in this one. These thigh pads are very easily lost. They don't stay on well. They always pop off on their own, so you have to be very careful about that. And sometimes you can end up spending quite a bit of money just to get these thigh pads. Zartan's next accessory is his backpack, and his backpack is an unusual shape, but it's this shape for a reason. And it's got some nice detailing on the outside, but the backpack does open up. It's got this clasp on the side here. You just kind of pull those apart and open it up. And inside you see Zartan's mask. This is his disguise. He is a master of disguise after all. There's some sculpted detail on the inside of the backpack. It looks like a makeup kit and other things that he would use to disguise his appearance. And then of course you can take the mask out. It fits in this sort of guitar pick shape indent on the inside. And here you go. This is Zartan's disguise. The mask fits on Zartan's face by essentially just putting it under his cowl. You just kind of wedge it under there and put it over his face and it holds in. And there you go. Look, it looks like an entirely different person. Whoa, who's that guy? I thought I was reviewing Zartan. Where's my Zartan action figure? I don't even know who this guy is. Zartan. Zartan, where are you? Oh, there you are, Zartan. I thought I had lost you forever. This mask looks like somebody famous. Who could it be? Who does this look like? Let's look at the articulation of Zartan. He had the typical articulation for 1984 G.I. Joe action figures. That means he could move his head from left to right. His cowl is made of a softer, rubbery material. It doesn't hinder his head movement very much, but at some angles it might a little bit. He could move his arm at the shoulder up about so far. His armor plating sculpting does seem to hinder the movement of the arm upward a little bit like that. He could swivel his arm all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow. He could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep. He could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside, so he could move at the torso a little bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees, and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Just look at the sculpt design and color of Zartan, starting with his head. As you can see, he's wearing this kind of cowl thing over his head. This is made of a soft, rubbery plastic. It doesn't get in the way very much, and it needs to be flexible, so you can put the mask inside it to cover his face. On his face, as you can see, he's wearing makeup that looks like he's from the band Kiss. I really do think that makeup was inspired by Kiss. It certainly looks like it. For some reason, his eyes are totally white. He has no pupils. His chest looks pretty cool with the chest plate, but the chest plate really is the only detailing on the chest. If you take it off, he is bare-chested, and as you can see, he doesn't have any nipples or a navel, which I think proves that Zartan is an alien. Zartan's brother, Xandar, is also bare-chested, and as you can see, no nipples. So I guess something about this color-changing ability takes away the guy's nipples. It's kind of weird. On the back, Zartan has a molded-on back plate, and of course that connects to the chest plate. It's a continuation of the chest plate. It fits on perfectly like that, but the back plate does not come off. That's just molded on there. There is something peculiar about this chest and back piece. Like most GI Joe action figures, there is a screw in the back of Zartan, and normally you can unscrew that and pop the whole figure apart, and that makes it easy to change O-rings, the rubber O-rings when they wear out, and all of those O-rings eventually do wear out, so you have to replace them from time to time. But on Zartan, the chest and the back piece are not only held together by that screw, they are glued together. So if you pop the screw out, the chest and back piece do not come apart. I'm not sure exactly why that is. I think it has something to do with the color changing plastic, but what exactly it has to do with that? I'm not sure. Zarina and Xandar also had the color changing plastic, and their chest and back pieces were also glued together. So again, I don't know exactly why it's like that, but it is. On his shoulders, he has these ridged armor plates, and he has black gloves. On his waist piece, he has a belt. That's pretty plain, nothing too special about that. And his trousers are also pretty plain if you take off the thigh pads. Without the thigh pads, there's really no special detailing on the trousers. He's wearing a burgundy color to match the cowl on his head. You can see the slots there where the thigh pads peg in, and some sculpted detailing on the cloth, but that's about it. And finally we get to the boots, and these boots look so badass. They look armored, they've got buckles. They just look great. Something about these boots I always loved. He has a knife here on one boot, but these boots just look fantastic. Let's take a look at Zartan's file card, and Zartan's file card was printed on the back of the box that the chameleon came in. There's nothing on the other side, it's just the back of the box. But he had two different versions of his file card. This was not the original. The first version was this one. Here we have a portrait of Zartan, and this would have been from the artwork on the front of the box, and you can see there are like beams of sunlight, and his skin color is a different color. And this is just to try to highlight his color changing ability. It has his faction here as GI Joe, and that is not correct. Zartan wasn't technically a member of Cobra, but he definitely was not a member of GI Joe either. Now on later file cards, instead of putting GI Joe there for non-Cobra enemy characters, they would just put the enemy as they did with buzzer's file card. It says up here he's the master of disguise, and it doesn't even mention the chameleon swamp skier that he comes with. His codename is Zartan. His file name is Unknown. His aliases are too numerous to list. His birthplace is also unknown. This section says Zartan can alter his skin color at will to blend in with his environment. He's also a master of makeup and disguise, a ventriloquist, a linguist, over 20 languages and dialects, an acrobatic contortionist, say that five times fast, and a practitioner of several mystic martial arts. Very little is known about his background and origins, but most security agencies agree that he must have had European Military Academy training, probably Saint Cyr. Saint Cyr is the premier French Military Academy. This bottom section says Psychological Profile, Extreme Paranoid Schizophrenic, grows into various multiple personalities to an extent that the original personality becomes buried and forgotten. It's this bottom section that got Hasbro in hot water with mental health agencies. They objected to this mention of Extreme Paranoid Schizophrenic. Hasbro apologized for this and they changed the file card. They switched it and just took out that entire bottom section. They didn't rewrite it or anything, they just left that out. I'm going to side with leaving the pop psychology off of these file cards. Schizophrenia is a real ailment that people actually have and I've seen its effects. When I worked at a public defender's office, I saw it in jail, I saw it in courtrooms, and it's really not anything to joke around about. This is something that needs treatment, not ridicule, and I just don't think it's fodder for toys and action figures. That brings us to the chameleon swamp skier, which I have to look at, I can't get out of it. It's a swamp skier. Zartan rides it, he rides it kind of in a prone position. You kind of hook his feet over the bars here and you put his hands on the handlebars and he's supposed to ride it like that. Of course, look at that, a thigh pad popped off on its own. See, I told you that was a problem. But anyway, there he goes, that's how he rides the chameleon swamp skier. The swamp skier, like Zartan, supposedly had the ability to change color in sunlight, but I don't remember that ever working very well, so I will test the chameleon with Zartan when I show the color changing ability and we'll see how it does. The chameleon has these forward sweeping handlebars and these are frequently broken. In fact, there's a crack in this one right here. The tabs on here that hold it on, they're not very sturdy. Those will snap off like anything. It's got some front skis that turn a little bit and it has the only weapon on this vehicle, which the blueprints call a high capacity water nozzle. Whatever. The back ski is kind of swinging up and down like this, so I guess they're height adjustable. It's got a gas cap here, kind of a ridged seat. I guess these are supposed to be jets or lasers or something, I don't know. Then at the bottom here, it has this mini jet engine and I honestly don't think that would work. It's really low and this is a water vehicle, so it seems like it would get water in the intake and I'm no jet scientist or anything, but I think that would be bad. I have to be honest with you, I never liked the chameleon swamp skier. When I had Zartan as a kid, I basically just discarded it. It's a pretty Mickey Mouse vehicle. It's really flimsy. It breaks really easy. It just is not a great vehicle and honestly I really think it was only included with Zartan because the Zartan action figure because it had the gimmick was more expensive to produce. So I don't think Hasbro wanted to put him out as a carded action figure and sell him for three bucks. They wanted to make more money on him, so they packaged him with a vehicle so they could charge more for Zartan as a vehicle driver. But I just really don't like this vehicle. I don't think I ever used it as a kid and really the only reason I have it as an adult collector is because I just want to have Zartan complete with everything he came with. But wait, the chameleon has another gimmick. It breaks apart into a pile of junk and that's what this thing is for. As part of Zartan's disguise, his vehicle's supposed to break apart and look like a junk pile and go inside this bin which then he then hauls with this tow rope so it can look like Zartan has just turned into some, you know, I don't know, hobo with a pile of junk. Breaking it apart is fairly easy. The thing barely stays together as it is. You just kind of pull the bottom part off of the top and then you can pull the rest of the bits off. I don't take these handlebars off. Those break pretty easily but you can disassemble the rest of it. It doesn't snap in permanently. It all just frictions in so you can remove pretty much all of it. I don't like to take the jet engine out. It's just another piece that's kind of wedged in there pretty well so I just kind of leave that. You have to pop these back skis off though because these actually go on the garbage bin. You're supposed to just kind of pile it all in there and make it look, you know, just really random. Nothing to see here. Definitely not a chameleon swamp skier that's just in pieces so GI Joe will just ignore this. It looks like a junk pile. You snap the skis onto the sides, these pegs here and there you go. You have a junk pile that Zartan can haul around with this tow rope and the tow rope slots into this slot here. Unfortunately mine is slightly broken and I could replace that pretty easily. I just don't care that much. Let's put Zartan's mask on to complete the disguise and this will definitely work. GI Joe will never recognize him. Put the tow rope in the hand and there you go. This is definitely not Zartan. It's just a guy wearing exactly the same clothes as Zartan who happens to be pulling a cart full of junk that looks exactly like his swamp skier just broken up into pieces. Why no my son, I've never heard of a Zartan. I'm Jesus. Would you like to buy some junk? Can the chameleon swamp skier float? No, not even a little bit. To be fair it was never advertised as having the ability to float but it is a watercraft so of course we gotta test it to see if it can. It does not float in the slightest. If you look at it there's nothing really that would keep it buoyant so of course it doesn't float. You wouldn't expect it to. The junk box floats, check that out. Okay I'm out of my backyard and under this box I have both Zartan and the chameleon swamp skier and I'm going to lift the box up and expose them to some direct sunlight and so maybe we can see the color changing ability in action so if you're ready here we go. And there we go. Let's see if we can zoom in a little bit. See what happens. You can see Zartan is getting darker and yeah the chameleon is getting darker as well. It's turning more of a pure green color. More closely matches the other parts, the skis and Zartan's skin is definitely turning a darker hue. I have his chest plate on. When he gets good and dark and gets a lot of sunlight absorbed I'm gonna pop the chest plate off so we can compare his darker color to the original plastic. Let's try that now, let's see what it looks like. And there you go. Zartan's tan lines, check that out. Yeah, the color changing ability still works pretty good. This color changing plastic still works after 30 years. Very nice. And I honestly didn't remember the chameleon being that good at the color changing but it's doing pretty good. It's now taking on a much darker green color. I declare this a successful experiment. Zartan's color changing ability, there you go. Looking at Zartan and the chameleon overall obviously they are both completely unrealistic. There's really nothing real world about these at all. And as you know, I prefer the realistic military figures and vehicles for G.I. Joe. I don't normally go in for the science fiction. But when I look at this now I think the same thing that I thought when I first saw him in 1984 which is this guy's cool. Even though there's very little about Zartan that makes sense, somehow it all just seems to work together. The science fiction elements, the armor, the armor plating, the colors, the makeup, everything just somehow works and it looks awesome. Despite the fact that this has really no real world analog it still is an amazing design. This I think is a triumph of design and color choices. It's a triumph of design despite the fact that it's really weird. Now of course there are times when you can have a figure that's really weird that is not a triumph of design and color choices. And so when I get to reviewing Xandar we'll take a closer look at maybe one that wasn't quite so successful. Zartan however on his own is just a beautiful action figure. The gimmicks I could live without. His disguise is silly. I mean it's the same guy with a different face. I mean that's not gonna fool anyone. In the comic book he had holographic shape changing abilities which admittedly was more science fiction but it also made more sense because Zartan could more easily disguise himself as you know other characters. However it was also hinted in the comic book that he had chameleon properties so maybe he had like shape changing superpowers that really wasn't made clear. In the cartoon he did wear masks and his color changing ability was treated like an allergic reaction to sunlight. So the whole concept of Zartan seems kind of muddled and unfinished. I mean does he have holographic shape changing abilities or does he wear masks? And what does any of that have to do with the swamps? And why does he change color? Is that some kind of superpower? Is it an allergic reaction? It's kind of like they had an idea and they worked out this idea and made this action figure but they hadn't completely figured the whole thing out yet. But ignoring all the gimmicks I still really love Zartan. And the reason I love Zartan is mainly because he was such a well written character in the G.I. Joe comic book. Zartan was such a strong character and my favorite scene that involved Zartan didn't even have Zartan in it. It's in one of the comic books where the Dreadnogs are talking about Zartan's motorcycle. They're taking a look at it. They're talking about stealing it and taking it for a joy ride. And the entire scene is about Zartan. I mean he's there, his presence is there even when he's not there. It's all the Dreadnogs can think about is what is Zartan gonna say if they take his motorcycle? You know you have a pretty strong character when he can be present in scenes without even actually being there. Zartan was also linked to some other characters in G.I. Joe. Zartan was treated kind of as an assassin in the comic book and he killed the leader of the ninja clan that produced Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. And of course when Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes learned that Zartan was the killer they both sought vengeance against him. At one point in the comic book Zartan used his shape changing ability to switch places with Ripcord and disguised as Ripcord he infiltrated the G.I. Joe's secret base, The Pit where he was later captured. Zartan is a massively important character in the G.I. Joe universe. It's really hard to overstate his importance in both the comic book and the cartoon. And he's so well written that I just have to love the guy even though the whole concept is weird doesn't make any sense, has no basis in reality at all but the character is just so great I ignore all that and I just love it anyway. Zartan was portrayed in the live action G.I. Joe movies but he was pretty different from the Zartan we got as an action figure in 1984. I'll leave my opinion about the movie Zartan unspoken for right now. If I ever review the movies I'll talk more about that. That was my review of Zartan and the chameleon swamps here and Zartan's two file cards. I hope you liked this video and if you're thinking of getting a Zartan action figure I hope you found this video informative. If you liked it make sure you give it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe. I've got a lot of great new G.I. Joe toy reviews coming up. You don't want to miss them and don't forget to like the Facebook page you get a lot of updates there that you don't get anywhere else. Thanks for watching and I'll see you with the next G.I. Joe toy review video. The communion other figures and equipment each sold separately from hands bro.