 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, I'm back with another vintage GI Joe toy review and we are on week two of Cobra Months 2015. This month I am looking at some Cobra toys that I've been putting on for a while because I think they're just too special for our regular weekly review, I thought they deserved a special spotlight. And we're looking at one of those important action figures this week, Major Blood. Major Blood was a mercenary working for Cobra, he wasn't a member of Cobra in the same sense that the Baroness was, so you might ask does Major Blood even qualify for Cobra Month? And the answer is yes he does, because I say so. I had a special love for this figure as a kid, he's just so unique and he's like the quintessential bad guy. So I'm really looking forward to this review, let's go ahead and take a look at the toy. This is Major Blood, the mercenary that worked with GI Joe's enemy Cobra. Major Blood was first available in early 1983 as a mail-in exclusive offer, he was not available in retail stores and there was something a little unusual about the mail-in offer for Major Blood in that you could not use your flag points to get this figure. What I'm talking about is on the packaging that the figures and the vehicles came in that was printed a flag point value and you could clip these out and send them off for special mail away offers. The offer for Major Blood was different though because instead of sending in these flag points, Hasbro asked kids to clip out the faces from the front of the card. According to Kirk Bozigian, the head of marketing for Hasbro's boy toys division at the time, Hasbro executive Bob Prupas had the kids cut out the faces in order to get them to go out and buy more action figures. What kids would normally do with these cards is just clip out the file card, clip out the flag point and throw the rest away. Well if you did that and you wanted the mail away Major Blood, you'd have to go buy more action figures so you could clip out the faces. Here in 1983 Major Blood was released on a card back for sale in retail stores so he's one of the rare figures and maybe the only figure to be released as a mail in offer and at retail in the same year. Let's take a look at Major Blood's accessories. He came with a weapon and the contents of the card on which Major Blood was packaged call this a rocket launcher. This is a rocket launching pistol and the tip here is the rocket that it supposedly launches off. This is not a model of a real world rocket launcher, typically rocket launchers are shoulder fired for obvious reasons. Rocket launcher pistols do exist but they fire smaller bullet size rockets rather than this big honkin thing. You can see the rocket fins here so this entire piece right here is supposed to be the rocket. There were later versions of this accessory made with minor differences in the mold so pay attention to those small differences. There were also accessory packed versions of this pistol molded in different colors so take note of the color. The original is straight black. This is not a very practical accessory in order to aim it Major Blood is going to have to look directly down the back end of the rocket and the rocket blast is going to hit him right in the face. That's why most rocket launchers and recoilless rifles are shoulder fired. Major Blood's other accessory is his backpack which carries the rockets that go on his rocket launching pistol. There are three sculpted on rockets on this backpack they are not removable they are just sculpted on but one thing that is nice is the sculpting on the rockets on the backpack more or less match the sculpting on the gun so that's a nice coordination between accessories. Let's take a look at the articulation on Major Blood. He did not have the typical articulation of GI Joe action figures at the time and mainly because of this right arm. This right arm was articulated at the shoulder but not at the elbow. Typical arm articulation for GI Joe of that 1983 series had articulation at the shoulder it could swing up and swivel around and it had articulation at the elbow and it had a swivel at the bicep it could swivel the arm all the way around not so with Major Blood. Other than that he could move his head from left to right and his left arm did have the typical articulation for action figures at the time it could swing up and swivel around it could bend at the elbow about 90 degrees it could swivel at the bicep all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside and allowed the figure to 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. Let's take a look at the sculpted design and color of Major Blood and there is so much to look at. There are many points of interest on this figure. On his head he has a black helmet that is not removable it is molded onto his head and he has an eye patch over his left eye and that looks great I mean this guy really looks very interesting. He has a very prominent mustache and that is a porn stash if I've ever seen one. Even though Major Blood is a mercenary meaning he is an independent operator working for Cobra the helmet is a nice visual association with Cobra in that it looks a lot like the traditional Cobra Soldiers helmet only in black instead of blue. On his chest Major Blood has a black armored chest plate over a brown shirt and that detail continues around to the black that looks like a bulletproof vest. And on his armor chest plate we see dog tags, lots of dog tags and we assume these are trophies of war taken from enemies he has defeated. This is where we get to that right arm and the right arm has some very nice looking armor plating on it and interestingly it looks like his right hand only has three fingers. We have two large fingers there and a thumb and the fingers are sculpted together they actually come together at the tip there that's different from the typical C shaped hand of a typical GI Joe action figure. That arm and the hand is just so weird and unusual and another great point of interest on this figure. It's long been speculated whether this arm is just armor plated or if it's a cybernetic arm or something like that. Hasbro's character designer Ron Rudette has said that this arm was intended to be a robot arm so we have to assume Major Blood lost his real arm in battle somewhere and he acquired or built this robotic replacement. Major Blood's left arm may not be robotic but it still has many points of interest. It has this patch here it looks like a shield shaped patch in green which looks like stripes on it. I don't know if this represents some real world patch but I have not been able to find a match for it. We have another sculpted on patch here on the forearm looks like some kind of insignia and sculpting here on the underside of the forearm and we even have some sculpting on the black glove this is really nice detail for this left arm. The waist piece is very plain it doesn't even have a belt sculpted on it it's kind of odd this is the one part of the figure where the detail is kind of lacking. These upper legs were reused for Duke you can see on Duke that's the same sculpted pistol on there just different color plastic same upper legs on both of them. Major Blood did come out before Duke did so Major Blood can claim original ownership of those parts Major Blood was made of entirely unique parts at the time Duke was made up of almost no unique parts and finally Major Blood has some nice tall black Wellington boots that are just perfect for this design really nicely done let's take a look at the file card these file cards were printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged you can see some of the artwork from the front of the card there obviously the mail in Major Blood did not come packaged on a card those file cards were printed with a plain red backing neither of these file cards are red back cards there is a textual difference between these cards though and this is the first version of the text the card shows his faction as G.I. Joe which is incorrect this really should say Cobra even though he's an independent mercenary he did work exclusively with Cobra he definitely was not a member of G.I. Joe this mistake of putting the faction as G.I. Joe is a mistake they often made with these enemy agents working for Cobra including Destro and Zartan they really should not have had G.I. Joe down here that's just wrong for later file cards on characters that they didn't necessarily want to include as Cobra characters they started putting the enemy down here and that's a better way to do it it says up here he's a mercenary and a mercenary is a soldier for hire so rather than fighting for duty or for country he fights for money and as long as Cobra is paying him he fights for Cobra his codename is Major Blood and that isn't really a codename that is his rank major and his real last name his file name is Sebastian Blood which is an appropriately villainous real name his primary military specialty is terrorist which oddly enough is the secondary military specialty of Destro so in many ways Major Blood and Destro are in the same business but these guys do not like each other I think Destro considers Major Blood to be unprincipled and honorless although it's never specifically stated I would think that Major Blood would consider Destro to be naive idealist it's kind of odd to think of Destro being naive or an idealist but that's just how I think these guys would see each other his secondary military specialty is weapons and tactics his birthplace is Sydney Australia and his grade is 0 for Major where exactly he achieved this major rank is not clear maybe in the Australian Army maybe in one of the other military forces he worked for not clear this section says blood received initial military training in the Australian special air service this is referring to the special air service regiment or SASR although they're commonly referred to as the SAS it's an Australian special forces unit and since this is a special forces unit I wouldn't think he would get his initial military training there I would think he would get advanced military training later joined the French and the French foreign Legion is a wing of the French Army that is made for foreign nationals that are willing to serve and fight with the French military worked as military advisor in a number of countries and is currently wanted for crimes in Rhodesia and Libya it's not exactly clear where these references come from but Rhodesia may be referring to the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964 to 1969 Libya may be referring to the mob attack on US Embassy in Tripoli in December of 1979 often these file cards associated Cobra operatives was parts of the world where the United States had foreign policy problems proficient with every form of infantry weapon in current use blood has a tactical mind like a steel trap qualified expert all NATO and Warsaw packed small arms this bottom section says major blood writes poetry badly when you're feeling low and woozy slap a fresh clip in your oozy assume the proper firing stance and make the suckers jump and dance in parentheses from the Attica Gazette this poem is the section of text that changed in later versions of the file card this version of the file card had a different poem this file card has the poem as a mercenary's job is a heartless one I'm a soldier for hire like a pawn shop gun my ruthless tactics keep you on your toes cuz I fight them all whether friends or foes again this is from the Attica Gazette both these poems are pretty bad I mean they're not exactly Vogan poetry but still pretty bad these cards don't necessarily contradict each other he could have had two poems published in the Attica Gazette Attica could be a reference to the region of Greece which includes the capital Athens there is no newspaper there called the Attica Gazette though or this could be a reference to Attica New York which was the location of a prison riot in 1971 maybe major blood was there in issue number three of G.I. Joe order of battle the mini series published by Marvel comics a major blood is on page 15 and this version of the file card reprinted in this comic book has the second version of the poem the one that starts with a mercenary's job is a heartless one looking at this figure overall this is a great design I mean the black and the brown is a fantastic combination and with his eye patch and his mustache and his robotic arm he looks very villainous and you could never think that this guy is a good guy and even though he doesn't have a cobra symbol anywhere on him his black helmet is a nice visual cue that associates him with Cobra this black and brown color scheme is a nice break from what we usually got with Cobra action figures which were either mostly blue or almost entirely black the lower half of the figure is a bit plain but appropriate collectors love detail but of detail is overdone it can ruin the overall design of the figure it can make the figure look too busy this figure has many untold stories to tell like where did he get all those dog tags and how did he get his robotic arm and what happened to his eye there are so many points of interest to this figure and a kid playing with this figure could make up any story he wanted to I'm not as fond of the accessories mainly this rocket pistol which is not a very practical weapon but it is very unique I'll give him that I have to give him an A plus for creativity in the G.I. Joe animated series major blood was voiced by Michael Bell the same actor who portrayed Duke but the voice Michael Bell gave to major blood did not sound Australian at all Now we'll clear out the Joe team and claim what is right for the others in the G.I. Joe comic book I don't recall major blood being written with any kind of accent at all and in the animated series he sounded more like British commoner than Australian so he sounded more like this ah there he is oh trigger yeah don't my brother don't you hey yeah of course I do how you going Dave then like this just kids having fun you all right in the G.I. Joe comic book major blood was initially hired by Cobra commander to kill Destro major blood's assassination attempt against Destro resulted in the Baroness being badly burned and captured by G.I. Joe later major blood rescued the Baroness from G.I. Joe and got her reconstructive surgery later the Baroness and major blood plotted to assassinate Cobra commander using a child assassin named Billy who turned out to be Cobra commander's son at one point it seemed like major blood might have become Destro's rival for the affections of the Baroness now it's a bad idea to get in the middle of other people's relationship anyway it's an even worse idea if the other guy is someone who will happily kill you in the face despite a few flaws with the figure and the accessories I'm still going to put major blood as a top tier figure I was super jazzed about getting this figure as a kid I didn't get him as a mail away I had to wait for him to come out on the card and it was just so awesome he was very important to Cobra he was probably more important to Cobra in my playtime than he was in any of the G.I. Joe media so the mystery and the excitement surrounding this figure has to catapult him to the top tier that was my review of major blood and the second installment of Cobra Month 2015 I hope you enjoyed it and if you did don't forget to give it a thumbs up on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe I've got a lot of great new G.I. Joe toy reviews coming up and more Cobra reviews coming up this month you do not want to miss them and don't forget to like the facebook page you get a lot of updates there you don't get anywhere else thanks for watching and I'll see you next week with week three of Cobra Month new plan Destro on night attack night attack and major blood will leave a major blood is the dangerous foe reigned by Destro the enemy of G.I. Joe G.I. Joe the man over at Destro you take this off and capture the Cobra officer that's part of my plan what does Destro mean follow the further adventures of G.I. Joe in Marvel Comics tonight tonight