 This week we are going to look at a figure that helped keep me interested in G.I. Joe when a large part of the toy line was going off in a very strange direction. This figure may not be as well remembered now, but in 1988 for a short time he was the face of G.I. Joe. Ender 788 here, it's time for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review and this week we have a guest. We're going to get some help from a friend of the channel, Kevin from SEO Toy Review. Say hello Kevin. Kevin. Say hello Kevin. Alright, maybe Kevin will be around later. The G.I. Joe toy line that was launched in 1982 has always included science fiction elements. Even right at the beginning they had laser rifle troopers and jet packs. So our G.I. Joe from the 80s could be viewed as futuristic military. G.I. Joe did futuristic military in a number of different ways. For instance, Battle Force 2000 from 1987 was overtly futuristic and more science fiction elements were added to the line as it went on. When I think of futuristic military, I don't imagine it looking anything like Battle Force 2000 or any of the other sub teams that they grafted science fiction elements onto. I don't think mega marines or star brigade look like the military of the future. When I imagine the military of the future, I imagine something like the subject of this week's video, the steady cam machine gunner from 1988, repeater. Apparently I wasn't the only one to think so because when this figure came out, his likeness was slapped onto a lot of merchandise. Kevin from SEO Toy Review is going to show us some of that merchandise, right Kevin? Right. Let's look at the perfect marriage of science fiction and military themes. HCC 788 presents repeater. HCC 788 presents repeater. This is repeater. G.I. Joe's steady cam machine gunner from 1988. This figure was introduced in 1988. It was also available in 1989 and was discontinued for 1990. Repeater takes his name from a type of firearm, a repeater or repeating rifle. There were two versions of repeater in the vintage line, but he was released three different ways. Version one was released in 1988 on a single card. Version two was released in 1989 as part of the night force sub team. It was on a double card with night force charbroil. It used the same mold as version one, but in night force colors. In 1993 version two was released again, bagged with the mail away rapid deployment force set, which also included fast draw and night force shockwave. They all had different accessories, and the set included a black special rapid deployment force edition pocket patrol pack. Repeater fits in the lineage of several different G.I. Joe traditions. He is a machine gunner, although G.I. Joe didn't have a lot of designated machine gunners before 1988, rock and roll and roadblock were important members of the team. He is a US Army Ranger. G.I. Joe's earlier Rangers, Stalker and Beechhead were significant characters and leaders on the team. He is wearing a desert uniform. G.I. Joe first moved into desert themes arguably in 1983 with grunt version two and dock. In 1984 there was a new desert themed vamp with clutch version two and in 1985 G.I. Joe got a designated desert trooper Dusty. Ever since then G.I. Joe has kept a contingent of troops and vehicles equipped for desert fighting. One desert themed vehicle released the same year as repeater was the 1988 desert fox. A nice desert vehicle and repeater looks pretty good manning the machine gun, but looking at the colors of the desert fox contrasted with repeater really makes me wish the orange parts on the desert fox were in a different color. Perhaps a green that would match repeater's vest and backpack. The tan and brown in repeater's uniform is definitely supposed to be a desert color theme. The green isn't perfectly desert focused, but it still complements the other colors pretty well. This was pre-desert storm. In the 1980s the image of the American soldier still reflected the Vietnam era with a lot of green and woodland and jungle camouflage. In the 80s a few conflicts in the Middle East pushed the public attention in that direction. G.I. Joe is based loosely on the real world delta force or the first special forces operational detachment delta. In the first issue of the G.I. Joe comic book the team is referred to as special counter terrorist group delta codename G.I. Joe. One of delta forces first missions was an attempted rescue of hostages in Iran a mission that failed that incident was fictionalized in the G.I. Joe comic book as one of G.I. Joe's first missions. What this means is G.I. Joe has been in the desert since its inception repeater continues that tradition and to me embodies what a G.I. Joe should look like apparently Hasbro's licensees also thought this is what G.I. Joe should look like because they put repeater's face on just about everything and now I think Kevin from SEO toy review will show us some examples of repeater as the face of G.I. Joe right Kevin hey hoodie Coco haha there he is told you'd be here all this talk about repeater is reminding me of a joke from when I was a kid Pete and repeater in a boat Pete fell out who's left Pete and repeat are in a boat Pete fell out who's left Pete and repeater in a boat Pete fell out who's left okay okay okay yeah well I have a joke Peter and repeater are sitting on a car Peter shoots repeater and oh that doesn't work the real reason I'm here is I wanted to share with you and your viewers some really cool G.I. Joe licensed merchandise that features repeater repeater the first item we have here are some G.I. Joe loot bags these were for giving out party favors at your G.I. Joe themed birthday party in 1988 the loot bags feature shockwave repeater and spearhead it's a pretty decent likeness of all of the G.I. Joe characters on the package there and they're sold in an eight pack made by unique repeater is even the character featured on the hang tab for the loot bags to go along with the loot bags we've got a set of party invitations with envelopes just like the loot bags you get eight invitations these are made by unique as well feature the same artwork although I think the print quality is a little bit cleaner on the invitations here there's a dog tag on the back that has the information for the party this set is still sealed so I don't know what's written on the inside but these are very similar to the sergeant slaughter invitations that were made in 86 in 1988 Milton Bradley released a set of four mural puzzles for G.I. Joe each one of the puzzles could connect to make a larger picture scene three is called road pig versus repeater and surprise surprise it features road pig repeater as well as sergeant slaughters warthog and the cobra bug as part of their yo's radical yo yo's line spectra star released a G.I. Joe themed yo yo and of course it had repeater on it they made a few other licensed yo yo's including donald duck pewee herman and ghost busters this may not be an exhaustive list of all the different licensed products that featured repeater on them but the last item I have to show off is a bubble bath container released by duker bio essence repeater's head screws off to make the cap for the bubble bath it's a pretty decent likeness to his action figure it's got some different symbols up here on the top and some red markings on his shoulders there but he looks pretty good I mean they even got the fact that he only wears one glove they did change his gun to silver it's missing the little steady cam part but they did a great job he's even got the digital camo down there his backpack is molded on and he's got this little blue base to stand on with a sticker on it 8.5 fluid ounces all right hooded cover commander that was the licensed merchandise I had to show off I'll get out of your hair and let's get back to your review let's take a look at repeater's accessories starting with his machine gun the machine gun needs to be removed with some care it can be placed in both of his hands and pegged onto the figure so all of those points need to be treated with care so you don't break off one of the grips or the peg what we have here is a two-piece assembly the machine gun and the body mount the body mount pegs into the side of the machine gun I'm going to remove that for now so we can look at the machine gun first the contents of the card on which repeater was packaged call this an electromechanical machine gun it is in black plastic it has a grip on the back and on the side and both of those grips will fit in the figure's hand on the same side as the side peg there is a hole for the peg of the body mount we will take a look at that in a moment it has a slot that goes all the way through it for ammunition but it does not include an ammunition belt and this is my biggest problem with early gi joe machine gunners a lot of them did not come with ammunition some later machine guns did but the earlier ones didn't this is not to my knowledge based on any real world weapon but it is based on a fantasy weapon which I will discuss but let's look at the rest of the system first this is the body mount for the machine gun it is also in black plastic it's kind of a long bar with a couple drums on it and some pegs it has a peg on one end for pegging into the action figure and then in the center it has a large black drum and an extension with another peg that pegs into the machine gun and then at the other end it has another barrel that looks like it's supposed to be a counterweight for the machine gun you can peg the body mount into the side of the machine gun and then peg it into repeater's belt like so and that is the steady cam machine gun the body mount will pivot on the belt peg and the machine gun will elevate on its peg and it has a pretty wide range of motion and when the machine gun is not in use you can even swing it around to his back and out of the way you can fit both grips into the figure's hand and they do fit pretty well they don't seem to be stretching the thumbs too much so I'm not too worried about breakage but while the steady cam machine gun has a nice range of motion on that body mount the figure's articulation really doesn't when he's in that pose so if you have both hands on the machine gun you're not going to get a huge range of motion on that this isn't the only time gi jo attached weapons to a figure's hip or belt a couple examples in 1990 pathfinder had two machine guns attached to his belt in 1990 ram part had a peg on his belt that his machine gun could hook onto this is supposed to be a steady cam machine gun system a steady cam is a stabilization arm for a motion picture camera it allows for a steady shot even when the camera operator is walking or running over uneven ground based on how a steady cam works repeaters vest is probably also part of the system the idea of mounting a machine gun on the steady cam is to stabilize the machine gun allowing for smooth independent motion and steady aiming the idea of a machine gun connected to a steady cam rig was popularized by the 1986 science fiction movie aliens it was common for gi jo to draw inspiration from other areas of pop culture here they are definitely influenced by aliens the idea of a steady cam machine gun seems great at first but a weapon mounted this way would need to be carried in the standing position or maybe the kneeling position that doesn't make it easy to dive for cover in the comic book repeater can sometimes be seen in the prone position with his machine gun to do this he would have to disconnect it from the mount he wouldn't really need it in that position but a bipod would be useful the steady cam is really only useful when firing from the hip rambo style after looking at such an elaborate weapon system it's a little anticlimactic to move on to the backpack but it's a good backpack it's in an olive green color the same color as his vest it's pretty large it has some good detail it has a bed roll and some straps and some pouches it's an excellent backpack but what i really want is some ammunition for that machine gun let's take a look at repeater's articulation he had the articulation that was standard for gi jo figures by 1988 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 that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around this was an o-ring figure meaning he had 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 leg 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 repeater starting with his head and on his head he has a tan hat he has black hair he has kind of a big chin according to the card art on his hat he has his ranger patch and jump wings the jump wings look more like the navy and marines parachutist insignia on his chest he has a green vest over a tan shirt and there is a spot of paint for his caucasian flesh tone just above the collar that olive green vest has a mesh pattern on the front and some straps on the back and under his arms for load bearing equipment it has some pouches on the front that look like they may be for magazines but he does not come with a magazine fed weapon his arms feature rolled up tan sleeves with a brown blocky digital camouflage pattern his lower arms are bare and he has a single black fingerless glove on his left hand he's a big michael jackson fan stop some people don't like this tetris block digital camouflage style and i understand a more traditional camouflage does look better and i have a lot of love for the camouflage pattern on dusty but i don't mind this so much i understand the look they were going for it was executed better on some figures than others and i think this is one of the better ones on his waist piece he has that base tan color with more of that brown camouflage pattern he has an olive green belt matching his vest and some good detail on that belt on the left side he has a pouch and a grenade on on the right side he has a loop for the body mount of his steady cam machine gun there's also a black detail that connects to another black detail on his right leg and this looks like an extension of the steady cam mount and that does make sense a steady cam is pretty substantial and it would be larger than what's depicted on the accessories his legs feature tan trousers with more of that brown camouflage pattern all over them he has pockets on both thighs and he has that black detail that's the extension of the steady cam on his right leg and we finish up with some really nice looking black boots i have always loved this look if you think of futuristic military you may think of battle force 2000 or mega marines to me this is what futuristic military looks like repeater has a made up high tech weapon but he's still wearing an environmentally appropriate uniform future soldiers don't want to get shot anymore than today's soldiers do let's take a look at repeater's file card his file card has his faction as gi joe it has a portrait of repeater here i think this artwork looks pretty good his codename is repeater he is the steady cam machine gunner his file name is jeffree artherian primary military specialty is infantry secondary military specialty is heavy weapons birthplace is cumberland road island and grade is e6 his birthplace is in road island hasbro's headquarters was and still is in road island new england birthplaces are overrepresented on gi joe file cards this paragraph says with close to 20 years in the army repeater never got any higher in rank than e6 his performance in the field was always top notch but he could never hack it in garrison he's not a barracks soldier and never could be but send him out in the bush beyond the farthest base camp and you'll find that he's the one the other grunts want to soldier with because he's the one who's going to bring the grunts back in one piece the grunts love this guy close to 20 years in the army so he's an old timer like mainframe another favorite character of mine this bottom section has a quote it says being the machine gunner is probably the toughest job in an infantry squad number one he's got the heaviest load to carry number two as soon as he starts firing the enemy knows where he is and becomes their primary target number three the squad depends on him to keep firing through all this to provide maneuvering cover your machine gunner should always be the strongest most stand-up troop you have that's a good description for repeater and i think it also applies to gi joe's other machine gunners you could say this about rock and roll and roadblock as well looking at how repeater was used in gi joe media he didn't make any appearances in either the sunbow or the deke animated series he was only animated for commercials in the gi joe comic book series published by marvel comics he first appeared in issue number 82 and he was on the cover we meet repeater at the beginning of his gi joe tenure he is in gi joe's selection program it's a grueling course designed to test physical and mental endurance most recruits dropped out but budo lightfoot and repeater made it he reappeared in issue number 86 the 25th anniversary issue that introduced the original gi joe he was in issue number 89 where he manned the gun turret on the mean dog in a battle against cobra and the dreadlocks he was in issue number 93 where he drove the tiger sting a tiger force vehicle that's odd since he was not in tiger force his final appearance was an issue number 131 where he helped defend gi joe's underground headquarters from an attack by cobra he was in the special missions series in special missions number 19 he was on a dangerous helicopter mission in the tomahawk repeater took out a soviet armored hind helicopter with special armor piercing rounds he didn't have a lot of appearances he had potential but gi joe has so many characters it's difficult for a non-core character to get a lot of face time looking at repeater overall i love this figure back then and i love it now it may not be perfect but it has a lot going for it this is real futuristic military if you went to the future and grabbed a soldier that was outfitted for a desert mission and brought him back to 1988 he would probably look a lot like this guy i like the accessories even though the steady cam machine gun assembly can be a bit awkward and impractical it still looks cool it harkens back to a movie where a similar weapon was used and it just has a cool factor even though the backpack is a bit plain i still think it looks really good i think the figure is excellent the sculpting is great the colors are great i like the camouflage pattern i hear from some fans that they really prefer a more traditional camouflage and so do i but i still think this is pretty good the one thing that's missing is the same thing that's missing on a lot of gi joe machine gunners and that is an ammunition belt some later gi joe machine guns had an ammunition belt accessory but not repeater if you're not going to give him an ammunition belt that fits in his machine gun it has a slot that looks like it's made for one then at least an ammunition belt could have been sculpted onto the figure somewhere that's a minor complaint though repeater is a great figure i can understand why they put him on a lot of gi joe merchandise repeater and a handful of other figures kept me interested in gi joe for a little bit longer when a large part of the toy line was leaning much heavier into that science fiction side as gi joe fans we talk a lot about military gi joe versus science fiction gi joe but i say you can have both and in repeater you do have both it's a perfect combination that was my review of repeater i hope you enjoyed it thank you again to kevin from seo toy review for helping out don't forget to check out the seo toy review youtube channel he has a ton of great content on there if you're a fan of gi joe and you like this video please consider giving it a thumbs up on youtube subscribing to the youtube channel hitting the notification bell and sharing this video with your friends you can find me on social media on facebook and twitter and i have a website hcc788.com thanks as always to my patrons you will see a list of names on your screen all of those people have helped keep this channel going if you like gi joe and you'd like to help me make more videos about gi joe please consider supporting the channel on patreon you can get some special perks and even find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos thank you for watching i'll be back next week with more gi joe and until then remember only gi joe is gi joe and only gi joe is gi joe aliens