 HCC788 supports Girls of the Finest, a G.I. Joe costume club. Be sure to order their 2017 calendar. Proceeds to benefit the charity, Canines for Warriors. Find them on Indiegogo.com. Booker Manor 788 here. It's time for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review and it's the top of the month so we get to look at a vehicle. We're going to look at the slugger and driver thunder. And these are kind of forgotten G.I. Joe toys. I say forgotten because they didn't make a lot of G.I. Joe media appearances. But I suspect, like airborne from last week, the slugger and thunder have a secret following. These guys don't get as much attention as other G.I. Joe toys, but they're going to get full attention this week. So let's look at slugger and thunder. This is the slugger G.I. Joe's self-propelled cannon from 1984 and driver thunder. This pair was first available in 1984 and was also available in 1985. They were discontinued for 1986, but the slugger was available as a mail away offer without the driver from 1987 to 1991. The mail away slugger was in a slightly different color green and did not have the camouflage pattern. This is a self-propelled cannon and it's possibly based on the U.S. M110 self-propelled howitzer. The M110 was a tracked vehicle rather than a wheeled vehicle like the slugger. It was also a 203mm gun capable of firing one round per two minutes of sustained fire. And it had a range of 25,000 meters for a standard projectile. According to the blueprints, the slugger is a 175mm gun, which is smaller than the M110. It could be based on the M107, which had a 175mm gun. But this, what the blueprints call the flame arrester, looks more like the M110. The vehicle has an M112A1 stamped on it, but I have not found a reference for that. As a self-propelled howitzer, the slugger is designed to fire projectiles at a high trajectory and drop shells on the enemy. That's a very long range weapon compared to the tank cannons on the MOBAT and the MOLR. In fact, this cannon is not designed for tank versus tank combat on the battlefield. This thing is designed to hit targets at very long distances. The name of the vehicle, slugger, is a baseball term and it refers to a very strong batter. Not that kind of batter, I mean a person who bats. Not that kind of... Alright, the entire graphics department is fired. Yeah, that's right. How do you like that? You had one job. Emphasis on had. It wasn't until 1987 that Cobra got an equivalent vehicle, the Cobra Maggot. This was their self-propelled artillery. The Maggot though was a much larger and much more complex vehicle than the slugger. Let's look at the parts and the features of the slugger, starting with this all over painted camouflage pattern. And this is something that was very rare on GI Joe vehicles. The first GI Joe vehicle to have a painted camouflage pattern was the 1983 APC. The Falcon and Viper gliders from the same year also had camouflage patterns, but those were just printed on foam board. They were not painted on plastic like this. I think the next GI Joe vehicle that had a painted camouflage pattern was the 1986 Tomahawk. Here in the front we have some headlights and a sculpted hatch. Of course the most obvious feature on this vehicle is the very large cannon, which the blueprints call a 175 millimeter slugger howitzer. So the vehicle apparently gets its name from the gun itself. The cannon elevates about so far, but it does not rotate. So to aim the cannon you would have to turn the whole vehicle. According to the Marvel Comics mini series GI Joe order of battle issue number four, on the entry for the slugger, it says the armament is an M113, 175 millimeter gun. And that M113 is the gun that is on the M107. So that does support the idea that this is based on the M107. However, it looks more like the M110. It says it has a range of 35.2 miles, which is just incredible. If I fired this thing from here, I could hit the next county with it. Ready thunder? Fire! Can you see where it hit? No. What? Let's move thunder out of the way so we can look at the slugger's secondary armament. The blueprints call this a 30 caliber quick sequence machine gun. It can rotate all the way around and it slides in on this very long pin. It does not affix permanently. And this is just a very slightly modified reissue of the grenade launcher that came with the 1983 gun hoe. You can see they just gave it a longer barrel. Let's remove the gun so we can look at the hatch cover. And this hatch cover swings open and closed. When it closes it kind of drops in there and secures pretty well. It has a little viewing port here that's actually too small for the figure to use. The hatch is actually two parts. It pivots on this pin and that pin is a separate part that connects the hatch to the body of the vehicle. And that pin is very easily lost. That pops out and if you don't have it, of course you can put the hatch in the closed position. It'll stay on. But if you open it up, of course it'll fall off. So that pin really is very important. The cockpit goes very deep down in there. I don't know if you can see that. But there is some instrument panel detail. The driver can stand kind of halfway out of the vehicle like that. And that's a nice display option so you can see the action figure in there. But you can also, if you kind of work his arms in there and a little bit of a tight fit, but kind of work him around a little bit. He can sit all the way down in there and the hatch can close. So he's completely inside the vehicle. I do find it's easier to do this without the accessories. The vehicle has six wheels, each of which moves independently. And they're pretty large wheels and they're kind of plain, but they're okay. I think they work just fine. This is a very utilitarian vehicle so I'm not expecting chrome rims. The vehicle rolls very well. On this side we have what looks like a sculpted on tow rope. And this is similar to the piece that came on the 1983 Wolverine tank and the 1985 Mahler. But on those it was a removable piece. This one's just sculpted on and I prefer it that way. I think the removable tow ropes on the Wolverine and the Mahler were kind of annoying. They were very small pieces of plastic. They would break easily and they didn't fit on very well. So they would pop off and get lost. So for that kind of detail, I think just sculpting it on the vehicle is a much better idea. Over on this side we have an engine cover and that pops open to reveal engine detail. Some nice detail there. Now this engine cover is not meant to be removable. It's hinged so it swings open and closed. And I like that. I wish more engine covers were like that. They would have stayed with the vehicles better. On the underside we have a little bit of sculpted detail here. And I think this is kind of cool. I mean it's not much detail but they didn't have to do any. So it's nice that they just added that little touch. Here in the back we have a very unique feature. And one that I think adds just a bit of verisimilitude to this vehicle. It is the self planting stabilizer blade. And it pulls out and swings down to stabilize the vehicle when that cannon kicks. And then it raises up and retracts for mobility. As a kid I think I used this thing kind of like a ram to smash any vehicles that might have been chasing the slugger. Then finally we have the universal tow hook which is easier to see if you pull the stabilizing blade out. This is a standard universal tow hook that was on most GI Joe Land vehicles at the time. If you're going to tow something with a slugger why not tow the mountain howitzer. That way your entire artillery support unit can be moved all at one time. Now let's look at Thunder starting with his accessories. And his accessories are really interesting. He has a helmet and the helmet is a three piece assemblage. Fully assembled this is what the helmet looks like. It is a helmet with a black visor and either radio headphones or noise canceling headphones. And all of this comes apart. Taking the headphones off carefully we can see what those look like. And these headphones have long pins that go all the way through the goggles and into the holes in the helmet. It has a couple antennae. I assume these are noise canceling headphones which somebody in Thunder's line of work would need. Then there is the visor. It is black apparently a dark tinted visor with a notch for the nose and holes in the sides for the pins in the headset to fit through. Then we have the base helmet which is just a standard helmet that came with a lot of GI Joe action figures. In light green it looks like the same green color as the helmets that came with Duke and Roadblock. Here's that helmet compared with Duke and Roadblock. And that color looks the same to me. Now the helmets that came with the earliest issues of Duke and Roadblock did not have the holes in the size like Thunder's does. But later releases of those figures did have the holes in the helmets. So there will be some Dukes and some Roadblocks floating around with helmets that are identical to Thunder's. This three piece helmet accessory set was reissued for the 1988 Sky Striker the Tiger Force Tiger Rat Pilot. They changed the colors and gave him a clear visor instead of a black one. But other than that they are the same. His final accessory is his monocular with a strap. It goes around his neck. This is a nice unique accessory. It has some nice detail on it. I would assume he would use this to sight his targets. Thunder was not the only figure in the vintage GI Joe line that came with a monocular. The 1989 Backblast also had one. But Backblast Monocular was not the same as Thunder's. It was not a reissue. These are each unique. Let's take a look at the articulation on Thunder. He had the standard GI Joe articulation for 1984. That means he could turn his head from left to right. 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 move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to 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 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 look at the sculpt design and color of Thunder starting with his head. And on his head he has very red hair. Some brown eyes and eyebrows. And a pretty good head sculpt. I like this. It's really not bad. This head was reused for the 1988 Sky Striker. They just changed his hair color to brown. On his chest he has a brown shirt or jacket. And he has a green chest plate and back plate. It looks like they may be armored. He has black on the shoulder straps. He has a black pistol and a black electronic device. His arms feature long brown sleeves and black gloves. And we have a tiny sculpted wrist watch on his left wrist. On his waist piece we have a black trousers and a green belt. Pretty plain. And we have a black pouch here. On his legs we have those black trousers with pockets on the thighs. And we have this really interesting stitching that goes down the outside of each leg. And then we have some pretty standard brown boots. I really love these colors for Thunder. They don't provide much contrast with the vehicle he drives. But that's okay. There's some subtlety there. And there's something about the black that has a feeling of quality. That's one of the reasons I liked Flint. I wouldn't want Thunder in any other color scheme. This is a good look for him. Let's take a look at Thunder's file card. This file card was printed on the back of the box in which the slugger was packaged. There's nothing on the other side. It's plain. It has his faction as GI Joe. It has a portrait of Thunder here. It says he's the self-propelled gun artilleryman. His code name is Thunder. And it's reasonable that he should be named after a loud noise. His file name is Matthew Harris Breckenridge. And I'm not 100% certain, but he may have been named after John C. Breckenridge, who was from Kentucky, as was Thunder. John Breckenridge was once Vice President of the United States and joined the Confederate Army at the outbreak of the American Civil War. And he was made a general in the Confederate Army. Primary military specialty artillery, Secondary military specialty bandsman, and parentheses drummer. And this really fits with the theme of Thunder's file card. He is a person who likes to make noise. Birthplace Louisville, Kentucky, grade is E5. This paragraph says, Thunder grew up next door to a foundry, a probable explanation of his fondness for loud noises. When asked his reasons for going artillery, his reply was simply, I want to hear them go bang. He has a passion for heavy metal rock and roll, peanut brittle and cars with bad mufflers. This quote says, If you know where you are and you know where the enemy is, then artillery can be an exact science. But in the real world, artillery is half trigonometry and half blind luck. In other words, if you hit something, take the credit. If you miss, write it off as margin of error. So the upshot of this file card is Thunder loves loud noise. He's in the artillery because it makes loud noise. But being exposed to that much loud noise over a lifetime, has got to negatively impact his hearing. Has it landed yet? Stop shouting. I'm right here. Speak up. I still don't see it. I think it went clear out of the video. What? Thunder and the Slugger were used sporadically in the G.I. Joe cartoon series. Thunder first appeared in Revenge of Cobra Part 1, but had no lines. He got the most focus in the episode titled, Battle for the Train of Gold. The Slugger had more appearances in the cartoon series than Thunder did. Thunder was voiced by Neil Ross, who had and still has a long distinguished voice acting career. On G.I. Joe, he did the voice of Shipwreck, Buzzer and Dusty. He was also the voice of Rambo in the Rambo animated series. In the G.I. Joe comic book, Thunder is one of the G.I. Joe characters that died in one of the later issues of the Marvel Comics run. Thunder died in the fictional country of Trucial Abysmia. He sacrificed himself to save his teammates, crazy legs and cross country. In issue number 76 during the Cobra Civil War, Thunder has a very brief appearance, but he is misnamed. He is called Tolbooth in error. Tolbooth was the driver of the bridge layer. In that issue, the Slugger sinks into quicksand. Both the character and the vehicle were sadly underutilized in the comic book. Looking at the Slugger overall, this is a really nice vehicle. It has a good realistic military design, and that's something that I like. If you watched any of my other videos, you know that's important to me. I really like that a lot. And that camouflage paint is special. Even so, it may be a little short on features. A pivoting turret for that big gun would have helped. It still fits really well with other realistic G.I. Joe vehicles. And it's kind of an in-between size. It's larger than the vamp and the awestriker, but smaller than the Havoc and the Warthog. So it kind of fits between those vehicles as far as size goes. So I'm going to say the Slugger is a middle-tier vehicle. A few more features would have boosted it up to the top tier, but still a really nice vehicle. And Thunder, I think, is also a middle-tier figure. The color scheme is great. The accessories are interesting. He has a remarkably sophisticated helmet. A few more details on the figure would have put him in the top tier. Gotta catch them all. What? That was my review of the Slugger, a nice little vehicle, and Thunder, a nice little figure. I hope you enjoyed it. And as always, you can do your part to help this channel grow. Make sure you like this video on YouTube, subscribe on YouTube, like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and share this video. Thank you for watching. And remember, only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe. What?