 Hello, I'm Hoodie the Duck. Wow, I'm a real duckhead. This may not make sense to you, but wait till you see the Annihilator. Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. The Iron Grenadiers is one of my favorite sub-factions in G.I. Joe. But that doesn't mean I like every Iron Grenadier figure. Having different factions in the G.I. Joe universe adds so much to the world. G.I. Joe is in an eternal struggle against Cobra, but other groups make that battle more interesting and complicated. Destro usually works with Cobra, but he is his own man with his own agenda. When he decided to found his own private army, the Iron Grenadiers were born. As a weapons designer, Destro invented some amazing and effective weapons systems. The Demon Tank, the AGP, then there's the Annihilators. This Iron Grenadiers unit proves Destro is willing to hire anthropomorphic animals because this guy is definitely a duck man. What the duck is up with this figure, let's find out. HCT788 presents Annihilators. This is Annihilator, Destro's elite trooper from 1989. This figure was first available in 1989, it was also available in 1990, it was discontinued for 1991. This is the only version of Annihilator in the vintage line. There were a couple modern versions, but there wasn't a reissue of Annihilator until 2012, and that was a convention exclusive figure. I think it's fair to say this figure wasn't popular enough to warrant many new versions. Here was in the Iron Grenadiers, which was an army led by Destro. Destro was the weapons supplier for GI Joe's main enemy, Cobra. The first Destro action figure was released in 1983. According to Destro's file card, he was the head of a weapons manufacturing company, Mars, or military armaments research system. Destro was a pre-Iron Man Tony Stark without the quirky personality. Destro mostly worked with Cobra, but he would also work against them depending on the circumstances. The Iron Grenadiers subset of figures and vehicles were introduced in 1988. The first wave consisted of Destro v2 and his vehicle, the Dispoiler, the basic Iron Grenadier trooper, Destro's general, Voltar, the ferret, the driver of the demon tank, and the nullifier, the pilot of the AGP. Originally, the Iron Grenadiers were going to be the enemy of GI Joe's subteam, Battle Force 2000. The Battle Force 2000 branding was on the Iron Grenadiers packaging. That wasn't a very good match up and not very much came of it. The Iron Grenadiers continued into 1989 with a new set of figures and vehicles. Annihilator, Targat, Darklawn and his vehicle, the Evader, and Wild Boar and his vehicle, the Razorback. Usually these subteams are short lived, but the Iron Grenadiers had representation in 1990, with Metalhead, the missile specialist, and Undertow, Destro's frogmen. There were later versions of some of these figures in the vintage era, but they were folded into Cobra and no longer advertised as Iron Grenadiers. Oddly, Annihilator is called Destro's Elite Trooper, but the basic Iron Grenadier trooper is also called Destro's Elite Trooper. So are these guys even more elite than the other guys? Let's take a look at Annihilator's accessories and let's start with his submachine gun. The submachine gun is in black plastic. It's reasonably realistic looking. It has a large scope. It has two grips and a magazine. This is a very well done submachine gun. The submachine gun is arguably the best part of this figure. This accessory could be mistaken for the submachine gun that came with 1989 Alley Viper. It has a lot of the same elements, but it should not be mistaken for that accessory. The next accessory is the backpack. There is a lot going on with this thing. I will say it attaches very firmly to the figure as it should, so no complaints about that. This is a very large and substantial backpack. It is in light gray plastic, and as you can see, it is a helicopter backpack. The backpack itself consists of three parts with a couple extra pieces connected to it. At the top, we have the helicopter blades, which will spin freely. The blades are attached to a post, and that post is hinged, so it will swing back to move the blades out of the way when the annihilator is not flying. That post is connected to the main backpack, which has a lot of technical detail. That's very well done. There's technical detail on both sides. There's even a little bit on the side that would be facing the figure's back. This is almost a small vehicle, rather than an accessory. There is no way this would really work. The blades are too small to lift an annihilator off the ground. There is no tail rotor or counter-rotating blade, so even if it did lift him off the ground, he would spin in the opposite direction of the rotor. We have a couple black plastic pieces attached to the backpack. On this side, we have a control arm in black plastic with kind of a bicycle grip. In theory, this should fit in the figure's hand, but I find the angle a little too awkward to put in the figure's hand. This control arm will swing back to be out of the way when annihilator is on the ground. On the other side, we have this machine gun, I guess. Maybe it's a double barrel machine gun. It's hard to tell. It looks like it has a magazine on top, and it has a tiny grip on the bottom, so I guess you could take this off and put this in annihilator's hand. But it is small and attached to the backpack. It just kind of swings awkwardly and dangles. It's a little dinky and seems out of place on this backpack. Let's take a look at the articulation for annihilator. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1989, 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, so he could 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. This was an O-ring figure, meaning the figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside, so he could 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 look at the sculpt design and color of annihilators, and first I have to point out the overall orange and purple color scheme. Iron Grenadiers sometimes followed a black, red, and gold color scheme. Not all Iron Grenadiers figures followed that scheme, but the ones that did looked a lot better for it. Targat didn't exactly follow the Iron Grenadier color scheme either, but it has black and a nice blue color. If I didn't say Iron Grenadiers was on the packaging, you would have no way of identifying annihilator as an Iron Grenadier. Let's look at an annihilator's head. He has an orange helmet with a purple visor, and what is this? This helmet is bizarre. There's no way a human head fits in this. This is a helmet for a cartoon duck. Even if you could fit a head in there, you wouldn't want a helmet this shape. It would obstruct the wearer's view. He can't look down, which would be bad for a helicopter trooper attacking from above. This could be a robot head, but according to the file card, these guys are definitely not robots. The second version of an annihilator had a removable visor, and it showed how a human head could fit in this helmet, but they had to distort the head to make it fit. Look at it. Look at that face. He looks like a duck. He probably quacks like a duck. If he weighs the same as a duck, he's a witch. Moving on from the helmet, if that's possible, on the chest he has a purple vest. There's no real detail on the back. On the front, he has a gold braided rope crossing and criss-crossing the front. This detail is strange. It's impractical. It serves no function. It looks more like a formal ceremonial uniform, but not a good one. This isn't totally unheard of for Iron Grenadiers. The Iron Grenadier trooper and Destro had some ceremonial elements on their uniform. The problem with an annihilator is there's no other detail on the chest. This guy needs some grenades or straps or something. Instead, he has a decorative gold rope. His arms feature long orange sleeves and purple gloves. If you can get past the color, and you don't have to if you don't want to, the arms are relatively normal. On the waist, he has a base purple uniform color with a silver belt that criss-crosses in the back, and in the front connects to this gold belt buckle that has a design on it that I think is supposed to be a Destro symbol, but it's hard to make out exactly what that's supposed to be. There's a minor variation on this figure. Some figures will say made in Hong Kong, while others will say made in China. That is not a variation I would seek out. I only look for variations that are interesting, and country of origin stamp variations are not interesting to me. The legs feature angled purple panels on the upper legs, and orange on the lower legs. That silver belt that criss-crosses on the waist piece continues down to the legs, and connects to silver pistol holsters one on each leg. The double pistol holsters are a nice idea, but they are not well detailed, and you can't even tell if there are pistols in them. There's no pistol grip sticking out, so these are empty holsters. He has purple boots that are high in the back, and low in the front, with some gold rope connecting the boots in the front, and these gold strips across the foot. He has a black knife on the left boot, but look at it. It's upside down. That's the least convenient position to draw it. If he's standing on that foot, he couldn't pull the knife out at all. The handle would hit the ground. This figure is a mess. Of course I'm not a fan of the colors, but looking past that, it's still a mess. It has some bold details, which can be a good thing, but they fall flat here. I like the idea of the criss-cross belts and the holsters, but I don't like how it's done here. The knife on the boot could have been a much needed realistic detail, but they found the only way to do it wrong. Let's look at Annihilator's file card and see if this gets any better. It has his faction as the enemy. There's a variation that has his faction as Cobra. I do not have that variation. There's a portrait of Annihilator here, and in the artwork, he has some straps and buckles on his chest. The figure could have used those details. His codename is Annihilator. He is Destro's elite trooper, even though we already had those. There's no biographical information here, because this is an army builder, not an individual troop, but with a head that shape, his first name must be Howard. This paragraph says Annihilator's are Destro's personal bodyguards and elite airborne assault troops. Well, if they're elite airborne assault troops, just call them that. They can be deployed by sea, air, and land, take off with their many turbine helipads on their backs, and descend upon their target like armored locusts. Annihilators are recruited from the ranks of Iron Grenadiers. As part of their indoctrination into Annihilator Corps, they must serve an apprenticeship as hard sell telephone solicitors procuring sales for Destro's Mars. There is an asterisk here that stands for Military Armaments Research System, as mentioned before. Not only does this help to increase Destro's coffers, but it also reinforces their tenacity and ruthlessness. Well, that's fair. Nobody likes telemarketers. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says, Annihilators don't get medals, they get shares of stock in Mars, and active participation in Destro's profit sharing plan. These guys are the ultimate specialists in hostile takeovers. I hope they get extra compensation for wearing that weird uniform. Looking at how Annihilator was used in G.I. Joe Media, well, he wasn't used very much. He appeared very briefly in the Deke animated series. So briefly, it's hardly worth mentioning. They also barely appeared in the comic book series published by Marvel Comics. The Iron Grenadiers appeared many times and were depicted as good fighters and professional soldiers, a step up from the Cobra Vipers. It's possible they were in the background somewhere and I didn't see them, but the first appearance I can find was an issue number 92. They were in the fictional South American country of Sierra Gordo, and they were fighting alongside Cobra troops. They were also fighting on the ground, not with their helicopter backpacks. In fact, they are seen getting off a helicopter to fight on foot. Looking at Annihilator overall, there is one thing I will say for Duckface. You get a lot with this figure. He comes with a ton of accessories. His backpack is more of a small vehicle than an accessory. The figure itself is mostly underwhelming. It's hard to stomach the orange and purple scheme for an Iron Grenadier trooper. It's made worse with the minimal detail. The gold rope on the chest is confusing. I like the idea of the double pistol holsters, but the holsters are lacking in detail. The knife on the boot. Good idea. But it's so poorly executed. It becomes another confusing element on this figure. The most confusing part of this figure is the head. It makes no sense. The helmet is not shaped for a human head. The Duck Bill helmet would obstruct the view of the wearer, so it's totally impractical. I can't get over it. It looks ridiculous. The accessories. Wow. They sure do exist, don't they? The submachine gun is the best accessory. It's black, so no weird colors. It looks like something a street level fighter would use. This would be a good substitute for the Alivipers submachine gun. The helicopter backpack is a nice idea. There's no way it would work in the real world. I like that the post folds back to move the blades out of the way. The color goes well with the figure. Destro can sometimes come up with crazy designs, and this is definitely one of them. The attachments to the backpack are mostly useless. The control arm does not easily fit in the figure's hand. The tiny gun does not hold a position. It just dangles there. You could take it off and put it in the figure's hand, but the figure already has a better submachine gun. Of course, Annihilators has fans. Every action figure does, but I am not one of them. The Iron Grenadiers do not need this guy. That was my review of Annihilators. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel for more videos like this, and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. I can only continue doing these videos with the support of my friends on Patreon. If you'd like to support the channel, that's a great way to do it. You can get some special perks, and even get your name in videos like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now. Will I be back next week with another vintage GI Joe Toy Review? Maybe not. It's almost June, and I have a lot of work to do for Cobra Convergence, and there is Joe Fest at the end of June, so I'm going to be very busy. I will be back in the near future with more GI Joe Toy Reviews, so stay tuned for that, and until then, remember, only Destro is Destro.