 Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here and welcome to this week's GI Joe Toy Review. This time we are going to look at the 1985 Warrent Officer Flint. This is Flint. He was first introduced in 1985. He was also sold in 1986. He was discontinued in 1987 and we did not have a replacement Warrent Officer in 1987. So we did have another guy in 1987 who wore a beret and that of course was Falcon. As Flint was portrayed in the various GI Joe media, he usually had some kind of leadership role and he usually was in the pecking order behind Duke. That brings us to a popular dilemma and a question that every GI Joe fan must face at some point. Who do you prefer as a GI Joe leader? Duke or Flint? Duke or Flint? Duke or Flint? Let's see. No matter which one I choose, I'll end up alienating half my audience. So I'll get back to you on that question a little bit later. Flint is among a small group of Joes that had the honor of having a beret sculpted onto his head. The first of them of course was Stalker. Flint was the second. The third was Falcon. And you might consider Beechhead to be a fourth member of that group, but Beechhead's beret is not on his head. It's on his shoulder. Let's take a look at Flint's accessories starting with his weapon and the contents of the card on which Flint was packaged calls this a riot shotgun I-12 short barrel. A riot shotgun is generally designated so because of its relatively short barrel and large magazine capacity and it's usually issued for defensive use. This is an I-12 short barrel and that I-12 may be referring to the Franci I-12 shotgun, but this doesn't really look like that real world weapon. On Flint's shotgun, this front grip here, which is called the forend or the forestock has a very distinctive shape that doesn't really match any of the Franci I-12's images that I've been able to find. So I think this may not necessarily be a copy of a real world weapon, but it does have some very nice detail. It doesn't have the normal buttstock that a shotgun would normally have here, but that gives it a nice distinctive sort of tactical look to it and that looks really good. This is a very good looking accessory. This is a fairly rare accessory. If you're needing to get a shotgun to complete your Flint action figure, you will pay a premium for this. I'm not really sure why it's rare exactly. Maybe it tended to break. This is a very long, thin barrel that looks like that could break off fairly easily. Or maybe it just tended to get lost more often than other accessories did. But yeah, this does tend to be fairly rare and you will have to hunt for one if you're missing it. Flint's other accessory is his backpack and the backpack pegs in the hole in the back of the action figure, like all GI Joe backpacks did. And this backpack has some pretty good detail to it. You've got a canteen that's slung at an angle here. You've got some grenades and it looks like you have a couple sticks of dynamite here, which almost suggests that Flint would be a demolitions expert or something like that. But there's nothing in his file card that indicates that he has that expertise. Not really sure why we have dynamite sticks molded on here, but it's pretty cool and it's nice, a nice detail. Other than that, there's not a lot to distinguish this backpack from a lot of other GI Joe backpacks. It's another green backpack. It's sort of generic. Let's look at the articulation on Flint. He had the typical articulation of 1985 GI Joe action figures. That means he could turn his head from left to right, but he could also look up and down. His head was on a ball joint. 1985 was the first year they introduced that ball joint at the neck. His army could lift up about so far. He could also swivel it all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow. He could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He could 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. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Flint starting with his head. On his head, he has his very distinctive trademark black beret. The beret looks really good. He has black hair as well. This beret is closely associated with Flint. It really isn't Flint if he doesn't have his black beret. In 1975, the black beret was used by U.S. Army Rangers. In 1979, it was used by Rangers and Airborne. In 1980, the Airborne started using its distinctive maroon berets and that's probably what is sculpted on Beechhead's shoulder here. Currently, the black beret is the standard headdress of the U.S. Army. Looking at Flint's chest, he has a black shirt and this is a really good looking black shirt. This is probably my favorite part of the action figure. The black shirt looks awesome. He has in gold paint here, U.S. Army Jump Wings and he also has in gold paint these shotgun shells on his shoulder straps. These shells are most certainly 12-gauge shotgun shells for his shotgun accessory. This gold metallic paint is rather notorious for running off very easily. It wears off very easily. So you will see a lot of Flint action figures with the gold paint missing. He has red on his shoulders and he has green straps. Those continue to the back. That would be for his backpack. Really good looking chest, good looking torso, excellent. His arms feature rolled up sleeves and a muscular build. Those look like pretty muscular forearms. He also has brown gloves and on his left wrist he has a green watch. On his waist piece he has two brown belts and he has this belt buckle also in that gold metallic paint and it has a U.S. stamped on it. The only belt buckles I've been able to find that look like this are Civil War era Union belt buckles. He has some camouflage paint and some pockets in the back. His legs are green and he has that very nice camouflage pattern all over the legs and that looks excellent. I really like camouflage on these action figures. On his right leg he has a sculpted on pistol in black and he has this green holster and this holster has ridges on it and it runs all the way up the side. These lines on it and it almost looks like corduroy to me. Looks like he has a corduroy holster and even when I was a kid I thought that looked kind of odd. He has front pockets on each leg and on his feet he has boots that have green side. This would be green canvas and these are jungle boots. They are boots that are specifically made for hot and humid environments like jungles and they were very popular in the Vietnam era. Let's take a look at Flint's file card and the file card of course was printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged. You can see a little bit of the art on the front of the card here. The file card has this factionist GI Joe and it has a nice portrait of Flint right here and I think Flint looks really good. This is a nice image. I like the face on the file card a lot better than I like the face that sculpted on the action figure. Up here it says he's a warrant officer and a warrant officer is a rank. It is not a specialty. These file cards did that sometimes where they had either a rank or even a branch of service up here instead of a specialty so it's not that unusual. Warrant officers are either technical experts or they become warrant officers after long service as non-commissioned officers or if they go to flight warrant officer school that would be a helicopter pilot and that fits with Flint's secondary military specialty which is helicopter pilot. His code name is Flint and that's a pretty masculine code name. Essentially he's named after a rock. I don't think that is necessarily means that he's dumb as a rock. It just means he's supposed to be a really tough guy. It's just a tough guy code name sort of like rock, hard firm or something like that. His file name is Dashel R. Fairborn and this requires some explanation. He is named after two famous people. Dashel comes from Dashel Hammett who was the author who wrote The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man both of which were turned into really excellent Hollywood movies. If you haven't seen either of those movies you should watch both of them. They're great. This Fairborn is actually a mistake. This should say Fair Baron and that comes from William Eward Fair Baron who was a British soldier who developed a fighting technique and he also helped develop the Fair Baron Sykes fighting knife. So everything about Flint really draws from old school masculinity. His primary military specialty is infantry. His secondary military specialty is helicopter pilot and that fits with his rank as a warrant officer. His place of birth is Wichita, Kansas and his grade is E6 and I don't think this is right. As a warrant officer his grade should not be an E6. The grades for warrant officers should start with a W and they range from W1 to W5. This section says Flint was a Rhodes Scholar and earned his degree in English Lit. This Scholar is referring to the Rhodes Scholarship which is named after Cecil John Rhodes and what that scholarship does is select foreign students meaning non-British students to study at the University of Oxford in England. Bored by the groves of academic he enlisted in the army and applied the tenacity and concentration he had used so well scholastically to grind his way through airborne school, Ranger School, Special Forces School and finally Flight Warrant Officers School, graduating each with top honors. This airborne and ranger school would be the source of his black beret. A thorough tactical planner, Flint drafted and personally led a half dozen rescue missions in hostile territories that for obvious reasons of security were never publicized let alone admitted to. This bottom section has a quote. It doesn't say who it's quoting but it says, we had thought Cobra had us in that stinking dungeon for good so we didn't know what was going on when we heard that chopper coming in and all the heavy hardware going off like the 4th of July. Then somebody kicked down the door to our cell and when the smoke cleared there was Flint with that lopsided grin saying, come on boys we're going home. This file card really speaks to that old school style of masculinity. I mean he's tough, he's named after a rock, he's courageous and he's also highly intelligent and he was a scholar before he even joined the army. Honestly, I would not want to be anywhere near a urination contest between Duke and Flint. That would be the ultimate dueling macho match. Duke or Flint? Duke or Flint? Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe. So what do I think of Flint overall? The action figure looks amazing and I really think the black is what sells it. It makes it look like a really high quality action figure. He has a ton of paint applications with the greens and browns and blacks and gold and red. It just really is excellent. I think there's no denying this is a really good looking figure. I would prefer it if the face on the action figure looked more like the file card. This looks like an old school Hollywood movie hero. And this face though looks a little bit more sly and devilish. In both the G.I. Joe animated series and the comic book, Flint was romantically linked to Lady J. In my review of Lady J, I suggested that Flint might be a good pairing for her because of his education background, he might not be quite so macho that he couldn't treat Lady J with respect. And that might be true in the G.I. Joe animated series where Flint is portrayed as a very strong leader, but in the comic book, he is portrayed as very brash and cocky. If there's a weakness on this action figure, it's the accessories. The backpack is fairly generic and that green shotgun looks cool, but I would like him to bring a little bit more firepower to the table. As a warrant officer, Flint is a helicopter pilot. And you gotta wonder why G.I. Joe brought in a helicopter pilot in 1985. In 1985, they introduced no new helicopters. In 1986, they introduced the Tomahawk helicopter, but that one had a pilot lift ticket. And in fact, lift ticket was a warrant officer. I guess it could be an extra dragonfly pilot, but again, the dragonfly came with a pilot, Wild Bill. The reason he's on the team probably has nothing to do with his secondary military specialty as a helicopter pilot. I'm sure they brought him in for his leadership skills. And his file card does speak to a lot of leadership skills. Duke or Flint, I have to choose one. So I choose Duke. Even though I kind of panned the Duke action figure when I reviewed it, the Flint action figure is superior by far. I mean, it's got a lot more detail. It's got all unique parts. The Duke action figure actually has only two unique parts. All the other parts are reused from other action figures. Flint, the action figure just looks better. But as far as the character goes, I have to choose Duke as my favorite. I was introduced to Duke a lot earlier than I was introduced to Flint. And as I mentioned in my review of the MMS, I did not have the version one of Hawk. So for a long time, Duke was my de facto leader of GI Joe. I'm much more attached to the character of Duke, even though I think the Flint action figure is superior. There you go, Duke. It's your day of redemption. You beat Flint. Are you happy about that? Look at that. He is happy about that. Look at that smile on his face. That was my review of Flint. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you're thinking of getting a Flint action figure, I hope you found this video informative. If you liked it, don't forget to hit that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I've got a lot of great new GI 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. You don't get anywhere else. Thank you very much for watching. And I'll be back next week with another vintage GI Joe toy review. See you then.