 A taste of things to come. Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Round One, Fight, Flawless Victory. For another vintage GI Joe toy review, this week we're going to look at a figure that has nagged me for a long time. Or really, you have nagged me. I don't usually address the comments section in these videos, but in this case, Sub-Zero has come up a few times over the years. Like when I review the Cobra Wolf and I listed the GI Joe Winter Specialists up to 1987. What comments do I get? Where's Sub-Zero? Sub-Zero was from 1990. Or when I reviewed Iceberg and I listed the GI Joe Winter Specialists from the 1980s. What comments do I get? You forgot Sub-Zero. Sub-Zero is 1990. I am aware of Sub-Zero's existence. I haven't forgotten about him, and now it's time to take a close look at him. Hasbro put a lot of extra effort into early 90s figures. The quality is surprisingly high. Despite that fact, I have some nitpicky problems with this figure. Let's talk about it. HCC788 presents Sub-Zero. This is Sub-Zero, GI Joe's Winter Operations Specialist from 1990. This figure was available in 1990 only. It was discontinued for 1991. It was the first of two versions of Sub-Zero in the vintage era. Version 2 of Sub-Zero was issued in 1993 with the Arctic Commandos Mail-Away set. A modern version of Sub-Zero was released from the GI Joe Collectors Club Figure Subscription Service in 2018. As a Winter Operations Specialist, Sub-Zero continues a tradition of GI Joe cold weather specialists that began in 1983. In 1983, GI Joe had Snowjob, their first Arctic Trooper, and the small vehicle, the Polar Battle Bear. In 1985, GI Joe had the Snowcat and the Driver Frostbite. In 1986, GI Joe had only one addition to the cold weather team, Iceberg. In 1987, GI Joe had Avalanche from the Battle Force 2000 subset. Battle Force 2000 also had the Dominator Snow Tank, which was Avalanche's vehicle, but it was sold separately. In 1988, GI Joe once again added just one cold weather guy, Blizzard. In 1989, there was a cold weather operations version of Stalker released. GI Joe also added Wind Chill and his vehicle, the Arctic Blast. Then of course, in 1990, they added Sub-Zero, the subject of this review. They also added Cold Front and his vehicle, the Avalanche, not to be confused with Avalanche from Battle Force 2000. There were other figures after 1990. I did not list them here because I'm looking at the figures that led up to Sub-Zero. I have not forgotten about the post-1990 figures. Who would be Sub-Zero's Cobra rival? Well, nobody in 1990. The closest would be from 1991, the second version of the Snow Serpent. You see here, Sub-Zero is wearing white for snow camouflage. The US Army does have winter camouflage gear that isn't too dissimilar to Sub-Zero's uniform. It doesn't include light blue though. Light blue is a cold color, but it's not the best camouflage for a snowy environment. Version 2 of Sub-Zero from 1993 is in this darker color. Under normal light, it looked more like a dark blue to me, but under these bright lights, it looks like a dark green. Version 2 of Sub-Zero is somewhat reminiscent of Haas-Dir Han Solo from Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back. The name Sub-Zero was used for a character in the video game Mortal Kombat. G.I. Joe's Sub-Zero did not take his name from the game because Mortal Kombat was released in 1992, two years after the figure. Let's take a look at Sub-Zero's accessories. Starting with his primary weapon, his machine gun. This machine gun is in grey plastic, looks really good. It has a bipod which is removable that detaches and so that will be a frequently missing part. It also has an attachable ammunition belt. The ammunition belt is in gold plastic and it's made of a flexible plastic and it pegs into the side of the machine gun. There's a larger slot on the same side of the machine gun as the ammunition slot and this can be used to peg it onto this tab on the backpack and that is a nice carrying option for a figure that comes with a lot of accessories. This machine gun is not named on the card contents, but it's an M60. This is in my opinion the best M60 in the vintage G.I. Joe line. The details aren't perfect, but it's closer than any other attempt. One example is with iceberg from 1986. This long white gun he's carrying is supposed to be an M60, in my opinion is not even close. Then there were the M60s that came with gung-ho versions 3 and 4 and Joe Colton. They had good details, but they were oversized. Despite this being an excellent model of an M60, there is one big problem with it. The ammunition belt feeds into the wrong side. The ammunition belt should plug in on the left side. The spent shells and links would be ejected on the right side. This is a nagging problem for me because there's no reason for them to get it wrong. All they had to do was mold the recess on the other side. I went so far as to check with Ian from the YouTube channel Forgotten Weapons to see if there is any known left hand fire modification that would allow the M60 to be fed from the other side. The answer was definitively no. I watched training videos for the operation of the M60 and based on its internal workings, there is no way to make it feed from the other side. It's just wrong for no reason. Let's move on and talk about what the card contents call his short range mortar because that's pretty cool. It is in white for a snowy environment. It is two pieces. The launch tube clips onto the stand. It clips on and it stays on pretty firmly and it balances pretty well, no problem. And the tube is hollow so it can be fed one of his four mortar shells. Subzero came with four of these tiny mortar shells. They can be fed into the tube, like so, but this is not a spring loaded weapon. It does not fire. These mortar shells are similar in size and design to the shells that came with a 1989 heat viper. Heat Viper's shells have something Subzero's shells do not have though. The heat viper's shells had a slot so they could be pegged onto his leg. Subzero's shells cannot be pegged onto anything. There are a couple small pegs on Subzero's backpack. It looks like something is supposed to fit on those, but the shells do not fit there. Out of curiosity, I checked to see if heat viper's shells would fit on those pegs and they do not fit. We're not even close to done with looking at accessories. Now let's look at Subzero's backpack. It is quite large. It is white, which is appropriate for his specialty. It has some nice details. It looks like it has a bed roll on top with some belts and buckles, a knife on one side and some pouches. We have that peg, so you can peg on the machine gun. These two lower pegs don't know exactly what they're for. You can use these pegs to help Subzero carry all of his accessories, but I don't think that's really their purpose. It looks like something was supposed to peg on there, but he doesn't have anything. Finally, we get to his snowshoes. The snowshoes peg onto his feet. They each have a foot peg. They peg on pretty firmly. They each have a foot peg, and they peg onto his feet. They appear to both be the same. There is not a left and a right one. On the underside there is a bit of a texture for traction, and you can use these instead of a figure stand, as I have been doing in this video. I intended to show you a method by which Subzero could carry all of his accessories. FormBX257 demonstrated it in his review of this figure, but I just can't get it to work on mine. My pieces just don't fit well enough. The way it's supposed to work is by storing two of the mortars in the recess in the backpack, and putting the other two mortars inside the mortar launcher, then pegging the machine gun on the backpack, which should pin the mortar launcher under it. Unfortunately, no matter what I do, I can't get it to work. So in theory, Subzero should be able to carry all of his accessories, but not on my example. There is one thing that's undeniable. This figure is loaded with accessories, maybe too many. Giving him both a machine gun and a mortar may have been overdoing it. My criteria is I want a figure to be able to carry all of his accessories, and this figure should be able to do it, but my example doesn't do it. So if he doesn't carry all of his accessories, then it is too many. Let's look at the articulation on Subzero. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures well before 1990. 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 so he could 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 bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his legs 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 Subzero starting with his head. On his head he has a Caucasian skin tone. He has a white hood from his parka. He has a blue lining that rings his face. He has a gray cap under that blue lining, and he has kind of a grousing expression on his face. His head is a problem for me and I can't get around it. His parka hood and blue lining looks to me like a baby bonnet. With his pouty expression he looks like a sad baby. This is how I perceived him the first time I saw him and I can't shake it. Moving on to his chest he is wearing a white winter coat with blue straps. That's load bearing equipment for his backpack. He has a gray knife on the right side. Then he has this little horizontal blue strap with a buckle on the right side. Those blue straps do continue around to the back. And down the front he has blue buttons. I don't love the blue on a cold weather specialist. Yes, blue is a cold color, but it's not good snow camouflage. This blue really stands out in contrast to the blue on iceberg, which is much more subtle. He has long white sleeves, really nice sculpting on those sleeves. He has gray gloves, that's very good. On his upper left arm he has gray grenades, front and back. And these grenades look a little odd. Because of the limitations on the molding for this type of figure, they weren't able to make the grenades fully round. So it looks like he cut a grenade in half and then stuck each half on opposite sides of his sleeve. On his waist piece he has a blue belt with a pouch on the left side and a blue zipper down the middle. There's that blue again. On the sides he has a couple straps that run down to his legs. On his legs he has blue straps that run around his thighs and then up the sides to his waist piece. It looks like a harness. He's wearing white trousers with excellent sculpting. He has blue zippers that run up his shins. And his trousers cover most of his gray boots. Most of this figure is really good, but some parts of it are distracting. The blue, along with the face sculpt, to me makes him look like a bouncing baby boy. The colors on version 2 are aesthetically better, but they don't really do better for snow camouflage. Let's take a look at Sub-Zero's file card. His file card has his faction as G.I. Joe. There's a portrait of Sub-Zero here looking like a grown man and not a baby. His codename is Sub-Zero, his specialty is Winter Operations Specialist. His file name is Mark Habershaw. His primary military specialty is Winter Operations Specialist. Secondary military specialty is Field Artillery. His birthplace is Smithfield, Rhode Island. Hasbro's headquarters is in Rhode Island, so Rhode Island was overrepresented on these file cards. His grade is O2, so that would make him a first lieutenant. His top section says Sub-Zero was an instructor at the Army Northern Warfare Training Center in Fort Greeley, Alaska, and a consultant to the Cold Regions Test Center at the same facility. The Northern Warfare Training Center is a real place. It's used to train U.S. Army soldiers for cold weather and mountain operations. It's located at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska. There is a real Fort Greeley, but it's spelled differently. It's located about 100 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska. It is a missile launch site. It's also the home of the Army's Cold Regions Test Center. The Northern Warfare Training Center and the Cold Regions Test Center are not, as far as I can tell, at the same facility. This file card has a couple real-world military references, but also a couple small errors. He beat all records for cold weather endurance solely on MEANNESS! I'm sorry, the file card is yelling. I think I'm supposed to read it that way. Before he was tapped for GI Joe, Sub-Zero used his deep freeze combat tactics in Europe's Operation Chill so that the troops would be well prepared if any winter confrontation should erupt. I am not able to find a reference to Operation Chill. This bottom section has a quote. It says, all the other GI Joe Arctic specialists like the cold, not Sub-Zero. He hates it to the MAX! It drives him so far up the wall, it brings out a special kind of meanness unheard of in the Western world. We're talking about MAXIMUM MEANNESS! So why does he keep volunteering for cold weather assignments? Because he enjoys being MEANNED! This file card is yelling for some reason. It really does not need to emphasize those words with all caps. This file card is a mixed bag. Even with a couple errors, I like the real-world references. The description of his character is one note. Looking at how Sub-Zero was used in GI Joe media, he appeared a few times in the Deak era of the animated series. He had significant screen time in two episodes, The No Zone Conspiracy and Cold Shoulder. In the animated series, he was often shown with his hood down, and it is an improvement. In the GI Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics, he did not, to my knowledge, have any appearances. Looking at Sub-Zero overall, this is a figure I should love. It has so much going for it, but a couple issues drag it down. They are minor issues, but they are NAGING! The first time I saw this figure, I thought Sub-Zero had a baby face. I can't shake it. The blue that frames his face looks like a baby's bonnet. That's what I will always see. The blue on the rest of the uniform is not my favorite color. I'm glad they used a base white color for his winter gear. They didn't go crazy with that, but the blue is not really a winter camouflage color. They could have used black or brown or green or even gray. Just use the same color of gray that they already used on the figure. That would have saved money and it would have looked better. The accessories are a little overdone, but the individual accessories are great. The mortar is nicely done, and it's cool to have mortar shells, though they should have a more practical storage method. The M60 is another problem I can't shake. I think it's a beautiful weapon. It's the best GI Joe M60 by a wide margin. And the ammunition belt accessory is another nice bonus, but the ammunition belt plugs into the wrong side. It's a small error, but it's an unnecessary error. There's no reason for them to do it wrong. They just did. That's the most frustrating kind of error. So where does it land? Middle tier. It could easily have been a top tier figure easily, but the devil is in the details and the details of this figure bring it down to the middle tier. Not a bad figure by any stretch, but so much unfulfilled potential. That was my review of Sub Zero. I hope you enjoyed it, or if you didn't, I hope you didn't hate it too much. If you liked this video, or at least tolerated it, please consider giving it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribing to the YouTube channel. Make sure you hit the notification bell 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. These videos would not be possible without the help of my patrons. The names you see scrolling on the screen right now, thank you to all my patrons. If you like these videos and you'd like to help me make more of these videos, please consider checking out my Patreon. 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