 Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here. It's time for another vintage GI Joe Toy Review and this time we're looking at one that I think is special. It's special because this action figure is a figure of a woman and this character came out in 1982 and she was portrayed as doing things that at the time women were not allowed to do. And that makes her a pioneer and therefore I think she's important and special. I'm talking about, you already know who I'm talking about. Let's look at the 1982 GI Joe counterintelligence specialist codenamed Scarlett. If you are a fan of GI Joe, you already know who this is. This is Scarlett. She was first introduced in 1982 as part of the first wave of GI Joe figures when the line was relaunched that year. And she was released in this straight arm version. We will talk about the articulation in a few minutes. In 1983, the following year, she was re-released with swivel arm battle grip. Like all of the 1982 figures, she was re-released with a new point of articulation. She was sold in this swivel arm version through 1984 and was discontinued in 1985. In 1985, she was replaced by the new GI Joe covert operations specialist, Lady J, but Scarlett was never replaced in GI Joe media. She continued to appear in GI Joe media all the way through the end of the line. Scarlett was the first woman to appear in the 1980s GI Joe toy line and as it has been revealed by former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, Hasbro believed that women action figures don't sell. So it took some courage for Hasbro to put Scarlett out among the first series of GI Joe. Hasbro may have been thinking of their first attempt to make a female GI Joe action figure. That would be the 1967 action nurse and that one did not sell well. That one was considered a failure. On the other hand, Princess Leia was part of the Star Wars toy line before the new GI Joe came out. So there was a precedence for women action figures. Let's take a look at Scarlett's accessory. She came with only one. This was the XK-1 Power Crossbow. And what exactly it means by power crossbow, I'm not sure. Essentially, this is a pistol crossbow with a scope. This crossbow may not be a copy of a real-world weapon, but crossbows do exist and have existed for a very long time, so this is not a fantasy weapon. There's some detail on there, but not a lot. So it's a little bit short in the detail department, but it's still not a bad accessory. Crossbows fire arrow-like projectiles called bolts or quarrels. And quarrel was the codename for the UK action force version of Scarlett. The weapon has a single bolt sculpted onto it and Scarlett does not have any replacement bolts. This is where a backpack would have been in order. A backpack with some extra bolts would have made more sense. This crossbow started a tradition of GI Joe not giving their women characters firearms. The 1984 Baroness came with a laser rifle. Still not exactly a firearm, but it was closer than this. But most GI Joe women characters got some kind of maybe projectile weapon or something like that, but not a gun. In 1983, GI Joe started coming out with battle gear accessory packs, which were reissues of old accessories. This is the accessory pack version of Scarlett's crossbow. You can see it's using the exact same mold as the original, but it's in a lighter color gray. So I do watch out for that. It's very easy to get these two mixed up, but the original is this very dark almost black gray, and the accessory pack version is lighter gray. Now let's look at articulation. The 1982 Scarlett had the typical articulation for figures of that year, meaning she could turn her head from left to right. She could lift her arm up at the shoulder, and she could swivel her arm at the shoulder all the way around. She had a hinge at the elbow, meaning she could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. The figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside that allowed her to move at the torso a little bit. She could move her legs apart about so far, and she could move her legs at the hip about 90 degrees, and she could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. The 1983 version of Scarlett had the same articulation as the 1982 version, except it added one new point of articulation at the bicep. Not only could she move at the elbow about 90 degrees, but she had a swivel at the bicep. She could swivel her arm all the way around. Let's look at the sculpted design and color of Scarlett starting with her head. The first thing you notice about her head is that her hair is very red, fiery red, fire engine red. It could not be redder. She also has short hair, unlike how she was depicted in different GI Joe media, where she had long hair, often tied back in a ponytail. The action figure just did not reflect that. These early women action figures in GI Joe, they just hadn't figured out how to make the hair long. So all the hair on them was short. The first woman GI Joe action figure to have long hair was the 1984 Baroness who had a separate hair piece that was molded out of softer plastic to give it this long hair effect. Much has been said about these face sculpt for Scarlett, and yeah, it's really not that good. Compared to the image on the file card, it really does not live up to that image. Unfortunately, it was kind of par for the course on those early GI Joe head sculpts. The other figures that came out in 1982, the faces on those figures left something to be desired. The sculpting on these figures did get better as the years went on. On her chest we see she's wearing a light tan or almost flesh colored leotard over sort of a pewter colored bodysuit. This chest is a little bit short on detail, but it does have a grenade on this side. And on this side there is a red pad and this would be a shoulder pad probably for the butt of a rifle like if she were sniper shooting. She would rest the butt of a rifle on her shoulder. Unfortunately, she doesn't come with any weapon that would utilize this shoulder pad. Also, although it's difficult to see, there is a zipper coming off of her neckline right there. There's really no detail on her back other than that red shoulder pad. The upper arms on the straight arm version are very plain and thin. The upper arms on the swivel arm version have more detail and these upper arms were reused for other figures. The figures that share these upper arms include the 1984 Baroness, the 1983 His Tank Driver and the 1983 Cover Girl. Her lower arms and hands however are unique and they have some points of interest. On the inside of her right wrist she has a very small silver pistol which I guess counts as a firearm, but it's just sculpted on so she can't hold it. On her left wrist she has two silver throwing stars. Her waist piece is pretty plain. She has a belt and that's a small waist piece that is smaller than the waist piece that came on the male action figures at the time. And then on the back we have one of the strangest details, sort of hooked here on her back pocket is a slingshot of all things, I don't know why she would have a slingshot. That's a very weird detail, it is painted there in silver. On her upper legs she has the pewter grayish colored bodysuit and on her right leg she has a pocket and she has a mysterious electronic device with silver paint. On her right leg she has a dagger that is painted silver. She has some very tall boots that have pockets on the inside and the outside. They match the color of her gloves and her leotard and these boots have some heels. Scarlett is the only figure that could not use figure stands and that's because her feet did not have holes for foot pegs. She is the only GI Joe figure that I'm aware of that did not have holes in her feet for foot pegs. Even the 1984 Deep 6 which had a whopping two points of articulation still had holes in the bottom of his feet for foot pegs. I have to assume the designers made this decision because she has small feet and they probably figured her feet were too small to drill holes in them. However, the 1984 Baroness also had small feet and she has holes in her feet for foot pegs. Let's take a look at Scarlett's file card. This file card was printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged. You can see some of the artwork from the front of the card there. There are a bunch of different variations of Scarlett's file card floating around out there including one version of the file card where the portrait actually has a picture of cover girl instead of Scarlett. I don't have any of those variations. This is just the most common version of Scarlett's file card. Her specialty is counterintelligence and counterintelligence is sort of like an anti-spy. So her job is to prevent intelligence gathering by the enemy, by catching enemy spies. Her codename is Scarlett, her file name is Shanna M. O'Hara. Her primary military specialty is intelligence, her secondary military specialty is classified for some reason. Her birthplace is Atlanta, Georgia and her grade is E5. First personal information here is a scrambled up reference to Gone with the Wind, the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell that was turned into the 1939 movie starring Vivian Lee. Vivian Lee's character was named Scarlett O'Hara and the story was set in Georgia. This section says Scarlett's father and three brothers were martial arts instructors. She began her training at age nine and was awarded her first black belt at age 15, graduated advanced infantry training and ranger school. And it's worth noting that this card was published in 1982. At that time women were not allowed in ranger school. The first women to graduate ranger school happened this year in 2015. Special ed covert ops school, marine sniper school, special air service school, marine tie, kwandos symposium. Now just that part of this paragraph makes Scarlett out to be a super lethal badass, but it does not stop there. Look at all the weapons that she is a qualified expert in. Follow along with me, qualified expert M14, M16, M1911A1, M79, M3A1, M700 Remington Sniper Rifle, MAC10, XK1 Power Crossbow, Throwing Stars, Garrett and K-Bar. She is an expert in all these weapons, but instead of including Scarlett with some of these high power firearms, they included her with the pointy stick shooter. This bottom section has a quote, it says, Scarlett is confident and resilient. It's remarkable that a person so deadly can retain a sense of humor. Does she really have a sense of humor or does everybody just laugh at her jokes because they're terrified of her? Looking at Scarlett overall, she is definitely more super heroine like than soldier like with these colors. But I really think this costume is meant to look sort of like Emma Peel from the British television show The Avengers. Emma Peel kind of wore these full body costumes like this. And if this uniform were all black, that's exactly what this would look like. Scarlett was such a powerful character in G.I. Joe media, she probably deserved a better action figure. We did not get a second version of Scarlett until way toward the end of the vintage line and that second version of Scarlett was not a very good action figure. I still like this figure though, despite the fact that in some ways it's kind of weird. What with the strange color choices and the less than impressive head sculpt and the slingshot on her butt. Scarlett was very unique among that 1982 lineup. First of all, she was a woman among a bunch of men. Also the figure used entirely unique parts, whereas the other figures in that lineup, they reused a lot of parts between them, whereas Scarlett was entirely unique. Also since the other figures in the 1982 line wore green uniforms, Scarlett really stood out. As Scarlett was portrayed in the G.I. Joe comic book, her sex was a non-issue. She fully participated with all the other members of the team, sometimes even in a leadership position. As she was portrayed in the G.I. Joe cartoon, she was a little bit more feminized and she served as a love interest for Duke, the team leader. In 1980s properties that were marketed towards boys, women were treated probably better than you might expect. However, there was a common practice that women characters had to serve as romantic interests for one of the male characters, usually the team leader. And in the 1983 G.I. Joe animated series, that was Duke. In the comic book however, Scarlett was romantically linked to Snake Eyes, and I always thought this pairing made a lot more sense. I would think that Snake Eyes' mysterious nature would appeal to Scarlett a lot more than Duke's machismo. To be totally honest though, Scarlett doesn't need anyone. She's smart, she's strong, she's independent, and she definitely does not need some man to protect her. In one of the classic comic book issues, issue number 21, The Silent Issue, Scarlett is captured by Storm Shadow, Cobra's Ninja, and Snake Eyes goes in to rescue her. But Scarlett doesn't just sit around waiting to be rescued, she escapes. She does ultimately fly out with Snake Eyes, but she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I am somewhat biased towards this figure though. Objectively, this isn't necessarily a very good action figure, but it is the only Scarlett figure that we got in that vintage line that portrayed her in her classic uniform. This is the best Scarlett figure that we had. And because I love the character so much, I mean this character was one of the best developed characters in all of GI Joe, and she is integral to the GI Joe storyline, especially in the comic book. So even though there are some shortcomings in this figure, you still have to have it. The diversity in GI Joe influenced me as a child. I mean, the way Scarlett was portrayed in GI Joe, she was an integral part of the team. So it really didn't make any sense to me, this idea that women couldn't do certain things. I mean, just look at Scarlett. She could do anything the men could do, and they really never thought anything of it. It wasn't something that was played up as some kind of special thing that she was a woman doing things that were traditionally done by men. No, she just did it. And that's sort of how I approached women characters in GI Joe and elsewhere. Women were as perfectly capable of doing everything that male characters could do. And Scarlett was portrayed this way at a time when the general public was vehemently opposed to the idea of women serving in combat roles. And now, finally, 30 years later, we are slowly starting to get over these arcane ideas about women, and we're no longer seeing women as objects that, at best, need to be protected by men. I often refer to GI Joe as a toy line that was marketed toward boys, which is true. But I do not call GI Joe a boys toy line. There were plenty of girls that also played with GI Joe, and it's not fair to them to call GI Joe a boys toy line. That's much too limiting. GI Joe was bigger than that. And frankly, I would rather my daughters follow Scarlett and Lady J as role models, than the characters depicted in toy lines that were in fact marketed directly towards girls like Barbie. I would lie for my daughters to acquire the strength and the toughness and the intelligence of Scarlett. She's an excellent role model for girls, and she appears in a toy line that was supposedly for boys. Of course, we can give Scarlett all the credit for this transformation, but let's give her a little bit of credit. She was ahead of her time. That was my review of Scarlett. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure you give it a thumbs up on YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe. 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 me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter. You get a lot of updates there. You don't get anywhere else. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next week with another vintage GI Joe toy review. See you then. I have no time for childish games. I intend to deliver a healthy supply of the meteorite to Cobra and Scarlett. Women can't serve in combat. Their menstruations will attract bears.