 Hello everybody, Hood and Cobra Commander 788 here and this time I'm going to address something that sometimes comes up when someone who is not a G.I. Joe fan finds out I'm a G.I. Joe collector. Sometimes they ask, was there a G.I. Jane? And the answer to that question is sort of. In 1980's Joe there wasn't a character called G.I. Jane but we did have Lady J and the name probably is intended to stand for Joe so her codename is literally Lady Joe and that's the character that probably most closely resembles the mythical G.I. Jane. G.I. Jane was also the title of a movie with Demi Moore. Now let's take a look at the 1985 action figure for the G.I. Joe covert operations specialist Lady J. This is Lady J. She was first introduced in 1985. She was also sold in 1986. She was discontinued in 1987 and whether she had a replacement in 1987 depends on your point of view. There was another female character introduced in 1987 that was Jinx or you might consider her replacement as a covert operations specialist to be the undercover agent Chuckles. Let's jump right into looking at her accessories and Lady J's main weapon was this power javelin. That's what this was called on the contents of the card that she was sold on a power javelin and honestly what exactly is this? I understand both the words power and javelin but that doesn't help this make sense. It's pointed at both ends for some reason and I guess it shoots out of this end. You could pretend this is shooting out some explosive bolts or something like that. In the G.I. Joe animated series she did not come with this weapon. She came with spears or javelins that she threw. Apparently she didn't get the power javelin and they had all kinds of gadgets attached to them. Nets or Deus Ex Machina. Anything she needed to get out of a sticky situation. The accessory is made out of a slightly soft plastic and that is a good thing. It keeps it from breaking. Fortunately you don't run into a lot of these that are broken. Now the modern Lady J figure retaliation Lady J based on the movie version of Lady J in G.I. Joe retaliation also came with a weapon that was a tribute to the classic power javelin and since I didn't really care for this weapon on the original I don't really care for the homage either. Also this one is made out of more of a stiff plastic. You might need to worry about that one breaking more but it does have some paint applications that's kind of cool. So there's a comparison between the modern and the vintage power javelin. There's a five printed on the side of this power javelin for some reason. Not sure why. And this accessory continued the trend of not giving women G.I. Joe figures guns. For some reason from 1982 to at least 1987 the only G.I. Joe woman action figure that came with a gun was the Baroness and I don't have that accessory so I can't show it to you. Her second accessory is her surveillance camera and it has a strap on it. You can sling it across her body like that. It secures on pretty well and it is a light green to match her uniform. It's made out of a slightly softer plastic so you don't have to worry about that strap breaking too much and that's nice. This no doubt is for her to observe the enemy in her covert operations and as the camera goes it's kind of big and clunky. It looks like an 80s camcorder. It is possible to put the camera in her hand. It's a fairly thick handle but since it's made out of that softer plastic it gives a little bit and so you don't have to worry too much about breaking the thumb on the action figure. Her final accessory is her backpack. She came with a small light green backpack again to match the color on her uniform and there's not a lot of detail in this backpack. Some G.I. Joe backpacks would have like canteens on them or grenades or extra pouches things like that. This is a pretty plain backpack kind of small not much going on here. It does have this sculpted on hook and I'm not sure what that's for or maybe that's an embroidered J. If so, that would actually be kind of cool. I like that. Let's take a look at the articulation on Lady J. She had the typical articulation for 1985 G.I. Joe action figures. That means she could turn her head from left to right but she could also look up and down. Her neck was on a ball joint. She could move her arm up at the shoulder about so far. She could swivel it all the way around. She had a hinge at the elbow. She could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. She had to swivel at the bicep. She could swivel her arm all the way around. The figure was held together with the 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. She could bend her leg at the hip about 90 degrees and then she could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Lady J and the first thing you notice is she's wearing a very bright green uniform. This isn't quite neon green. It's more Kermit the Frog green and this is a different light green color than the rather infamous light green plastic that was used to make the 1982 Zap. This light green plastic is rather notorious for being extremely fragile, breaking very easily but Lady J's light green plastic doesn't seem to have that problem. I don't see a lot of broken Lady J action figures. On her head she's wearing a black cap with a silver US Army parachutist badge and that silver paint does tend to wear off pretty easily so watch out for that. In the G.I. Joe animated series and the comic book Lady J did not have this black cap and that's too bad. I kind of like the black cap. Her hair is brown and that is a separate piece. It's molded out of soft plastic and it's glued onto her head. She's wearing red lipstick and that's a pretty feminine looking face. That's an improvement on earlier women G.I. Joe action figures. On her chest we can see she's wearing what looks like a green jumpsuit that zips up in the front. She's got some pockets, some brown straps that continues to the back and that looks pretty good. Of course that's for her backpack but it is a fairly plain chest. She doesn't have any sculpted on grenades or pistols or anything like that. Kind of plain. On her arm she has rolled up sleeves and black gloves. That looks pretty good and on her right sleeve she has, you can't see it too well, a unit patch. It's kind of scraped off on mine. You can see it a little bit better on my other Lady J but not too much better. And this appears to be the unit patch of the US Army 91st Division. On her waist piece there's the zipper from the jumpsuit and she has a silver belt buckle and again that silver paint rubs off pretty easily and is partially rubbed off on mine. There's some detailing there that you can't really see in this one. It looks like from my other Lady J where it's not quite so badly damaged. It looks like that's supposed to be an eagle belt buckle. She has two brown belts. It looks like she has some bullets sculpted on to this top belt. On this lower belt she has a pouch on that side and pretty plain in the back. On her legs she has pockets, a pocket on each leg and on her right boot she has a silver knife sculpted on, more of that silver paint and black boots and on her left boot she has what looks like a mini pistol holster. So it does look like Lady J has a teeny tiny Lady's size firearm on her boot. Let's take a look at Lady J's file card and the file card was printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged. You can see some of the artwork on the front of the card here. On this side we can see a portrait of Lady J with her faction as GI Joe. Her specialty is covert operations and her codename is Lady J. Her file name is Allison R. Hart Burnett. Her primary military specialty is intelligence. Her secondary military specialty is personnel clerk so I guess she is a typist. Her birthplace is Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and Martha's Vineyard is fairly well known as an affluent summer colony in Massachusetts. So a lot of things about her file card indicate that she comes from an affluent background. Her grade is E4 but with her background I'm really surprised she's not an officer. Lady J graduated from Bryn Mawr and did her graduate work at Trinity College in Dublin where she acquired a faint Gaelic lilt that adorns her speech. An accomplished actress and mime as well as a studied linguist. She can easily pass as a native in France, Italy, Poland, Russia, Germany, Afghanistan, Spain and Portugal. There's a lot to explain in this paragraph. Bryn Mawr refers to Bryn Mawr College which is a liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It was formerly a Quaker school. The full name of Trinity College in Dublin is College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth and that is a Protestant school. This Gaelic lilt is referring to Irish Gaelic which is a language historically spoken in Ireland. Her education indicates she has at least a master's degree but a master's degree in what it doesn't say. I would guess that her education is in linguistics considering how many languages she's able to speak. This section says airborne and ranger qualified graduated intelligence school Fort Hollerbird, qualified expert M16, M1911A1 and reflex crossbow none of which the action figure comes with. In the 1950s and 60s there was a U.S. Army intelligence school at Fort Hollerbird but that was moved to Arizona in 1971 so it's highly unlikely Lady J when it graduated intelligence school there. I think it's interesting it says that she's airborne and ranger qualified but it doesn't say that she is a ranger and that's significant because U.S. Army Ranger school was only open to women recently. This quote here on the bottom says Lady J doesn't go in for the phony wig and rubber mask brand of disguise like those jokers in Mission Impossible. She becomes the subject body language subtle gesture correct shading of dialect the right look in the eye cloaked in sandals she could squat down with a basket of oranges in any Middle Eastern marketplace and blend in perfectly. That is one of the most badass quotes I've read on one of these file cards. This file card paints Lady J as having a background of privilege, worldliness and intelligence. She's one of the best educated of all GI Joe team members right behind Doc who is a Harvard educated medical doctor. Looking at Lady J overall and looking back to the 1980s Hasbro was reluctant to release action figures that were girls. They were concerned that boys would not want to buy them. Well that definitely did not apply to me. I got all of the women characters and I didn't just get them so they could be girlfriends for the guys. At that age that romantic stuff was still kind of icky. No for me the GI Joe women team members had a job to do and that job was to fight Cobra. In 80s GI Joe we usually got one woman character per year starting in 1982 with Scarlett following up in 1983 with Covergirl. In 1984 we got the Baroness the first female bad guy. In 1985 of course there was Lady J and in 1986 we got Zartan's sister Zirana. In both the GI Joe animated series and the comic book Lady J was romantically linked with Flint. Of course because whenever a woman character was introduced she had to have a boyfriend. That rule did not apply to the male characters. Frankly nobody really cared who Zap was dating but a woman character had to be paired up with a man. This is not a bad pairing though because Flint is also very well educated. He was a Rhodes Scholar and he's probably not so macho that he couldn't respect Lady J as a person. Is Lady J a feminist icon? Sure why not. In GI Joe we have all these stereotyped characters. We have the Indian brave. We have the femme fatale. We have the fashion model. We have the entire cast of the village people and in all those hundreds of GI Joe characters why can't we have one who is a great role model for girls. The figure is kind of plain. Essentially it's one solid color without a lot of detail but the detail that is there is subtle and it fits with the character. She looks like infantry. Her specialty is covert operations. I think Hasbro was reluctant to make the women characters bullet catchers so instead they made her a spy and a personnel clerk. But in both the GI Joe animated series and the comic book she went on all the missions so why not just call her what she is. A really badass woman infantry soldier. That was my review of the 1985 Lady J and her file card. I hope you enjoyed it and if you're thinking of getting a Lady J I hope you found it informative. Don't forget to hit the thumbs up if you liked the video and subscribe on YouTube. I've got a lot of great new GI Joe toy reviews coming up you don't want to miss them. Also don't forget to like the Facebook page you get some 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. Okay follow me. What's the matter you chicken? Okay chicken I'm leaving you here. Use your head Sally. Lady J. There's nothing chicken about being smart. If you stop and think there's almost always a better way. I use this plank. That's usually your hand instead of losing it. Now I know. And knowing is half the battle.