 This episode of HCC 788 brought to you in part by the Dicast Enterprise. Join us each week as we discuss the sexual proclivities of Commander William T. Riker. The bravado comedy of Lieutenant War. And the adorable monkey shines if one Wesley the sweater crusher. Or maybe we'll just talk about the golden girls. Or hairstyles. Or cartoons. That's equally likely. We also like G.I. Joe. There, we tied that in nicely. Well done everyone on that. By all our play sets and toys. The Hood and Corporate Commander 788 here. It's time for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. And this time I wanted to do something with a winter theme. It is December, it's getting close to Christmas. I don't normally do seasonal theme videos. But this week I wanted to look at G.I. Joe's snow trooper, iceberg. So why not get in the spirit of it? I wanted to look at iceberg out here in the chilly December air. It is really cold out here. This was a bad idea. You know, I planned this iceberg review months ago. Hoping that in December we might have snow for our snow trooper. But we don't have snow. All we have is cold. It's not that we never get snow. We just don't get very much of it. I think it would be fun to shoot a video in a winter wonderland. But it's not very dramatic to shoot outdoors when all we've got is cold and gray skies. So we'll have to improvise. It is December and for December we have a snow trooper. And this is not one that gets requested very often. And I'm not sure that iceberg really has much of a fan following. But we're trying to review everything here on this channel. So let's take a look at the 1986 snow trooper iceberg. This is iceberg G.I. Joe's snow trooper from 1986. He was first available in 1986 and was also available in 1987. He was discontinued for the year 1988. He was briefly available in 1991 through a mail away offer. Iceberg had a replacement in 1988, Blizzard. Here's the lineup of G.I. Joe's Arctic troopers through the 1980s. You started with snow job in 1983. Then you had Frostbite in 1985 and he was the driver of the snow cat. In 1986 you had Iceberg. In 1987 you had Avalanche and he was part of Battle Force 2000. In 1988 you had Blizzard. And also in 1988 you had the second version of Frostbite. But I don't know if you would still consider him to be an Arctic trooper. He was no longer colored for a snowy environment. He had those wild and crazy Tiger Force colors. 1989 you had Stalker version 2. Also in 1989 you had Windchill who was the driver of the Arctic blast. In 1993 there was a second version of Iceberg and let's not look too closely at the second version of Iceberg. He will get his own review someday in the future, in the far, far distant future. Let's take a look at Iceberg's accessory and he came with only one. This very long machine gun which the card contents call an XM-60E3 7.62 millimeter machine gun. The X in the designation implies that this is an experimental version of the M60E3 machine gun. The M60E3 is a variant of the familiar M60. This variant was introduced in 1986. The same year Iceberg was released it is a 7.62 millimeter gun like Iceberg's. The real M60E3 I think looks very little like Iceberg's machine gun. I think Iceberg's machine gun looks a little bit like the laser rifle that came with the Kenner Star Wars IG-88 figure. There is an accessory pack version of this machine gun and it's done in a gray color and that's actually a pretty good color for it. I still think the machine gun looks a little bit stretched out a little bit too long and skinny but the color is not bad. If you wanted to give Iceberg the accessory pack machine gun just to break up the lighter colors it really doesn't look too bad. Overall I don't think this is a great accessory. The machine gun is just a little too long. It looks a bit skinny. If it had been beefed up a little bit, if it had been a little bit more substantial that might have helped. Also maybe if Iceberg had been sculpted with like ammunition belts or something like that that may have helped it. But as it is it's really not my favorite accessory at all. He also came with only one accessory. Compare that with Snowjob from 1983. Snowjob came with a ton of snow related accessories. Including skis and ski poles. It really makes Iceberg's machine gun seem underwhelming. Let's take a look at the articulation on Iceberg. He had the standard articulation for 1986 figures. That means 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 move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He 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 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 to design and color of Iceberg starting with his head. He is African American with a white cap and green goggles. It's a pretty basic head sculpt but it's adequate. On his chest he has a light blue vest with some zippers. He has green straps that go all the way around. He has grenades. It looks like a fragmentation grenade and a smoke grenade maybe. Then he has a green pistol and a white holster. One thing that I think is funny is that it looks like they've tried to sculpt a fur lining for the pistol. Even in the card art it looks like he has a furry pistol. For some reason I just find that funny. It looks like a pistol cozy. You know how the song goes. Happiness is a warm gun. His arms are white and he has some texture pattern. It looks like these are supposed to be furry sleeves. He has some dark green gloves. I do like the contrast of the dark green with the white. I think that looks really good. Then he has this patch here on his right arm. It looks like a red circle with three wavy lines. If I'm not mistaken this is the unit insignia of the Greenland Base Command. I believe this is outdated. I think this is a World War II era unit patch. His waist piece continues that light blue vest. He has a white belt with a green buckle. Some pretty good detail all the way around. His legs are white. He has a stripe down his right leg. He has some sculpted zippers. Those may be hard to see. They are white on white. Then on his left leg he has a green knife in a sheath. He has a little sculpted on buckle there. He has some white fur lined boots. He has dark green straps on the boots. Otherwise the boots are pretty plain. That's okay for a snow trooper. Let's take a look at the card on which Iceberg was packaged. I have the full card back this time. I don't usually have that so that's nice. We can really see the card artwork. It looks pretty good. Pretty accurate to the toys. He's got his machine gun there. Then we flip it around and we see the cross cell. Of course we have Iceberg's file card. On his file card we have his faction and we have a portrait of Iceberg. It has his code name as Iceberg and he is the snow trooper. It's a little known fact that Iceberg gets his code name from a famous Iceberg. The Iceberg that sunk the Titanic. Not really. It's just kind of a plain figure in personality. So I'm just trying to give him something. His primary military specialty is infantry. His secondary military specialty is cold weather survival instructor. His birthplace is Brownsville, Texas. And that actually is kind of important to his background. This top section says Iceberg hates hot weather. In Brownsville in the summer you can spit on the sidewalk and watch it sizzle. While other kids were setting up for bicycles, Iceberg saved up for an air conditioner. When he was old enough to enlist, he signed up and asked for duty in Alaska. He had found his element. Qualified expert M16A2, M79, M60 and M1911A1. This bottom section has a quote. It says, We have plenty of cold weather specialists that can stand the cold well enough, but very few that like it. Iceberg's just not happy until the mercury dips below zero. This is not to say he's unaware of the dangers of cold weather or that he is impervious to the lethal effects of hypothermia. Rather, his love for ultra cold climates has forced him to learn every aspect of Arctic survival. Can Iceberg really stand the cold? I've had Iceberg in my freezer for 12 hours. Let's see how well he held up. Well, look at that. He's just fine. This file card includes a trope that is common in a lot of GI Joe file cards. And that is the character either has a natural affinity for his specialty or a natural aversion to it. You see that in a lot of GI Joe file cards. It's okay. It's not the worst. Iceberg was underutilized in GI Joe media. He appeared a few times in the cartoon series, but not many. He was given a slight Jamaican accent, which I think is an interesting choice. It does add to the cultural diversity of the team, but there's nothing in his file card to indicate that he's from Jamaica. It says he was born in Texas, but his parents could be from Jamaica. They may have emigrated to Texas. That does happen. In one episode that focused on him, Dr. Meinbender turned him into an orca whale. It was a very strange episode. It's one of the weirdest episodes in a series that had plenty of weird episodes. In the GI Joe comic book series, he first appeared in issue number 68, but he didn't have much impact on the story. They didn't give him very much to do. He appeared again in issue number 72, but he was mainly there to provide exposition. Again, not a great role for him. Iceberg's real moment to shine was in GI Joe's special missions, issues number 14 and 15. In those issues, he had a lot more to do. He got to fly a plane and climb a mountain. He was a more integral part of the story. I reread these issues of special missions to prepare for this review. I hadn't read them since they first came out, so I needed to refresh my memory. I have to say, I was blown away by these two issues. Some readers may consider them to be too cerebral. There is a lot of dialogue and plot, but I don't mind that so much. It's a remarkably sophisticated story, and I consider this to be GI Joe writing at its very best. One of my favorite parts of this special missions story is when Scarlet acknowledges that Alpine is the world-class mountain climber of the team. Thank you, Scarlet. Looking at Iceberg overall, I would call this a middle-tier figure. I mean, it's not bad, but the figure itself is okay. The sculpting is fine. I think it's pretty well done. But it's just kind of a plain figure with one plain accessory. If the figure had had more accessories that fit his specialty, that really may have helped it. I have to admit, arctic troopers don't really excite me very much, and that may have to do with just where I'm from. Now, we do get snow, just not a lot of it. And when I was a kid and we got a good snowfall, I usually wasn't playing outside with my Joes. I was usually out building snowmen and throwing snowballs. I get the impression, though, that kids who were from colder climates that get more snow may have liked these arctic troopers more. And that's what I'd really like to explore with Iceberg. This idea that there were regional preferences for different types of Joes. Did kids who grew up in the desert like Dusty more? Did kids who grew up maybe farther north where there's more snowfall, did they like the arctic troopers more? That's the question that I want to put to viewers. If you grew up in a region that favored certain GI Joes specialties, did you prefer those figures? I mean, did you like to take your arctic figures out to play in the snow, or your desert figures out to play in the sand? Did the world outside your house factor into your toy preferences? I have to say, I kind of did. I preferred the jungle troopers and the camouflage figures. We had grassy backyards with lots of trees and they were perfect for those types of figures. That's all I can think of to say about Iceberg. He has a type of lettuce named after him and sometimes I like a salad. Next week's review, though, will be the last review of this year. And it will be a figure that I did have a great connection to as a child. I've been looking forward to doing this one for a while. And just to let you know, the last video of this year will be another Q&A video. Now, I'll post a video explaining how to participate in the Q&A. I'll do that a bit later. But just to let you know, like last year, the last video of 2016 will be a Q&A. I've already put together some of my plans for next year and I gotta tell you guys, 2017 is going to be a very big year and I want every one of you to be a part of it. If you would like to be more part of it and if you would like to help out, there are some basic things that you can do. First of all, make sure you like this video on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and support this channel on Patreon. Don't forget to check the website, hcc788.com. This video will be on it along with all my other reviews and photos. One more review before Christmas. I hope your holiday season is peaceful and happy. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next week. And remember, until then, only GI Joe is GI Joe.