 Imagine if someone told you, I have a stalker, would you consider that a good thing or a bad thing? Probably a bad thing. But there is one situation where you would want a stalker and we're going to talk about that today. Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show where I re-review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. Thanks to Hans Chow for the title card image. Really great work. I love it. Who is your favorite G.I. Joe? What character stood out to you? What action figure did you always include in your play battles? For me, there is one answer to all of those questions and that action figure is the subject of today's review. Stalker was one of the original G.I. Joe's from the first wave in 1982. He was a leader. He was a ranger. He was a vital character in the mythos of G.I. Joe. Today this ranger will lead the way. HCC 788 presents my favorite G.I. Joe in his original form, Stalker. This is Stalker, G.I. Joe's ranger from 1982. There are two figures here which means we are going to look at two versions depending on how you categorize them. All the G.I. Joe figures released in 1982 were re-released in 1983 with updated articulation and parts. When 1982 releases are referred to as version 1, also called Straight Arm, the 1983 releases are referred to as version 1.5, also called Swivel Arm. I will explain the differences later in this video. The Straight Arm Stalker was released in 1982 and was available only in 1982. The Swivel Arm Stalker was released in 1983 and was also available in 1984. It was discontinued for 1985. It was available through a mail-away offer in 1986 and 1987. Overstock mail-away figures were sold at the 1992 G.I. Joe convention. Larry Hama, the writer of the G.I. Joe comic book series, implied Stalker was based on his friend and colleague Ed Davis. Ed Davis served in Vietnam on long-range recon patrol and lost the use of one eye. He was a gifted artist and a member of Neil Adams' Crusty Bunkers at Continuity Studios. According to Larry, the last anyone heard from Ed Davis, he was heading to Central America to work as a mercenary. He never returned. There are variations of these figures. The Straight Arm release had a Thin Thumbs and Thick Thumbs variant. The Thick Thumbs variant also had lighter camouflage. The Swivel Arm mail-away and convention releases also had lighter camouflage. Shown here are the Thin Thumbs variant of the Straight Arm figure and the standard release of the Swivel Arm figure. There were other versions of Stalker released in the vintage era. Version two was released in 1989. He came with a big kayak. Version three was in the Talking Battle Commanders set in 1992. Version four was in the Arctic Commandos mail-away set in 1993. And version five was in the Battle Corps in 1994. Stalker is billed as a Ranger. U.S. Army Ranger School was established in the 1950s in the early 1960s during the Vietnam War. The U.S. Army deployed long-range reconnaissance patrol or LRRP units in Vietnam. In 1969, those units were designated as Rangers. This tracks with Stalker's backstory in the comic book. He would have graduated from Ranger School before serving in Vietnam. Ranger is denoted as his specialty, but most of the Joes would probably be Ranger Qualified. Some other notable Rangers or Ranger Qualified personnel for GI Joe would include Scarlet from 1982, Beachhead from 1986, Repeater from 1988, and although it's not specifically mentioned on his file card, Snake Eyes was probably Ranger Qualified as well. Stalker is a name that has not aged well. The word Stalker did not have the same negative connotation in 1982 that it does today. This makes a live-action version of the character unlikely, at least with the same code name. The light green plastic used for Stalker is very fragile. Something about that light green pigment made the plastic very brittle. Other figures from 1982 made with the light green plastic were also notoriously easily broken. That includes zap and stealer. If you have one of these figures, be very cautious. I would not move the joints very much. It would be very easy to snap off an arm just with the friction of moving the shoulder joints. I would also not put the figure on a figure stand. It would be very easy to crack the heel off. I'm more careful now with my figures than I used to be. I used to display Stalker on the Manta. I used to jam that foot peg into his foot. It's a miracle I didn't break it. Don't follow my example. Take care of your toys. Stalker was a popular figure and had many post-vintage and international releases. Here are but a few examples. This version of Stalker was released in Japan. GI Joe did not have great success in Japan, but did see release there. Thank you to Chris from Comic Tropes for sending this Japanese Stalker to me. Stalker was included in the current 2021 retro toy line. Even though these are called retro, they are made in the modern 25th anniversary body style. They are not vintage o-ring style figures. That card art is beautiful though. Thank you to Kevin from Peg Warmers for giving me this retro Stalker. In Brazil, the company Estrila released a Stalker that was very similar to the US release. Thank you to Mr. Ulrich for sending me the Estrila Brazilian Stalker. This is 25th anniversary Stalker. It is Stalker version 9 from 2007. This figure shows off modern articulation and sculpting from the 4-inch figures released in that era. Let's take a look at Stalker's accessory. He included only one. Both the 1982 and 83 releases included the same accessory. It was his M32 pulverizer submachine gun. It was in dark gray plastic. It is based loosely on the real-world Heckler and Koch MP5. This submachine gun was a popular accessory and was re-released several times. It was included with the 1983 Malaway and 1984 Retail Duke action figure recolored green. It was released again in a dark gray almost black color with the 1988 Tiger Force Duke. It was released a couple times without action figures. First with the 1983 Battle Gear accessory pack number one. In a lighter greenish gray plastic, it is distinguishable from the original because the color is much lighter. It was included with the 1985 Transportable Tactical Battle Platform in a medium gray that is between the lighter gray of the Battle Gear accessory pack release and the original darker gray release. There is also a molding difference. The rear sight is flattened. Here are the vintage releases of this accessory. This is the original. This is the Battle Gear accessory pack version. This is the Duke accessory. This is the Transportable Tactical Battle Form accessory. And this is the Tiger Force Duke accessory. Let's look at Stalker's articulation. But this figure is far too fragile for me to demonstrate the articulation. So I am going to use a stand-in short fuse. A figure that was released the same year and with the same articulation but with much more robust plastic. Both the swivel arm and straight arm figure could turn their heads left and right. They could lift other arms up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. They had a hinge at the elbow so they could bend the arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. There was no other articulation on the arm for the straight arm figure. The swivel arm figure could do all the same things the straight arm figure could do but also had another point of articulation. He had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. This was marketed as swivel arm battle grip. Both releases of the figure were o-ring figures. Meaning 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 leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt to design and color of Stalker and first I have to point out that most of this figure is reused from other 1982 figures. For example, Grunt also released in 1982 and re-released in 1983 used the entire body from Stalker. Only Stalker's head is a unique part. Even so, that still made Stalker special. Some 1982 figures didn't even have their own unique head. Let's look at that special head. It is the same on version 1 and version 1.5. He is wearing a green beret with no beret flash. He has black hair and a black mustache. This is one of the few 1982 heads that was not reused on another figure. For 1982, this was a really good head sculpt. On his chest he has a light green shirt with dark green striped camouflage. This may not be as impressive as the camouflage we got on later figures, but in 1982 it was remarkable to get any camouflage. He also has black straps on the front and the back. On the front he has pouches and a sculpted-on grenade and knife. This camo pattern is probably meant to approximate tiger stripe camouflage, which was used by some elite units in Vietnam. His arms feature long green sleeves with that dark green camouflage pattern, and on the straight arm figure he has pockets on the outside of his upper arms. The arms on the swivel arm figure are almost the same. Still has the light green sleeves with dark green camouflage pattern. The pockets have been given more detail and moved to the front of the upper arm. Both the straight arm and swivel arm figures have bare hands. There is a significant difference between the straight arm and swivel arm figures on the waist piece. Both have light green plastic with dark green camouflage. On the straight arm figure he has a thick waist piece with a wide belt and an H-shaped belt buckle. That belt buckle is probably a brand stamp for Hasbro. The waist piece on the swivel arm figure is still in light green plastic with dark green camouflage, but it is a slimmer waist piece with a more detailed belt. And the Hasbro branding is more blatant because the belt buckle is now in the shape of Hasbro's logo. Both the straight arm and swivel arm figure had the same legs, again with the light green plastic and dark green camouflage pockets on the outside of both legs and we finish up with some solid black standard 1982 boots. The camouflage made this figure special. Hasbro cut costs on the 1982 lineup of figures. Paint was expensive so Hasbro tried to do as little of it as possible. One figure, Snake Eyes, was made entirely of black plastic with no paint at all. The money saved by producing one figure with no paint allowed them to add paint to stalker. It really made the figure stand out. Let's take a look at the file card. The file card was printed on the back of the card on which the figure was packaged. This was the 1983 release because you can see the swivel arm battle grip blurb. It shows his faction as G.I. Joe. It has a portrait of stalker with some wonderfully painted card art by Hector Guerrero. There is a difference between the card art and the action figure. On the card, his beret is camouflage, not solid green. Let's talk about this beret. The green beret was worn by U.S. Army Special Forces, which is not correct for stalker. Starting in 1975, the U.S. Army Rangers wore black berets. That is probably the period correct option for stalker. One vintage version of stalker did include a black beret, but it had this funky yellow band. That's not the weirdest thing about this figure by a long shot. I did a review of it. Please check it out. His specialty is Ranger. His codename is stalker. His filename is Lonzo R. Wilkinson. His primary military specialty is infantry. Secondary military specialty is medic and interpreter. He was G.I. Joe's medic before dock. His birthplace is Detroit, Michigan. Probably a Lions fan. He's done more winning than the Lions have since 1982. His grade is E5. This paragraph says stalker was warlord of a large urban street gang prior to enlistment. Fluent in Spanish, Arabic, French, and Swahili. Graduated top of class. Basic combat training. Advanced infantry training top of class. Special training U.S. Army language school. Explains why he knows so many languages. Intelligence school. Qualified expert M14. M16. M1911A1 auto pistol. M3A1 grease gun. Which I believe was outdated in the 80s and probably even in the 60s. M32 pulverizer submachine gun. Glad they fit that in there somewhere since that's the weapon he comes with. This final paragraph has a quote. It says, functions well under high stress situations. Intelligent. Perceptive. Moves like some sort of jungle cat. Silent. Fast. Strong. This is probably the source of his stalker codename. This is a pretty standard file card for 1982. These file cards were written by Larry Hama, the writer of the comic book series. It does not hint at the importance of stalker to the G.I. Joe's story in the future. The urban street gang background is expounded upon a little in the comic book series. It's a bit stereotypical to make the only African American character in G.I. Joe a former gang member. That part of his background is far less important than everything that happened after he joined the army. Looking at how stalker was used in G.I. Joe media in the cartoon, he first appeared in the real American hero miniseries part one in 1983. He had a moderate number of appearances in the animated series, but he was not as prominent as he was in the comic book series. He appeared in the geek era of the animated series in his later uniform, but was rarely more than a background character. In the comic book series published by Marvel Comics, he first appeared in issue number one in 1982. He was a main character in the series. He served with snake eyes and storm shadow in Vietnam on a long range recon patrol team. He brought snake eyes onto the G.I. Joe team. He was a mission leader on numerous occasions. The final issue of the Marvel series issue number 155 explains that stalker joined the army to get away from the mean streets of Detroit, which had already killed his two older brothers. There are very few characters in the comic book series more important than stalker. I already loved the figure. The comic book sealed stalker as my favorite G.I. Joe. Here's an example of what I mean from issue number 39. A squad of Joes is escaping from Sierra Gordo after rescuing Dr. Burkhart from captivity and certain death. Dr. Burkhart is lamenting that people had to die in order to save her life, because she's a decent human being and she doesn't compromise her principles even for her own benefit and safety. Ripcord doesn't like this and starts tearing into her, but stalker stops him and explains that the reason they fight is not so everyone can think the same way they do, but so everyone can have the freedom to think anything they want. Stalker gets it. Not enough people get it even today. Stalker is not just a tactical and strategic master. He also understands the why. Looking at stalker overall, it's no secret that I love this figure. It's beautiful. It was a special figure in 1982, and that's a special figure to me. And now stalker doesn't have the details and accessories that later figures would have. It also reuses a lot of parts, which is usually a big problem. If you compare this figure with figures that came out during the golden age of the vintage GI Joe era, stalker seems a bit lackluster. I can't pretend this figure is objectively better than figures that came out later with better accessories, better sculpting, and better paint. Despite that, this figure was special in 1982. He had the beret. He had the camouflage. He had a unique weapon. He was cooler than cool. Stalker included only one accessory. That was probably another cost-cutting choice. A backpack would have been appropriate. But the accessory he came with was a great one. The pulverizer submachine gun was so cool, it got reused many times. I review a lot of GI Joe figures that are not very good. It's fun to dunk on a bad figure. And I do. I dunk on them like Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt Chamberlain and I have a lot in common. Or as I call him, Shorty. But most GI Joe figures are great. That's why I enjoy collecting them. Looking at a beloved figure like Stalker reminds me why I do this. There is no dunking on Stalker. Stalker dunks on you. If you're watching this video, you probably have some history and experience with GI Joe. I'll bet there was one figure that captured your imagination and drew you into the world. If it wasn't Stalker, who was it? What was the action figure that inspired you? This is the figure that inspired me. It wasn't my first GI Joe figure, but it was and is and always will be my favorite. That was my review of Stalker. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube. Share the video and subscribe to the channel for more GI Joe tour reviews. Thanks again to Hans Chao for the title card image. Really well done. Great job. If you would like to help me continue to make these videos, you can support the channel on Patreon. You see the name scrolling on the screen right now. Your name could be there. You can find me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. Thank you very much for watching. I will see you next time. And until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe.