SUREFIRE v.3 (2013)

G.I. JOE FIGURE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE

Yesterday I reviewed Iron Klaw, one of the latest offerings from the Joe Collector’s Club figure subscription service (FSS).  I was pretty stoked to get my review up before Justin over at Generals Joes as he has what I consider to be the premiere Joe review site on the net.  Since he’s at the JoeCon this weekend I had the leg up to get my review up first.  However Rob over at Joeaday posted his Iron Klaw review just a few hours before me. D’oh!  It would be nice to be first just once.  So today I’m going to review the other figure that shipped with Iron Klaw, the Joe team’s military police officer, Surefire in hopes that I get it posted before any of the other sites do(the ones I care about anyway).

When the club revealed their line-up of figures that would be included in this years FSS Surefire was not one that stirred much excitement in me.  I was stoked to get an updated Grunt, the first modern style Jinx and to welcome Iron Klaw into the Real American Hero continuity.  My initial reaction to Surefire was “meh, not a bad looking figure but who is this guy exactly?”  I assumed he was one of the Joes that came out in the early 90s that I missed out on as my interest was waning do to the influx of neon ninjas.  When I looked the character up on yojoe.com I was surprised to learn that the first Surefire figure wasn’t released until 2001, a weird year for Joe.  It was the year before the redesign and rebirth that brought us into the New Sculpt era.  At the time Toys R Us was releasing two-packs of repainted vintage figures that no one was paying much attention to.  Sure Fire was a newly created character made up of Shockwave version 3’s entire body with a new head on top.  A second version of Surefire was released the following year as part of the New Sculpt G.I. Joe vs Cobra line.  He came packaged with the Cobra ninja Slice.  I skipped that pack.  It wasn’t intentional but those two-packs were hard to find in my area so I was buying most of my Joes loose on ebay at the time.  I got myself a Slice but I had no attachment to this Surefire guy so I never actively sought him out and I guess I just kind of forgot about him.

Joe-Surefire v2

So while my initial reaction to this figure was “meh” Surefire is actually the kind of character that I hope to see more of in future FSSs.  I get bored of adding more and more Snake Eyes figures to my collection.  I want new characters.  And not necessarily newly created characters but I want modern era figures of unique characters from the late RAH and New Sculpt eras that have been ignored by Hasbro up to this point.  Topside and Barrel Roll are other great examples of this in the first year of the FSS.  I hope next year we get guys like Switch Gears, Med-Alert, Stretcher and Sub-Zero.

This Surefire is based off the 2002 version of the character which is a good call.  Not only did version 1 use Shockwave’s body but it used his colors too.  Version two used the same body but it was painted much more uniquely.  This new version recreates that version 2 look quite well with the different shades of green and the brown vest with silver highlights.  This new Surefire borrows pieces from LAW which makes sense considering Law is the Joe team’s other law enforcement officer.  I like the uniformity of these two characters having similar gear.  I’m not sure if this is a newly created head for Surefire or not but I like it.  It doesn’t resemble either version one, who had dark hair with a receding hairline, or version two who had light wavy hair.  This version has short red hair with a red goatee.  Maybe they should add master of disguise to Surefire’s file card seeing as he changes his look so much.

 

Surefire has some nice accessories including a pistol that can be holstered on his hip, a couple of larger guns, a flashlight, and some handcuffs.  He also has a display base and a removable helmet.  Upon examining this figure for review I’ve come to really like it.  It’s nicely detailed and has some great colors.  He’s not as flashy as Iron Klaw but truth be told Surefire is probably the better of these two figures.  8 out of 10.