G. I. Joe Retaliation Joe Colton 2013

Professor blog: 000004 Subject: Joe Colton Brand of product: Retaliation Original Release year: 2013

Joe Colton was one of the main stars in the G.I. Joe Retaliation movie. He was played by Bruce Willis and is one of the only characters besides Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson that was purposely made to look almost exactly like the movie star in real life. The other toys resemble their actors / actresses but this looks more like the actor than a G. I. Joe. This was one of those joes that was a hit item because of the actor. Because of this, Hasbro took some considerations and gave us cheap weapons. We have your regular movie launcher, the last G. I. Joe movie made these so famous, an orange gun and a few regular guns. Now it was extremely disappointing to get another Joe with a launcher but I will cut this one some slack. It was pretty cool to get a Bruce Willis G. I. Joe. We only got a few joes based off of real people and we get the Rock and Bruce in almost the same set. Now the rock has a good figure and a bad figure so we lucked out that they only made one Bruce. Now the best advice I can give for these joes is to ignore the launcher. You will actually frustrate yourself with these things. Bruce is best with his two hand guns and shotgun!

Now the figure only has two major flaws. He can barely move those ankles and he does not come with a stand. Hasbro tried to do away with the stands in this line up and infuriated fans everywhere. They got people so mad that their sales actually tanked. That’s pretty impressive in my book. Now they reintroduced the stands in the next set but that’s another story. Now this figure would be good besides those two details. He is very well painted and resembles Bruce to the letter. You will notice, once you get your hands on a figure, that those brown straps next to his shoulders make it pretty hard to move his arms up. If you feel like removing them, you will have to take the figure apart. It is best to just leave them. This figure is a good buy for anyone who likes joes. The Retaliation sets one and two were pretty disappointing but this was one of the golden eggs of the second set. I recommend it for everyone. What can you say? For everything that is wrong with the figure, having a 3 ¾” Bruce Willis really makes up for it!

Background of the toy: This particular Joe Colton came unopened from Toys R Us. He arrived into my collection in early 2013. He has no breaks or chips. His weapons are all accounted for.