The unexpected return of Red Laser

My latest action figure acquisition is a brand new G.I. Joe figure issued in the Super 7 Reaction range of... Red Laser. 

But this is no ordinary member of Cobra, the villainous terrorist organisation locked in conflict with the G.I. Joe heroes. Because Red Laser was never a member of Cobra. 

Red Laser first appeared as a character in the British Action Force toyline produced by Palitoy from 1982 to 1985. He was the technical genius working for the evil Baron Ironblood who, in the British storyline, functioned as the overall commander of the forces known only as the Enemy. 

Baron Ironblood gets name-checked in the data file on the back of the card...

So what is going here? Why has this character been released as a G.I. Joe figure some 40 years later?

Well, back in the early 80s, Palitoy became a subsidiary of Hasbro. In addition to figures, vehicles and playsets designed in the UK, it also had access to Hasbro's production lines in other parts of the world. 

Several G.I Joe vehicles and accessories ended up in different livery as Action Force vehicles. Some swapped sides - the Cobra FANG helicopter became an SAS attack helicopter, for example. Other vehicles received a slight tweak. 

And some of those vehicles came with fully articulated figures. Most Action Force figures came with straight arms and legs. G.I. Joe figures had knee and elbow joints along with twisting waists. The Action Force articulated figures were some of those G.I. Joe figures produced in different coloured plastic. 

As you can imagine, when people started collecting G.I. Joe figures, American collectors were suddenly very interested in these weird yet familiar looking characters that had been sold in the UK and Europe. Red Laser, in particular, was a red version of the Cobra Commander figure. Original Red Laser figures are now quite pricey!

The original Action Force figures and vehicles that Palitoy developed were unceremoniously dumped in 1985 with "Action Force" becoming the European name for G.I. Joe and the full range of G.I. Joe characters replacing the British-designed figures. The Enemy was replaced by Cobra and Baron Ironblood disappeared - although there was a story in the Action Force comic strip that Ironblood reinvented himself as Cobra Commander.

Hasbro has given a couple of nods to the original British toy line in recent years but this is the first time any of those characters have been released outside conventions and other exclusives.

The Super 7 toy company produces a number of "retro style" action figures under its Reaction brand. Recently Super 7 have been licensing toy lines from several different places. I'm not sure what their relationship is with Hasbro but they have acquired the rights to create some retro looking figures based on established G.I. Joe characters.

And, technically, Hasbro own the rights to all the old Action Force characters as well. In a delicious recreating of the past, Super 7 has used a different colour plastic in its mould for their Cobra Commander figure!

And in a twist, this time Red Laser is as straight-armed and straight-legged as many of the original Action Force figures he fought alongside and against. 

And who knows? Maybe Red Laser's unexpected return could even herald the return of the evil Baron Ironblood himself one day!

Iron Man 2 at I-Max = Iron Max?

Sequels. Sometimes they suck (Men in Black II; Spiderman 3; Transformers 2; The Matrix: Revelations). Sometimes they rock (The Empire Strikes Back; Aliens; Terminator 2, Hellboy 2). Sometimes they're just enjoyable enough to justify their existence (The Whole Ten Yards; 2 Fast 2 Furious).

I thought Iron Man 2 was somewhere on the continuum of 'worthy sequel' to 'it rocked'. On the plus side it had a decent baddy played by Mickey Rourke, an enigmatic goodie played by Scarlett Johansen in a catsuit, the ever-lovely Robert Downey Jr (man-crush fodder), a good dose of humour, and enough going on at any one time to keep me watching. Fast cars, explosions, comedy. What's not to like?

Plus a cameo from Samual L Jackson.

The only downsides were feeling like an outsider because I'm not an avid reader of the Iron Man comic, and also the sense that it wasn't that new. Comic book movies follow a very similar plot. Superhero somehow has wronged super-villain. Super-villain, often in league with power-hungry industrialists/military or other representatives of big business/government threaten superhero. Superhero wins out in climactic battle wherein members of the public scream a lot and run for their lives.

At least the CGI was good in this one though and didn't distract from the story too much (unlike GI Joe: Rise of Cobra, or X-Men Origins: Wolverine). They retained enough humanity by allowing the human characters to walk around and be human. That's what gives a film like this its soul. When the CGI takes over films are soulless as a result.

Jongudmund's rating: 8/10. Worth a watch.

[C]GI Joe: The Rise of the Franchise

Tonight I've just seen GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which I imagine is the first in a series of films that are bound to end up as straight-to-DVD fodder by about GI Joe 5.

I did quite enjoy it. It was glorious dross. The script was negligible. Character development was minimal (hey, they're just action figures). It had quite a cool gizmo premise (nano-mites that can munch their way through a city) and plenty of ludicrous techware (accelerator suits, caseless gatling guns you wear on your arm, micro-submarines, plasma energy weapons, hover dropships, and so on). Plus car chases, explosions, the destruction of Paris. All good stuff. Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols were gorgeous to watch scrapping it out too. Definitely a boy's movie.

One thing that let it down was the slightly shoddy CGI, particularly in the undersea battles. There were a few occasions when the CGI was painfully obvious, which is a bit of a disaster in an effects-driven film. But it was fun and entertaining and just about the right length, which is more than can be said for the half-hour too long Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, which just didn't really do it for me.

I wouldn't say GI Joe was a better film than Transformers 2, because that would imply Gi Joe was a good film, but I felt I enjoyed it more. And ultimately that's the acid test of this kind of noisy nonsense.

Jongudmund's ratings
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra - 6.5/10 Worth seeing once.
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen - 6/10 Lacked the (all)spark that made the first one so great.