Sunday, July 24, 2016

At Flashbak: SuperJoe! (Hasbro; 1977-1978)


This week at Flashbak, I remembered the era of a "futuristic" G.I. Joe incarnation: 1977's SuperJoe.

Here's a snippet and the url: (http://flashbak.com/action-packs-that-really-work-remembering-the-superjoe-adventure-team-1977-361297/  )

"Growing up in the seventies, I absolutely loved the large scale G.I. Joe figures from Hasbro. I owned the Sea Wolf Submarine (with giant squid!), the Adventure Team HQ, a swamp hover-craft (with manta ray!), and many other toys from this era.

But here's the thing: I often used these nifty adventure sets to play more fantastic or science fictional games.

 I wasn't really into war or straight-up action.

As a kid, I wanted outer space, monsters, aliens, and so on. So the G.I. Joe toys -- many of which I gratefully received as hand-me-downs from my Uncle Glen -- were awesome, but not precisely my cup of tea.

The reinvention of the G.I.Joe line -- to a mini-figure paradigm --in the 1980s inspired another generation to collect Joe toys, but by then, I was starting to be embarrassed to be seen playing with toys.  Unlike now, of course.

So I lusted after those toys from afar.

But uniquely, Hasbro first attempted to reinvent the Joe line in 1977-1978. And it did so to be more in line with my stated preferences.

Hence the arrival of Super Joe Adventure Team.  I did not have many toys from this line, but I had the most important one: The Commander.

This "Joe" was a bearded fellow in black jumpsuit, wearing a "power vest."

At age 8 or 9, I thought that Joe looked incredible cool.  The vest was removable too, so I could hang it up in the Adventure HQ when The Commander wasn't in action.

Other denizens from this universe -- but which I never had -- included an ally named Luminos and another called The Shield.

The villains in of the Super Joe-verse were "Darkon," Half-Man, Half-Monster, and Gor,the King of the Terrons. Apparently a giant Terron beast was also released too..."

Please continue reading at Flashbak.


1 comment:

  1. So underrated. And sadly never to get it's just due, since the figures have disintegrated.

    ReplyDelete

My Father's Journal: "Apologia"

Apologia By Ken Muir   I am a person of my age, of my time in history.    Born into an America that was on the verge of winning the greatest...