I don’t focus on the bad too much, but there’s a few figures
in my collection that I just have to admit are pretty lame. While I’m sure
everyone has different opinions what the worst Joes are, I felt these had the
fewest redeeming features. Here’s my list of the seven worst Joes ever made in
1/18 scale:
Funskool Barbeque
Funskool BBQ is like my favorite lame figure. While some of
the Funskool Barbeque figures had an at least passable yellow mask, there’s a
variant that has a flesh tone mask! What’s it supposed to look like? Does he
cover his helmet in skin? Creepy. That aside, the colors on this figure are way
more iffy than the vintage figure, with sky blue replacing all the grey.
Wild Card
Also known as the homeless GI Joe. At this point the line’s
vehicle drivers were really degrading in quality, but Wild Card’s one of the
worst. In addition to looking homeless, Wild Card doesn’t have much interesting
sculpting on him, and his head’s really generic. On the Brightside his
backpack/machete combo isn’t bad, so at least he came with a few decent parts.
1997 Duke
A lot of people really hate Duke, and although I’m not one
of those people, I could see hating 97’ Duke. Despite having a fairly good
amount of paint on him, this Duke is awful. You know how like in a fighting
game, when two players pick the same character, one guy gets him in totally
random colors? That’s kind of what this Duke’s like. To make matters worse,
he’s made of cheap plastic and features over-sized shoulder rivets like many of
the figures from that year, making him more delicate than normal.
Long Range
Another lame vehicle driver, many people think Long Range is
a great base for customs. It’s true, with a little reimagining there’s
something to be had from the figure. However, on his own the figure looks like
an unfinished prototype. He’s also another generic bearded Joe, with the
lovable red “devil eyes” a few other figures have. They tried to turn this dude
into a Major Bludd for Joecon once, but it wasn’t a whole lot better that way.
1993 Muskrat
This figure’s really not too bizarre looking, until you look
at his shoulders in comparison to where his head sits and realize this dude’s
neck would be long enough to support two faces. He also wears his underwear on
the outside, and has a helmet designed for mounting a rocket launcher on his
head. Smart!
Windmill
Now Windmill’s a figure that would’ve been better off being
a generic mustachioed dude in a jumpsuit as this guys UGLY. I guess the orange
and lime colors are okay for a pilot, but look at this guy! He has this weird
helmet with what looks like cat ears, some sculpted details that can’t really
be seen for all the orange, and a magnum that’s like three times too big.
25th Gung-Ho
Last and least is this guy. Hasbro’s made some really
awesome ME style figures since 2007, but the first 25th sets they
released were awful even when they first came out. It’s hard to chose between
this figure and Duke, as Gung-Ho at least has a backpack hole, but I think
there’s plenty bad here to make up for it. In addition to having a weird skin
color, Gung-Ho has an oddly shaped head, almost no range of motion in any of
his joints, and really weak leg joints that prevent the figure from standing
much of the time. It’s so bad he’s even prone to falling backwards on a figure
stand. So with little to redeem him, Gung-Ho’s pretty much a junk figure.
