Childhood Nostalgia Overload

Being the action figure collector that I am, this has been a good couple of years. Thanks to 80s nostalgia and all that, everything I played with as a kid has been re-made and re-released in collector's editions, allowing me to buy everything that I wanted as a kid but couldn't get.

One thing that I've really been enjoying are Hasbro's 25th anniversary re-releases of G.I. Joe figures. The Joes I played with as a kid, on shelves once again, for around the same price. I've got Snake-Eyes. I've got Cobra Commander. I've got the Baroness. For a while, it seemed as though life was good. They've even been making popular characters from the comics and cartoons who were never made into action figures before.

Then my other G.I. Joe collectin' buddy sent me this picture he found online, and I went into 80s nostalgia overload. Code name: Specialist Trakker.



Yes, that is Matt Trakker, the leader of MASK reborn as a member of G.I. Joe.

According to Matt Trakker's file card, in this new G.I. Joe/MASK merged universe, MASK is now an elite division withing G.I. Joe, similar to Battle Force 2000 and Tiger Force. MASK's enemy VENOM is now an elite division of Cobra. And once again, they do battle.

All I can say is this is totally awesome. I have yet to walk into one of those collector's specialty shops and spend around $50 on a figure, but I just might have to do it with this one.

I just hope that Hasbro takes it to the next logical step, and at least produces Miles Mayhem, the leader of VENOM, as a Cobra agent.