GeneralsJoes has posted reviews of the Arise, Serpentor, Arise and Pyramids of Darkness DVD Battle Packs!

Check them out here!

If anyone has a Dusty they want to get rid of who actually came with his webgear, let me know...

Justin

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Check here for Dusty, GH

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=12338

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Wait you mean Dusty comes with webgear?

I was going to ask the same thing....what web gear

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He's supposed to come with webgear, yes. There's a huge long thread on HissTank about it. It was pretty mixed, a bunch of them didn't come with webgear, but many of them did as well.

If you look at the boxed image on HTS:



You can see the brown straps over his shoulders.

Same with this eBay pic:

http://cgi.ebay.com/GI-Joe-25th-Dusty-f ... 240%3A1318

Disappointing, especially considering how much of a pain it would be to return...

Justin

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My Dusty came with the web gear, so I guess I got lucky.

I found the Serpentor DVD review very amusing, Justin.

"We're going to be overflowing in BATs." We are? I have yet to see a single BAT at retail. Anywhere. I'm not buying much for myself anymore, but my son will be very happy to get a BAT in this DVD set when it finally shows up in stores. Remember that kids don't have the "connections" that you do that enabled you to get so many BATs before they even showed up anywhere else.

Same thing with the skeleton. Yea, it looks worthless to you (and me). But my son? "It has a skeleton! COOL!!!" Biggest selling point for the entire set.

To you and me, Dusty is probably the best figure in the set. To my son? He's going to be the most boring figure that gets set off to the side with the other Joes that aren't amazing to him.

On the Pyramid set, you're about dead on with how my son will feel... except for some weird reason, he LIKES getting all these Cobra Commanders. I can't figure it out.

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We must be getting too many Cobra Commanders, because you're running out of synonyms to describe how you feel. Deluged, over-run, flooded, etc. By the time we get that red HISS, blue Trouble Bubble pack that includes another Cobra Commander with only slight alterations, I expect your review of the figure to be "ENOUGH #@%$ING COBRA COMMANDERS, HASBRO!". And nothing else.

I already planned on getting all five DVD packs, but your reviews made me particularly excited about the Pyramid of Darkness. Quick Kick taking out that CG was awesome! For a character you don't care for, you really spotlighted him in that mini dio.

I think you were a little harsh on the BAT, but I suppose Hasbro could have just painted on BAT in an army builder five pack with a red face and call that their cartoon figure. Oh well, that BAT will definitely help sell that pack.

Dusty does look great, and I am super excited to hear he has a swivel waist. My biggest complaint about the 25th style has been the loss of waist articulation, especially the figures with removable belts that give the illusion of an articulation point. Hopefully Dusty is the first figure in a new construction style. What I'm surprised you didn't mention on Dusty was the Tadur name tag. Not only was his name Rudat in the cartoon, but name tags ruin the illusion of a top secret organization where code names replace filenames. It bugged me when he had his name on the cover of Special Missions #13 and it bugs me now.

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Well, it has nothing to do with "connections" only to do with Hasbro's track record for COBRA army builders. COBRA Troopers are now prevelant in countless single packs, comic packs, boxed sets, etc... the Snow Serpents have only been out for a couple of months and they are already packed in single packs and fill in 3 slots of a 7-slot multi-pack. It's just a matter of time before Hasbro starts cramming B.A.T.'s in comic packs, multi-packs, etc... that's how we're going to be overflowed...

Justin

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you know we're getting one too many Cobra Commanders when Gen. Hawk is frustrated

- okay I've had a chance to read through the reviews over lunch - great as usual! That new camera takes some stellar close-ups! Maybe I missed it but there was no discussion on the pieces of the MASS device included in the packs for the review?

Arise Serpentor Arise

I was fortunate to get my Dusty with webgear and yes he is all sorts of awesomeness. I've read that people have inverted his web gear to get a close-to-accurate one of short-fuse (or steeler? - bah the latter six of the Original 13 all look alike! hehe). I too didn't understand why they made a dark brown material for his helmet's hood so I promptly took it off. Now it's not the iconic look of the Dusty we all know, but he makes an excellent looking Desert trooper like the current US forces in the middle east.

The other choices for this DVD-pack was questionable to me. I mean I understand why they included the Red-faced BAT and Serpentor, but the skeleton boggled the mind. I know it is relevant to the accompanying mini-series but there were so many newly introduced characters to this series that they could have added a new fully-articulated figure - Monkeywrech? Thrasher? Slaughter (wishful thinking)?

So I can only assume for a pack of 4 figures + DVD + MASS Device piece < $25 means that we'll get more repaints, and reinventions than retooling - 'cept it's contradictory especially with the Pyramids of Darkness pack!

Pyramid of Darkness

Awesome DVD-pack on the whole! My defacto Snake Eyes, Major Bludd, and well Quick Kick (only because it's the only version we'll ever see). An open-fisted CC, DVD mini-series, another MASS device piece - what more can you ask for?

Fully agree with your comments on SE - the purple sounds bad on paper, but in-hand he's all sorts of awesome. I LOVE the cartoon Major Bludd and the change in colours makes him so much more interesting than if he was plain brown & black.

Personally I would have liked Quick Kick to have the Gung-Ho/Torch/CP Storm Shadow torso - it's not as realistic, but it was lean and has better movement than this one. This one is solid, muscular, but movement on mine is limited. Also I'm actually Hasbro didn't articulate his ankles, it would not have made him asthetically pleasing. As it is, I don't think most of us will make Quick Kick the centre of our G.I. Joe worlds, therefore I can live without the ankle articulation.

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No pics of the pink cube thingy?

Come on!

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QFT! That's the whole reason I bought an extra of that set. I need me some control cubes!!!

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I was already planning on getting all five of the DVD sets, but that review made me even more excited for the Pyramid of Darkness set. I'm glad it isn't in stores right now, as I don't have the cash to buy these sets right now, but when I do see them, probably next month, I'm snatching them up. That Snake Eyes is amazing.

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One thing I did notice with these sets (and the comic packs as well) is the limb-warping from the "dynamic posing" in the plastic trays. Seriously, both of my DVD SE's have crooked legs due to the way they are posed in the trays. And Serpentor, even though he's custom fodder for me, was like Justin said, warped beyond standing on his own two feet.

Seriously Hasbro, you're putting out great sets, stop ruining them with this "dynamic action posing" in the packages!!!

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I havne't seen "inundated" used yet to describe the volume of commanders of cobra made available.

If i hadn't seen the pic, i really wouldn't have thought that Dusty came with backpack straps. I keep thinking I can figure out which area stores these will show up in first, but everywhere is so backed up that it seems like it's just worth it to go ahead and order them online. And risk getting a QK with googly eyes.

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