#195 G.I. JOE - NINJA FORCE (1st WAVE) (I) (1992)

G.I. JOE's NINJA FORCE

The “first” G.I.Joe: ARAH era came to its end in 1994. Since the decay of sales in 1990, each year was worse than the previous one. Hasbro creatives, however, did many things trying to keep the line attractive. One of the most criticised ideas, was to use bright colours and big missile launchers (as already commented in entry #4), another one was a complete change of the designs in the packages in 1993 and 1994, and also creating new subseries, like the “Star Brigade” in 1993, or the “Ninja Force” in 1992.

The ninja force was a subgroup of the G.I.Joe including both G.I.Joes and Cobras. Initially were 6 of the made (4 vs. 2), but there was a second wave in 1993 including 7 new figures and a third wave in 1994, comprising 6 figures more (reused casts with some transparent plastic effect, that changed colour with temperature). This third wave was actually renamed “Shadow Ninjas”.

The first wave include the following characters (first three in this entry, last three in the next one):

• Storm Shadow (v3)
• Dojo (in Spanish: Doyo)
• Nunchuck (in Spanish: Nunchuk)
• T'Jbang (in Spanish: Bang Jo)
• Slice (in Spanish: Afilado)
• Dice (in Spanish: Dado)

 

STORM SHADOW v3:

 Storm Shadow v3 (Spanish Card)

Storm Shadow v3 (Spanish Filecard)

Bonus: Storm Shadow v3 (Stornschaduw/Tornade) Dutch/French Filecard

 DOJO v1:

 

  Dojo v1 (Spanish Card)

Dojo v1 (Spanish Filecard)

The great innovation from this figures was, that they had some “action” movement they could perform. This idea was maybe taken from Hasbro’s WWF figures, since some moves are very similar and in the packaging, the featured action is displayed very similarly. Because G.I.Joes are much smaller than WWFs, the mechanisms (springs) are not so powerful. Another innovation in this figures was the use of “hair” in the figure of Dojo and some pieces of cloth, simulating ninja belts and head bands. The addition of cloth pieces was not new at the time, but certainly rare.

The mechanisms that allowed the figures to make those amazing moves were later reused in the rest of Ninja Force waves, for which some new were invented, like a quite impressive kick. These same actions were also used in the Street Fighter 2 (both in videogame and movie lines) and in the Mortal Kombat line. The SF2 figures made for the videogame are part of the G.I.Joe official series, and were a great sales success, similar to other figures made years earlier. They sold even well in countries were G.I.Joe were not so popular, like Germany or Austria, but this topic will be addressed some other time.

Unlike the standard figures, these do not have a screw at the back and cannot be opened easily.

NUNCHUCK v1: 

 Nunchuck v1 (Spanish Card)

Nunchuck v1 (Spanish Filecard)

 

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: Storm Shadow (v3) Dojo (in Spanish: Doyo) and Nunchuck (in Spanish: Nunchuk)
• Alternate Names: Stormschaduw (Hol), Tornade (Fra), Doyo (Spa), Nunchuk (Spa)
• Toy Line: G.I.Joe (Wave 11)
• Year: 1992
• Company: Hasbro (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 3¾’’ or 9,5 cm