2004 Buzzer (Convention Exclusive)

“Only To find himself, -one year later- transformed into a vexated wanderer”

That line from the fourth or fifth revision of the 1985 Buzzer filecard, is amongst the top three lines in filecards that I can remember. The other two being the line about Scrap Iron’s desire to blow up the world and in Ripper’s, the line about his “Malignant dislike for the niceties of society”. Though to be fair, I think this probably speaks more about me as a person, but hey, what’s a little hatred of society amongst people anyways. Due to this, I’ve had a soft spot for Buzzer ever since I was young, and didn’t really know what “vexated” meant, but could tell it was probably a bad vibe.

The first convention set, featuring Crimson figures was very well received, people would grumble about it, but it was more due to having to jump through hoops to get figures people would’ve gorged themselves on, if they’d been retail figures. The 2003 set was pretty mediocre, but it was viewed as being cool, because it was a new release, but even then, the figures didn’t really find themselves ever truly being desired. The 2004 set, was the first one where people were somewhat vocal with their displeasure, it was a double whammy of mold choices, and the theme. Dreadnoks are a popular group, however it’s like a puddle in a parking lot, takes up a lot of area, but isn’t very deep. Dreadnoks are cool, until there’s more than four of them. Thinking back, none of the convention sets were truly the masterpieces they could’ve been. 2002 was probably the closest, followed up by the Iron Grenadiers set, which was kind of divisive, less on the figures and more for the mold choices. 2007 was another hit, though the female COBRA Soldiers didn’t hit particularly well. Other than those, a lot of what came about from the Mastercollector era, was singular figures that were well received, in a sea of sameness, that required too much of an investment for anyone to really call them out. Nobody wants to feel like a chump for spending two hundred smackers on a half dozen brown Avalanches.

The G.I. Joe fanbase is something that actually requires a nuanced understanding of, if you were to be using it as a barometer for potential releases. There’s a lot of things that seem popular, but there’s caveats to the popularity. Dreadnoks are a perfect example, they have a lot vocal support, but it usually revolves around the initial trio, Zarana, Road Pig, and at one point, Zanzibar. However if there’s little understanding of the line, that gets conflated with the entirety of the group and then stuff like Dreadhead appear, because obviously if the fanbase enjoys Dreadnoks and Army building, they’ll love those two things combined. It also didn’t help that the Dreadheads were incredibly hokey figures, as the Muskrat and Aero Viper combo didn’t work. The Dreadnok as an army builder just doesn’t work. I don’t know if there’d even be a market for low-level thug style Noks, as a lot of appeal is the over the top nature.

While Buzzer is probably the best character in the Dreadnoks camp, of the original three, I’d say he’s definitely the weakest figure. The head sculpt showing the ravages of decadent biker living is good, especially due to the fact it’s showcasing a guy being strung out, but it stills falls behind the head sculpts of Ripper and Torch. The skinny Gung Ho arms definitely don’t give Buzzer the impact the other two ‘Noks had either, but he was also more of an egghead than those two, so the lack of muscle isn’t as egregious, plus if he’s as wrecked on decadent biker living as his face sculpt indicates, he wouldn’t be all that musclebound,

The colouring on the figure is very well done, even if it’s not particularly good. The wild colouring camo is one of those relics of the 1990s that probably shouldn’t have creeped any farther into the 2000s than it did, but here it is memorialized on a Dreadnok figure. I guess in that way it works, I just think it’s uglier than sin. The figure does feature a lot of good paint apps, though, and they work better than a lot of Convention Exclusive figures, because the mold is smartly detailed enough that they don’t feel like they’re painted for the sake of painting them.

The choice of colouring on the armor is nice, and a better overall choice than the black of the vintage figure. The figure’s red shirt is a nod to the Funskool version of the figure, but when it’s put over red pants, the reference winds up being missed. I like to see the brown boots return, and the collector’s club did something interesting, albeit probably unneeded, when they painted the soles of the boots black for some reason. I guess I spoke too soon when I said most of the details didn’t seem “painted for the sake of painting”.

I like Buzzer as both a figure and character, but there’s the issue that all the Dreadnoks have, where as a Biker gang, going up against the Joe Team, can’t really work long term, since the ‘Noks shouldn’t be surviving the first battle. However, the figures for Buzzer and Ripper do work as some form of unprofessional mercenary types. The ripped up fatigue shirt with webgear, do give the appearance of military training, that isn’t there with Thrasher, or Monkeywrench. It’s a bit of a stretch, and not something I’ve really done much in the way of photographing, but it does give Buzzer a little bit more grounding.

I kind of see Buzzer doing the whole “go nuts, and take a reprieve to learn about the Biker Gang Phenomenon” part of his character, and then members of the Dreadnoks getting dollar signs in their eyes at the thought of fun and profit in some hellacious bushwar, and finding themselves becoming pseudo enforcers in a Mercenary camp, where they kind of get swept into becoming COBRA operatives. Buzzer’s filecard gives the impression that he’s probably got some knowledge on pretty far out ideals, which kind of led to COBRA Commander keeping him around, if for no reason to work out speeches that would work well on the Proles.

In a lot of ways, welcoming characters like the Dreadnoks into the COBRA Fold, kind of leads to the undoing of the organization, as it opened the door for charlatans and crackpots like Raptor or Crystal Ball to get inside. The mindset of the fanbase that the 1987 COBRA agents ruined things kind of stuck with me, because I think how bogus the characters were and the fact they were follow ups to relatively down to earth designs, prevented a lot of people from looking at the quality of the figures. However since I’d internalized some of that negative reaction, I’ve worked it into my silly G.I. Joe daydreams, where later on in the timeline, COBRA Commander is surrounded by fools who steer the whole thing into the rocks. So, I kind of see the allowances given to Buzzer and Ripper and Torch being the harbinger of doom for the organization.

I bought this figure loose from a Hong Kong seller in 2007. It cost me somewhere around five dollars, and therefore I’ve never really viewed this figure as anything particularly special or rare. Since this figure and Ripper from the same set were the first two convention figures I ever owned, I really don’t view the figures released by the Collector’s Club with anything other than a thought about them being an example of manipulated numbers, because by jove if these figures were still available in 2007 for $5 to $8 from the seller who’d been selling them since they came out, I can’t imagine the production numbers bandied about by the Club to have been legit, and that probably goes for everything they ever produced. Not even including actual examples of chicanery with the numbers.

In a lot of ways, the Dreadnok Convention set was kind of a disservice to everybody, had another choice for a convention set happened, there probably would’ve been better accepted figures in that set, or at least an Army Builder figure people would want. With Hasbro getting the molds back from Funskool, we probably would’ve been treated to a Toys R Us 6 Pack featuring most of these Dreadnok molds, probably in a more cohesive form, where if they’re not done up like the originals, at least the classic Noks match each other in some form, unlike the haphazard colouring we saw with the Convention set. Though, looking at the fact molds like the Hydro Viper were returned, and we never saw those, perhaps that might be pie in the sky thinking, too. Worst comes to worst, though, at least we’d be in a timeline where the Dreadhead idea never existed.