2005 Firefly (TRU Crimson 6 Pack)

Despite G.I. Joe being a fairly vast line, there’s not too many figures where you can legitimately criticize it’s right to existence. The 2005 Toys R Us Exclusive Crimson Guard Force 6 pack Firefly is one that’s existence is definitely questionable. The inclusion of Firefly was one that made little to no sense, especially when taking into consideration Hasbro’s unique release scheme for the set.

In the early 2000s, Army Building was the biggest thing in collecting. The way G.I. Joe was portrayed in every form of media, from Cartoons, to Comic Books, the G.I. Joe team was always fighting insurmountable odds, being constantly outnumbered by the COBRA Legions. As collectors came of age, the ability to re-create this phenomenon was one that a lot of collectors took in earnest. In the early 2000s one of the biggest ways to get clout in the G.I. Joe message boards was to take a picture with a bunch of the same figure in a line. In some ways it was a fairly destructive aspect of the hobby, but it’s also an understandable branch of collecting. The fanbase spent a lot of time during the repaint era clamouring for COBRA Troopers, Vipers, B.A.T.s, Night Vipers, Alley Vipers and the Crimson Guard. Early on Hasbro produced a lot of Vipers and Alley Vipers, with an attempt at satiating demand for the B.A.T. in O-Ring format. The 2003 convention, showed that Hasbro was going to at least provide the COBRA and Crimson Guard that the fanbase had been clamouring for.

With the Agent Faces and Operation Crimson Sabotage releases, Hasbro had put out a lot of Crimson Guard-esque figures. G.I. Joe had really slowed down by 2004 and 2005, so the demand for the figures was still there, but definitely not for what Hasbro had planned. Since Army Building had been a big thing, and the 2004 COBRA Infantry Forces TRU 6-pack was heralded as the peak of what Hasbro could do, the sure-fire hit would be to release 6 Crimson Guards in one set, hopefully with a new helmeted head. Nope! Hasbro decided they were going to release 4 CGS, with one of the two Crimson Twins as 80% of the set. Now, maybe a Crimson Guard Immortal, or a Crimson Guard Commander or some other random army builder done up in the Crimson colouring would be the final figure in the 6 pack. Again, nope! It’s Firefly.

By 2005, Hasbro had truly worn out the welcome of Firefly, who was at one point one of the most popular COBRA figures and characters. Since 1998, Hasbro had released the Firefly mold 8 prior times. The mold had really run it’s course, because the majority of the repaints weren’t particularly good ideas, and didn’t do anything new with the mold. So, getting another Firefly, in a TRU 6 pack was groan inducing, especially since there’d only been one COBRA set in between the last time there was a Firefly in a TRU 6 pack, and the fact you were going to have to buy the figure TWICE, if you wanted both Tomax And Xamot, was just added insult to injury.

At first glance, the Crimson Guard 6 Pack Firefly, looks to be slightly different from the previous Toys R Us 6 Pack Firefly, from the 2004 Urban set. The base black colour is the same, and there’s a lot of similarities in the camouflage pattern, but it isn’t the simple red for blue swap that it appears as at first. Gone is the leather brown highlights, as they’re now replaced with black. While the paint masks for the camouflage remain the same, Hasbro reduced the number of colours, as the blue and light grey of the Urban 6 Pack Firefly have been replaced with red and black, but without them being direct replacements (IE: What might be a blue paint app will become red, but so will some of the light grey), it’s quite an interesting phenomenon). So what actually wound up happening, was instead of it just being a slight repaint of the Urban 6 pack Firefly, it was actually a simplified colourscheme on the Urban 6 pack Firefly.

One colour I really like seeing on this Firefly, is the green that tended to replace the silver on the prior usage of these paint masks. It’s a really rich and deep olive green, that doesn’t quite stand out enough on the black base, really looks nice when viewing the figure with the right lighting. Another colour I don’t think gets the attention it deserves is the usage of grey. It’s a grey very reminiscent of the 1984 Firefly’s grey, so that gets points for a deep dive, in an era when most of Hasbro’s deep dives were into the shallow end.

With close to twenty years removed from the initial release of this figure, and the fact he’s the only figure from the set I ever wound up owning, I don’t have the same indignation about this figure, that it has seen. I’ll argue it’s better than the majority of the repaint era Firefly figures, even if that’s a fairly low bar. There’s quite a bit of neat nuance to the figure, that might have been lost in the hullabaloo and poor feelings that surrounded the figure’s initial release. Poor feelings that I wholeheartedly agree with, considering this is a figure that was highly unnecessary, and a waste of resources, that was made even worse, with how the Crimson Guard 6 packs were designed and released as a way to gouge collector’s, by making them buy the same set two separate times, in order to get a pair of characters who have until the Classified series, never been released separate from each other, since the entire purpose of the characters was that they were twins.

However, even with all the time and release frustrations removed from when the figure first came out. There’s still a lot of problems with this figure from both it’s physical release as well as the potential that was there. One of the big problems with releasing Firefly in this set, is he doesn’t fit the theme. Now if this figure wasn’t remarkably similar to the Firefly released a year earlier in a different TRU 6 pack, some of the issues would dissipate, but still, this is the fifth use of the Firefly mold where the base mold is cast in black plastic. It’s tedious, but still, if Hasbro was to make the Firefly match the colouring of the set, it would’ve just been a slight upgrade on the 2002 BJ’s Firefly. The choice of Firefly (my favourite figure in the line), was a loser no matter what, and we’d probably have been better off with Lampreys in Crimson or something.