Holy crap that was intense!
5:00 PM EST hit and I frantically refreshed Hasbro Pulse from my desktop and Target from my laptop. On Pulse, Cobra Infantry and Zartan immediately appeared. Into the cart they went, limit one per customer, and to checkout / sale complete, but no ETA on when they will ship.
On a side note, for those of you who want Zartan and Cobra Infantry, but don't want to fuss with Hasbro Pulse, you can
also get them from sites like Entertainment Earth. In fact, you can
purchase a full case from EE, which will come with two (2) Zartan
figures, two (2) Cobra Infantry, one (1) Roadblock and one (1) Scarlett.
The latter two are both from the wave one set, with no apparent
changes. EE denotes January 2021 as the estimated shipping period, which leads me to believe this will be the same if you ordered from Hasbro Pulse.
While Cobra Infantry will now be on a card without the "Cobra Island" header, it is unknown if the figure will be renumbered. It's also worth noting that Hasbro appears to have removed the goggles, sniper rifle and rank armband which came with the Cobra Island version. In addition, the black vest has been changed to a blue one, and in general, the figure will also be a lighter shade of blue from that of the original release. See the picture below for what I'm talking about.
If I'm being honest, I like the retail release version better. It's feels more true to the original figure from 1982 / 1983. However, I can also see why fans would be miffed that they were being charged the same price for a figure with less accessories than originally released.
An Item I didn't bother with, because I already have one, was the Deluxe Snake Eyes. Hasbro re-released the figure via their site, also at 5:00 PM, and it sold out fast.
While I still don't think it's worth twice as much as one figure to get the pack, I can understand why those who missed it the first time would jump on it.
That wrapped it up for Hasbro. However, Target was having no parts of offering up Viper and Firefly. I gave a quick prayer about it. Yeah, I did. Not ashamed to admit that I talk to God about everything. As trivial as action figures may seem in the grand scheme of things, I asked him to intervene if he felt so inclined to.
I continued to refresh, now on two computers. Suddenly, I saw it! Viper! I right clicked and opened it in a new window while scrolling down slightly to reveal Firefly. That link too got clicked to open. With adrenaline rushing, I quickly added both to my cart and ran through the checkout process, agreeing to everything the site was throwing at me without so much as glancing at what I was agreeing to.
SUCCESS! Preorder complete!
I gave a sigh of relief, thanked God and refreshed the G.I. Joe Classified page. Viper and Firefly, SOLD OUT! Wow! In the span of less than a minute! Here we go again with this debacle at Target. There are none currently on ebay, but I'm sure that will change as the evening progresses.
As for me, I've never felt a rush quite like this when collecting figures, and my heart tells me it never wants to again! I also noted the shipping date of January 4 through 7, 2021, which is in line with the above noted case from Entertainment Earth. Guess well be seeing these all next year.
Despite my success in grabbing these two figures, I do admittedly feel sorry for the fans out there. Once again their ability to get these figures seems to be short lived. Maybe Target will get more in. However, history tells me not to be so naive to think that will actually happen.
Viper is yet another one of those army builders that people really want to get, so it's unfortunate that Hasbro has once again sent this kind of figure to Target. However, if there's a glimmer of hope, it's that like the Cobra Trooper, it too will get a re-release shortly thereafter. Of course, that doesn't help many with Firefly, or for that matter, any of the other Cobra Island wave - Which people are still looking for.
During the Pulsecon panel, one of the designers of the Viper made mention that the neck scarf the figure came with denoted its rank. Therefore, is it safe to assume that a re-release later down the road would remove this, such as the removal of the rank armband from the Cobra Trooper? We'll have to wait and see on that one. That is, if the figure even gets a re-release.
Dare I ask, were any of you successful in grabbing these? Have you gotten everything else you wanted from the series, in general?
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I did not get either of the Target figures. I didn't even see them available until after a few minutes after 5. I ordered Zartan through Pulse, though, as well as the Toy Fair Snake Eyes that I skipped the first time around.
ReplyDeleteI forgot about the Snake Eyes coming back. Great grabs!
DeleteMan how different your post would’ve been if you got shut out on the Target figures. Hell hath no fury lol
ReplyDeleteI would have been upset. I won't deny that. But I would have found them eventually, just like the last wave. I still think it's been poorly handled that Target sold out in under a minute. No reason for that if they would have limited quantities and instilled a captcha to stop bots.
DeleteI came up empty, but glad you got them bc this site keeps me excited and motivated on collecting Joes. The research you put into your articles combined with entertaining style makes me check for updates here daily.
ReplyDeleteThank you. That's very kind of you to say. I've got some contests planned for the near future which may help you with some of that Joe hunting. Especially in December.
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