[Joeness]

They said you couldn't splice an MG42 barrel shroud onto an M60 machine gun but Rock 'n Roll proved them wrong. He carried his faithfully rebranded "Bushpig" throughout the seventies and eighties, until the mid-nineties, when the introduction of a new standard machine gun forced him to quit the armed services in disgust.

[Joeness]

When his father's old tiger stripe fatigues are in the laundry Falcon sometimes wears his regulation cammies in the field as well.

[Joeness]

Duke is old school: he wears a Vietnam-era helmet, a WWII-era jacket and boots from his uncle who served in Korea. He thrives on Army food, smokes Camel regulars, has never taken a wife, and frequents bars in the West Village wearing captured Cobra leather straps. Don't ask him about this.

[Joeness]

Hit & Run was named after an unfortunate incident that precipitated his joining the Army - on the judge's orders that is. Perhaps out of a desire to leave his old mistakes and past identity behind, H&R prefers to wear camo on his camo and more camo again: the fewer people who recognize him the better!

[Joeness]

For Duke it was a thoughtfully-made figure to start with, though limited by the times - there was a leap in molding and colors between 1984 and 1985 which is clear to see when comparing figures. So I gave him rudimentary camo, not as carefully rendered as later figures, and changed little else except the gun.

For H&R I decided to keep the excessively green theme and just switch to the standard 4-color woodland camo of the day. Needed a reason of course, hence the blurb. Don't really like the gun, feel he needs a 5.56 rather than a nine-millimeter, but it was one of the better-rendered accessories of the time so I kept it.

Rock-n-Roll: I never owned either version of this toy so just had fun with it. I'd like to have given him the M240, but it fits better with Spearhead both chronologically and with the camo scheme I chose.

Speaking of Spearhead, wasn't that orange camo ghastly? I had this figure and the gun was an abomination too. When playing with ideas, it hit me that the 2 color desert DPM wasn't too far of a difference, so I went for a Brit theme. More of that below: the four-color DPM is considerably harder to draw than the US pattern.

[Joeness]

Lady Jaye likes to blend in wherever she goes, but has a curious preference for British rifles, which are a lot more accurate than a harpoon gun...

[Josh Z]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joeness

Lady Jaye likes to blend in wherever she goes, but has a curious preference for British gear, which makes more sense than a harpoon gun doesn't it?

I believe it's more javelin than harpoon.

[Joeness]

The only thing bigger and meaner than Roadblock's machine gun is Roadblock himself. The only thing bigger and meaner than Roadblock himself is his wife. You really don't wanna mess with her...

[Joeness]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh Z

I believe it's more javelin than harpoon.

Sorry, that's right.

To me those detracted from the figures. There was a sort of pattern for women and some minorities: Lady Jaye gets a Javelin thingy, Scarlet had a crossbow IIRC and don't get me started on whatever condescending monstrosity they gave Spirit...

In my reimagining, I prefer to give them a proper gun. In the case of Jaye, I cheated a little and got Ambush's weapon from the 1990 series, even though I was no longer into figures by then. That one matched my Brit uniform choice for her, but I may yet do a US version.

[Josh Z]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joeness

To me those detracted from the figures. There was a sort of pattern for women and some minorities: Lady Jaye gets a Javelin thingy, Scarlet had a crossbow IIRC and don't get me started on whatever condescending monstrosity they gave Spirit...

I don't disagree. There was also that inexplicable weed-wacker rifle thing Zarana carried. I think Hasbro were afraid of depicting women carrying real guns. Probably due to pressure from parental groups at the time.