TNI Contest: Win A Set Of MOC G.I.Joe Hall Of Heroes Figs

[gijoefrank]

What GIJOE means to me:

 

Its RED, WHITE & BLUE.....American PIE and giving a helping hand when needed....taking on the bad guys no matter what the odds....GI JOE is doing the right thing. Its one reason, why I served my country....I know a little corny, but its true.

 

YO JOE!!!!

[MUNDO]

GI Joe for me means getting down and dirty (literally) while playing. The diverse roster and specialties meant that year round, I'd be able to take my Joes outside no matter what the season or location. Usually it was around a mud hole or body of water; as in my eyes, I wasn't using them to their fullest potential unless they were waist deep in mud or diving to the bottom of a creek or tide pool. I'm surprised my Mauler still works 25 years later after running it through some of the mud holes Cobra always seemed to congregate around. Being from the South, I had very few opportunities to play in the snow, but that one year I received my Snow Cat, it snowed; so it was a GI Joe fan's wish come true for me. As a father now, I make sure my son understands GI Joe's true calling of mud holes, ditches, creeks, and the occasional snow. Well, I've got to go now to get the Moccasin and SHARC packed up for tomorrow. We're heading out to the nature trail where there's the perfect creek for Copperhead and a few EELs to "surprisingly" run into Deep Six and Torpedo.

[PRev]

What G.I. Joe means to me!

G.I. Joe has a significant link to a very special part of my past! I started collecting Joes kind of by accident. It was 1984, my wife and I were expecting our first child. I thought we were going to have a boy and so being an avid model builder, I was hanging my aircraft models in "his" room. At the time, I worked in the toy store at our mall, and one day someone returned a Dragonfly helicopter with Wild Bill. Nothing at all was wrong with it and it was 100% complete, but the box was opened so it couldn't be put back on the shelf. Well I thought, "cool it can hang with my models", so I bought it on the cheap. But man, the figure was sooo cool, and the file card and blueprints... it was great! The next day, I bought Airborne to go in the back, just like on the box, two days later Rock-n-roll just because he had an M-60, I was hooked!

Long story short, 2 months later, we had our "daughter". My wife insisted on "girly" things for her, but I left the Dagonfly up anyway for a long time. When it was time to come down it joined a fast growing Joe army that, before I sold it "painfully" in 1990, had every item there was, including the Flagg, Defiant, Terror drome, everything. I started again in 2001 and haven't stopped since!

I'm 45 and my girl is now 24 and she has a girl of her own. Its really cool because my grandkid likes joes too and I don't discourage it, G.I. Joes are for the girls too! Joes are a passion, Iv'e had for as long as I've had kids...longer, and its weird that becoming a father and a Joe "freak" went hand in hand!

[BrotherShane]

It all started in 1982 for me, I remember seeing these new G.I. Joe figures in a local toy store. My first Joe was Zap, shortly after I had most of the Joes from the first year. In 1983, the MASS Device mini series debuted (I still have the VHS tape I originally recorded from the broadcast). I made it a priority to watch the Sunbow series after school, it aired weekdays at 4 p.m. For me, G.I. Joe represents a big part of my childhood. It reminds me of my friends bringing their Joes over to play with me and staging huge battles. Subconsciously, I believe my Dad being a retired Marine makes some kind of connection for me being drawn to G.I. Joe.

 

I collected until 1988, when I felt I was "too old" for toys. Only to start again in 1994 as an adult collector. I've since enjoyed meeting fellow Joe fans in the online community and conventions. In 2000, I started collecting the rest of the Marvel Comics run and in 2002 began customizing Joe figures. My Joe hobby serves as an outlet away from the daily stresses life can bring and great childhood memories.

[American_Legend]

G.I. Joe to me is not only my favorite action figure line and one of my best memories of childhood, it is an elaborate mythology that taught me valuable life lessons as a young boy and what it means to be kick-ass with ethics.

 

COBRA had all the coolest villains you love to hate like Destro, Zartan, Dr. Mindbender, Major Bludd, and the like, and the story of Cobra Commander's rise from a used car salesman to the head of a privately funded blackwater-style private army always enthralled my imagination.

 

Of course there's the classics ninja rivalry between snake eyes (the world's best badass) and storm shadow, and the Vietnam backstory that makes every little plastic man and woman a living character instead of a generic plaything.

 

Then there's the Joe team themself. When I was younger I always figured that G.I. J.O.E. stood for General Infantry (or Government Issued, Government Initiated) Judicial Operations Experts. The team is the most diverse group of heroes ever imagined, with members from all over the world from all walks of life working together to literally save the world.

 

In Kindergarten all the boys, no matter who they were or where they came from, played together with our Joes. This in itsself created a sense of brotherhood and friendship.

 

G.I. Joe is also the greatest action figure line ever conceived because of the size of the figures. It allows for the coolest vehicles and playsets fathomable to be integrated into your adventures, adding to overall playability.

 

The comics and show itself taught little one-off lessons that irregardless have stuck with me throughout life. To this day I still do not swim when it is storming. Thank you, Deep Six.

 

For these reasons and more, G.I. Joe is fun, greatness, and just good times.

 

Why?

 

Because Knowing Is Half The Battle.

 

Mahalo.

 

-JSD

[Leroy]

Shear unadulterated Joy.

 

Taking Crankcase out for a spin in the mud in an Awestriker or flying around the back yard in with Ace in the Sky-striker or just simply losing Hit and Run in my front garden when I was a kid to taking my 16 month into my room, pointing out different characters and asking him "where’s the helicopter" and seeing him point to my Tomahawk that’s hanging from the roof with a massive smile. The moments both past and present bring me a great deal of happiness and I can only hope it brings my boy Noah the same someday, incidentally he's not having them yet. That’s what combat heroes are for....

[bariccade]

it was one of my favorite toys.. and I never stopped liking them.. #US1#

[kthakkar]

G.I.Joe is nostalgia and family for me. MY older brother and I grew up playing with them together and watching the cartoon every morning. I remember when my older brother finally handed down his collection to me - that was awesome! My collection grew until 2005 when I lost my child hood house in a fire. I got out of toy collecting all together until 2007 when for Christmas my sister in-law bought me the first few 5=packs. It really brought back all those great memories and washed away the pain of what I once saw only as "memories lost" since the fire. A buddy from my hometown church was also a large G.I.Joe collector and that summer he donated me about 50 complete ARAH guys... i knew him for years and never knew the G.I.Joe connection until my 2nd to last Sunday there. I'm now married and have a 21 month old daughter, (who's first feat of crawling was into my office and pulling out my drawer of ARAH and playing with them) now has her owN collection of "Combat Heroes" she affectionately calls "JOEYS" (and now can name a few, including Duke and her favorite Zartan)

 

a few weeks ago I found out I also have a Son on the way! and my funds for figures goes down with each child... so... winning these would certainly keep the dream alive!

 

 

Also, my older bro who is now in the military calls me every time he's in a store to check if I have the joes he sees. Without him i'd never have found BAT or Eel... which I STILL havn't seen in stores.

[vupa0101]

Gi Joes were the ultimate good guys

 

To me, they were the patriotic heroes of my childhood. Always on the lookout for Cobra and its evil terrorist organization, the Joe team consisted of a diverse cast of characters who represented the many faces of America. United under a common cause, GI Joe sent a message of how determination and teamwork could overcome evil. Combined with such awesome toys, GI Joe's added the perfect good guy qualities to a rough real world.

[RaginSpoon]

GI Joe has always been my favorite toy. I would watch the cartoon every morning before i went to school. I played with the toys every day, most often outside. GI Joe is always in my memories and is what i think about when i get stressed out or just want to space out.

[BIGBUFF]

Gijoe to me means a simpler time in my life when all I had to think about was what new toy will I be getting and how can I use this toy in my house. It reminds me of times of happiness instead of problems. Gijoe to me means memories that will never be recreated but which will never disappear from my memory banks either. =)

[Capt.S.G.Wiseman]

Growing up I only had a few G.I. Joe figures and even fewer vehicles. I did have some major players like Flint, Stalker, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, and a few others. They had to share universes with my Star Wars collection. The only comics I had were #50 - #54, but I used to watch the cartoon at the church just up the street from my grandparent's house. We didn't have cable then. It wasn't until the 25th Anniversary collection came out that I had a chance to build a respectable Joe collection.

 

I guess G.I. Joe has always meant action- adventures that you get to join in with the toys. The toys were the main focal point, then the cartoon and comic accompanied them. It has such a good balance of good guys and bad guys with plenty to choose from. To me, G.I. Joe is the most complete and one of the greatest toy lines ever, and many others have tried to copy it's style.

[DFReaper]

What G.I. Joe means to me?

 

Its why I am currently in the U.S. Air Force and have been for the past 11 years. I remember watching the show as a kid and when I got older, the stuff I watched as kid was so seared into my subconscious I joined my High School JROTC (mom wanted me to join to get a scholarship). I ended up not applying for a scholarship because I enlisted and was off to Basic within a year from graduating from High School.

 

I look back and I notice the military had a slight recruiting issue right before 9/11 and I think it was because those of us who grew up with G.I. Joe understood deep down what it was like to be a part of a whole, to know team work, and strive for something greater than any one person can accomplish. Now I am not saying G.I. Joe was a clever future recruiting ploy, if so then why aren't our cats in spaceships and yelling Ho! I am not even saying the ideals they represented are what America and the military represent now. All I am saying is that without G.I. Joe, I probably would have gone to college or flipped burgers and then if I had the patriotic streak in me, I would have waited until 9/11 for it to shine.

 

So yeah, G.I. Joe means my past moving into my future. I picked up the 25th Anniversary and they brought up some really good memories (except for the 5,000 different versions of Cobra Commander, Snake Eyes, etc..) and I can't wait to have a kid and show them what led me to the path I am still on.

 

Oh and the PSA's didn't hurt at all.

[Rockshield]

G.I. Joe was a world I could escape to where none of the problems i grew up with could follow me, but it kept a sense of realism. It wasnt like the world of comic superheros that i could not relate to like the avengers or the xmen, because these were normal guys like me (albeit i was a rather young guy at the tme) who lived in the same world and had no special powers. They fought for good against evil no matter what and the good always won. It helped reassure in my mind as a kid growing up that no matter what, if i stuck to the good side, in the end I would always come out on top.

[Sonofcron]

GI Joe means spending time with my son. the one thing he looks forward to is playing with new GI Joes we found while shopping or what we have at home. He is 9 years old and is my miracle. He has been through more in his 9 years of life than probably most of us on here will have in our lifetime. Playing Joes with him and sharing my childhood stuff with him is what Joe Means to me. I have shown him everything i have been able to share. The one thing i love about GI Joe is spending time with my boy and the one thing we can do for hours.....YOOOO JOEEEEE

[Heathtown]

G.I. Joe reminds me of a simpler time where I could get lost in the world of imagination. With my characters, and just have a ball.

 

But to put it in other words, this is still a line that allows me to venture back to the past and as an adult, to simply get lost once again as I did before.

 

The thing is, every time I happen to purchase a figure or vehicle, or perhaps run into a display at the store, it's almost an instant time warp of joy.

 

No matter how much time passes, it almost never fails.

 

Of course, many toys don't seem to age well, but for G.I. Joe, it still seems to keep going strong in my book.

 

I guess over all, to me, G.I. Joe invokes a great feeling of treasured timelessness. =)

[MrBear]

I go back to straight arms. There was something about GI Joe that was very real to me. The classic fight of good vs evil. As an 8 year old I remember wanting to grow up and be a Joe because deep down I knew they had to exist. It kept me active as I would play like I was a Joe down by the creek. It kept my imagination moving when I would draw what I thought would be cool vehicles (I found some of those drawings the other day. When I was a kid I would beg my mom to send them to Hasbro because I just knew they would get made. To this day I swear to God that I am soley responsible for the design of the Sharc)

 

When we were Kings my friends....when we were kings.

[MaxPower]

GI JOE means to me a fantasy toy world that I loved as a kid.

As a kid I couldn't get all of the toys or figures I wanted.

But as an adult I CAN! GIJoe represents an 80's cultural life style that is not so present today.

The love of one's country is a hard thing to be proud of for many, today.

GIJoe had that in mountains. Plus Cobra! How can you not love that fanatical terroist group.

GIJoe is a lifestyle.

[JohnnyRebelV2]

GI Joe is nostalgia and happiness

It is also some of my earliest memories.

GI Joe is the greatest toy line of all time

and it's characters are second to none

[Faust35]

What G.I. Joe means to me...

 

This would have been a different answer a few years ago, but now it means my son. Maybe getting him to enjoy something from my youth that I enjoyed so much. Seeing in his eyes the joy when I take one of my old G.I. Joes "out of retirement" for him to play. Probably the same look that was in my eyes when I opened these same toys years ago.

[AmericanHero7]

Personally, G.I. has various meanings. G.I. Joe is memories. G.I. Joe is also the here and now being that the toy line is popular once again and there's a movie on the horizon. G.I. Joe is also a pastime and escape. It gives way to the opportunity for relaxation or imagination. You can set them up or play with them. You can be super focused on posing them or use parts of the mind that are otherwise ignored when you engage your playful creativity. G.I. Joe is a piece of my childhood that feels good to have back now that the 25th line exists. It's the chance to attain what I never could as a child. It's America and it's values. It's the good guys overcoming the bad guys because that's the way it should be. G.I. Joe is the king of toy lines. It is the king of toy lines because it defined and continues to define the action figure while remaining familiar yet flexible enough to span many generations. G.I. is the best.

[DPrime]

GI Joe, now, is my tie to the past. It was my favorite toy as a kid, and my collection brings back all those great feelings that I had on that birthday, when my parents bought me the Tomahawk, on Christmas morning, putting together my new AWE Striker, or going to a Toys 'r' Us (or any toy store back then, really) and seeing row upon row of GI Joe and Cobra figures and vehicles on the shelves.

 

Back then, GI Joe tied into my future, even if I didn't know it at the time. It was the first exposure to the military that I ever had, and started a lifelong interest which culminated in me joining up after I finished school and earning my commission as a naval officer. As cool as other toy lines were back then, like Transformers, Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, Dinoriders and others, GI Joe actually had a part in making me into the man I've become, and because of that, none of them can ever mean as much to me as GI Joe.

[lance838]

G I Joe brings back all the memories of being a kid... Joe vs. Cobra battles in the backyard... fighting over who will be Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow... and watching a new episode after getting home from school....

 

The list is endless, but most of all G I Joe is something I can pass on to my boys so they can enjoy todays classics that dad grew-up with.... Yo Joe!

[Devilbat]

To me, G.I. Joe means so many things...

 

 

It means looking at the well-worn, wrinkled back cover of an old comic and wondering who the cool guy with the visor and laser rifle is, and what the G.I. Joe fan club is all about.

 

It means seeing an action figure of that cool guy with the visor again and buying him, thereby starting a twenty-seven year love affair with the most awesome toy line of all time.

 

It means buying my favorite Joe, the original, straight-arm Snake-Eyes, and having a blast with him in my grandmother's living room floor...that is until I lost his uzi. (lol)

 

It means lying in the living room floor next to my dad, reading the latest issue of the Marvel comic.

 

It means 1980s bravado and patriotism. I remember as a kid I viewed everything military through the filter of G.I. Joe. And it perfectly plugged into that fascination with the Vietnam War and it's subsequent backlash and re-evaluation that any red-blooded young male American experienced back then.

 

It means having my older brother come into my bedroom on my birthday and hand me the "new" Snake-Eyes and Shipwreck that just came out, and me noticing how cool they were, complete with their new ball-jointed-neck feature. I still feel this strange, deep-rooted stir of excitement when I remember how pleasantly suprised I was to see a new version of my favorite character...

 

It means crying my eyes out when I admitted to my brother that I traded my beloved Version 2 Snake-Eyes, among others, to a friend who had talked me into making a trade I didn't really want to make.

 

It means getting the awesome headquarters for Christmas, only to have one of my older brother's friends step on it like a gigantic white, male-Caucasian Godzilla with a bad Eightees haircut. (lol)

 

It means having my brother come in from a trip to town with my dad, telling me about all of the new Joes he just

saw at the store, and my imagination running excitingly wild trying to visualize what the Native American Joe might look like that came with an eagle that he described...

 

It means setting them up in my bedroom floor and having my late father poking his head in my door just to see what I was up to and smiling at me...

 

It mean tying a string to my little brother's Vamp and pulling Doc and Gung-Ho all over the yard and nearby woods through wild and dangerous terrain to hunt for Cobras.

 

It means freaking out the first time I saw Zartan change color in the sunlight...and getting mad when I lost his knee-pads.

 

It means staring at those awesome comic covers by Michael Golden and Mike Zeck, and then reading the Yearbook #2 issue over and over and over again until I had each panel memorized...

 

It means playing with my new Snow Job in my grandfather's back seat all the way home from town...

 

It means wishing for the U.S.S. Flagg but never getting it.

 

It means catching the show on tv every afternoon, and never batting an eye at any of the outlandish plot points but wondering why everyone had laser rifles. (lol)

 

It means getting all excited about the "Create Your Own G.I. Joe" mail-away promotion, filling it out with great thought and care, mailing it...then wondering twenty-some odd years later why it never came. (Mom...did you actually mail it??!!) (lol)

 

It also means hoping that by some miracle, it will finally come in the mail any day now, along with that Wolverine tank I ordered as well. (Weirder things have happened...)

 

It means looking at my late Uncle Steve in old pictures, dressed in his fatigues or his Marine dress blues, thinking he was a real American hero...

 

It means seeing the panel of the comic where a recovering Snake-Eyes was waiting at the airport for his family to greet him and pick him up, only to learn they had been killed in a car accident. It made me feel so sorry for him and love the character that much more.

 

It means having my Great-uncle Bill, who served in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam, come to visit my mom and grandmother and showing him my Tupperware lunchbox crammed full of Joes and Cobras, just as proud as I could be, as if I were having him inspect "my men" and getting his approval...

 

It means getting excited over the character images on the back of the card of that new figure I found unexpectedly in the store...

 

It means being so grateful to my dad for driving me to a way-out-of-the-way store to buy a handful of new Joes after a friend had called bragging about all the new Joes he had just bought. I still have my original '89 Snake-Eyes that he bought me to this day. I'll cherish it forever...

 

It means getting excited whenever I see those white, bold-print letters and stripes, no matter if it's a figure cardback or a toothbrush package.

 

It means seeing the Devil Fish in the store and wondering who those awesome new characters were on the front of the box.

 

It means the American flag fluttering in the breeze, reminding me that somewhere there are true G.I. Joes protecting us all from the Cobras of the world, and there are those that gave the ultimate sacrifice so that I could walk into a store and buy a little action figure that embodies a simpler and happy time in my life. YOOO-JOE!!!

 

#US1#

[Cyber Bishop]

Gi Joe to me is great memories of a childhood and teenage years.

Right now my Joes help me get through my situation since my lay off from my job in March.

I sit there on occasion in the evenings before bed, look at the figs and vehicles on display and remember when times were simpler.