Here, take a look at these:
Nice, aren't they? Somebody's made G3 updates of old toys, but you can't quite place them, can you? They almost look familiar, but they're not any Joes you can remember. There's a good reason for that.
They're not GI Joes. They're The Corps! night force cynic designed and built these figures, using the classic The Corps! figures as inspiration:
You'll recognize one figure we've reviewed - Bengala - but also a few of the names we mentioned in that review, including Whispering Willie and the infamous Hat Trick Lemonade! These really are great. It really makes us wish Hasbro would buy out Lanard, just for the character library. The highly improbable character library.
Oh, those are sweet!
OAFEers, are you prepared for a shocking revelation, so chilling it may well turn you against this author at the very notion of its authenticity? I was more a fan of The CORPS as a kid than of GI Joe. I was always more into Star Wars, Trek and superheroes than Transformers, He-Man or Joes but my grandfather had a stellar knack for tracking down many of the great Joe playsets (like the Cobra Command Center and stunningly brilliant double-Space Shuttle with Launch Platform thing) and while I had a handful of Joes to use I generally populated with the "3 for the price of 1" Corps. At that age I probably knew they weren't proper Joe figures but I actually preferred their designs to the real thing. Less armor-y and more real world-y are my memories of them. But as I aged and shifted into collecting I realized they were a sin and moved away.