"I didn't know you liked to get wet!"
Wet-Suit may be mean to the bone, but he's also quite bright, being well-read in both the classics and standard texts of military tactics.
He's wild and unruly - but he's simply the best at what he does when he and fellow SEALS are dumped in the soup on a rubber raft with all the ammo and explosives they can carry.
That's all text from the original 1986 figure, just cut up and rearranged. It does not, sadly, keep the line about how "SEALS are the guys who were too nasty to be Airborne Rangers or Marines. The Navy keeps their SEALS locked up below decks until something bad becomes worse." There were actually two versions of his filecard back then: this seems to take from the most common one, but the rarer version called him not only "unruly" but also "contentious and totally devoid of social graces." It also said he'd developed his "orneriness and cussedness" instead of softening that to the more generic "toughness." We can't be sure which version came first, but it sure seems like the rare one got Bowdlerized into the common, doesn't it?
As a toy in 1986, Wet-Suit wore a diving helmet that covered
everything except his eyes. The comics and cartoon showed him with it off, though, and this release follows suit. Classified loves doing that kind of thing. He's got an intense look and dark, wavy hair, which is closer to the animated look than the printed page. Since the entire helmet is one piece (unlike Blowtorch's), getting it on and off the head is a little bit tough. But at the same time, it doesn't go under the chin at all, so it still somehow manages to flop around on the head somewhat.
They probably could have gotten away with
reusing the Torpedo/Eel body here, but no, he's new. Easiest way to tell is not the short sleeves he's wearing (that would only have required new biceps), but the little collar at the neck and the zipper down the center of the chest. If you try to picture him without all the little add-on pieces - pockets strapped to his arms, a sheath and holster on his legs, a bunch of pouches on the webgear wrapped all over his torso - you'll notice the proportions are kind of weird: like, he's very tal land very narrow, like the digital file got stretched vertically before being sent to China for the factory to cut the tools.
1986 saw the Joe team really start to get colorful, and Wet-Suit was part of that trend. Their previous divers, Torpedo and Deep Six, wore black and gray, respectively, and now here was Wet-Suit in a bright teal
number with vibrant orange accents. Quite the shift! The Classified figure stays true to the original lok, while also lowering the saturation on the teal a bit, giving him a color that's still recognizable, but less garish. He still has the white panel on his front, and even the red "flying fish" logo on the chest, though it's a different style now: the vintage one had a prominent fin on its back, an open mouth, and rear-facing insect wings, while this one has no fin, no mouth, negative space creating an eye and gills, and wings that spread more like a butterfly's. The gray straps of the gear are a direct update of the old look, as well, but the fact they actually painted the little lights on the top of his helmet is entirely new.
The articulation is as plentiful as ever, but the actual joints aren't as good. The hips, for whatever reason, are weirdly wobbly,
which is great if you're going to find a figure stand somewhere and have him swimming, but annoying if you just want the figure to stand up. It's the balljoint portion of the hip joint, too, not the hinge - the hinges are nice and tight, but the ball is moving around more than usual. Hopefully it's just my figure that's bad that way, and yours will be fine. I'm also reminded that the plastic of the tray in the packaging was brittle and flimsy, breaking before I'd even tried to take the toy out of it; that's not directly related to loose hips, but it's odd that one Classified release would end up with two unusual material issues this way. Maybe it was just a bad day at the factory.
Wet-Suit's stats are not terribly surprising, but do take a little more deciphering than usual. His Role is Environmental Specialist: Water at Level 4, his Gear is a Level 2 picture of a snorkel and mask that isn't actually one of the symbols, going nicely with the Level 2 Skill of... air tanks(?) that are also not one of the symbols, and finally back to Underwater Combat at 3 for his Mastery. Hasbro, you don't get to just randomly add new icons when you don't pay to maintain
a website that will catalogue them. Stop being such skinflints!
Most of figure's accessories are updates of ones he had in the '80s. Back then, he had his backpack, some hoses to connect it to the mask, his swin fins, a little hydro-sled thing, and a flashlight. The modern figure gets all that, but also the gun and knife that used to just be part of the sculpt are now separate pieces. The sled can plug into the bottom of the backpack when not in use, though that does make the entire thing kind of unwieldy. The spotlight has a strap on the handle, but since it's molded, you can't actually put it around his wrist while he's holding the handle. The helmet is molded from clear plastic so the goggle area can be transparent, and the flippers are shaped specifically for left and right feet, not interchangeable.
Wet-Suit hasn't had much luck with his depictions in 2D. He barely appeared on the cartoon or in the comics, his vintage card art showed him barelegged, and his 1991 Impel trading card, while explaining a bunch of his cool gear (bulletproof wet suit, air-recycling tanks, puncture-proof mask, built-in depth and pressure gauges on his flashlight, etc.) apparently got confused about what his sea sled actually was, because they drew him riding it like a skateboard instead of holding on with his hands and letting it drag him forward. Of the 12 figures he's had before this, only two wore teal and orange, and yet that's his iconic look, so it's darn considerate of Hasbro to stick with it for the update.
-- 04/10/26
Do you think of Wet-Suit as being blue, or do you picture one of his other colors instead? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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