Cover Girl

You better work! Cover Girl is a skilled tank driver and master mechanic for GI Joe, specializing in heavy-armored vehicles, and both gas and electric motors. Her expertise with the inner workings of vehicles is outmatched only by her bravery when she's driving them into battle. Originally a high-fashion model, Courtney Krieger got bored with the superficial people around her and went looking for a more fulfilling life. You'd think there would be a step somewhere between "be a human clothes hanger" and "get shot at by maniacal terrorists," but apparently not for our girl Court! We'd say at least she's less likely to be objectified and pawed at by creeps, but now she works with Clutch, so that's not even true. Her stats are Tanker 4, Light Weapons 1, Mechanical Engineering 4, and Weapons Development 2, but only because there's no icon for "Runway Strutting" (because the only characters who would get any points in it would be Cover Girl and Dr. Mindbender). The lower half of this figure uses the same molds as the Sarah Lynn Reynolds-sculpted Lady Jaye - after all, their boots and pants would be provided for them by the military, so of course they'd be the same style. Cover Girl has different belts and pouches, though, so the re-use is far from obvious. Cover Girl wears a leather jacket, which means the arms had to be new sculpts, and her shirt has a smaller collar, so that's different, as well. Plus, this is the first time any Cover Girl has worn gloves. All the new parts were sculpted by Boss Fight Studio's Fred Aczon. The face is rather severe, with deeply defined cheekbones and a pointed chin - it's not what you'd call "beautiful," but it's definitely the kind of look a fashion model would have. "Striking," maybe. Which may also explain why the paint goes so heavy: it looks like she's wearing strong makeup, lipstick and eyeshadow and blush, and it really makes her different from all the other figures in the line. There haven't been a lot of Cover Girl figures over the years - discounting the movie, there's only been a single release in each Generation of the line, and they've all looked basically the same: brown jacket, tan pants, lighter tan shirt, brown boots. The fleece lining on the jacket was introduced in G2, but then it went all along the opening of the garment; Classified splits the difference between that and the original, only having the lining up by the collar and leaving the rest plain. The protective plates on the front of her boots are painted olive - a nod to the G1 figure, the only place it's ever been seen before. The color is matched by her belt, and there's a red Wolverine logo on her left shoulder. Classified Cover Girl stands just over 6" tall - her boots have thick soles, so that's not too far off from her official height. (Before Hasbro took the GI Joe site down, it listed her as 5'10".) She's got a balljointead head, a hinge at the top of the neck and a balljoint at the bottom, swivel/hinge shoulders on pectoral hinges, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, balljointed chest and waist, hips that are a balljoint mounted on a hinge, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel boots, and swivel/hinge ankles. That's enough to put her in the driver's seat of a vehicle, or to crawl underneath it with a toolbox and get to work. The accessories are really lacking. We get a pistol that fits in the holster on her right thigh, a shotgun, a data pad with schematics of the Wolverine Armored Missile Vehicle that can fit in a pocket on her left leg (screen side out; seems like a good way to scratch your glass, girl), and a single wrench to tuck into her belt. Really, that's it? Why doesn't she have a toolbox? Or a mechanic's creeper sled? Or... you know what would have been really good? Take another cue from Lady Jaye and do swappable hair. There are fans who have done head swaps on this figure, giving her movie Scarlett's head or that new blonde one from the SHIELD/Hydra two-pack, and they look pretty good. This figure follows G1 Cover Girl's toy style, with short auburn hair, but the old cartoon gave her long blonde hair (sometimes), the G2 toy's was light brown, G3 was strawberry blonde... make this figure's hair removable, just like Lady Jaye's hat, and give us all the options, let us pick what Courtney wants to look like today! That would have been a lot of fun. I didn't care at all about the HasLab Classified Dragonfly project, but if they did a Wolverine tank? I'd be there day one! Even Hedvig Häggman-Sund's art knows she needs her tank! (Even if it does look like a Little Golden Books version of Squirrel Girl.) I'm not a fan of the makeup, but then, I'm not a fan of makeup in real life, either, so you may like it. The sculpt of the figure is good, but that paint and the uninspired accessories keep her from being all she could be. -- 09/29/23