Cover Girl

Again? Cover Girl was a high fashion model before growing disillusioned and enlisting to "put new direction" in her life. Her phenomenal mechanical repair and driving skills reduce most people to stuttering fools - even more so than her stunning good looks. There was already one Classified Cover Girl, which means this is rather a landmark release: as we said in that review, there was a single Cover Girl figure in Generation 1, a single Cover Girl figure in Generation 2, and a single Cover Girl figure in Generation 3; so this carded Retro Collection version makes Classified (Generation 4?) the first GI Joe toyline to ever have more than one version of her! Even the movie line didn't do that. We may not be getting a ton of vehicles or playsets in Classified, but this has still been an undeniably successful line. Despite the general goal of the Retro figures, this Cover Girl does not accurately reflect her 1980s toy - that would be pointless, because the existing figure came out in that window where thoughtlessly reflecting the 1980s was all the line was doing. Fortunately for Hasbro's marketing department, the Cover Girl who appeared in the original 1983 Real American Hero miniseries (the MASS Device one) had a different design than the one who appeared throughout the rest of the show's seasons, and that design has never been adapted for a toy. At least, not before now. "Season 1" Cover Girl mostly had the same model as the normal CG, just with different colors and longer hair. Her outfit is almost entirely the same - boots, pants, belt, collared shirt, a jacket - but they're not identical, and so this figure doesn't use the same molds. In fact, the only things shared between this figure and the last one are the chest, stomach, and feet. Her jacket looks like a windbreaker rather than leather, and no longer has fur trim on the collar. Her sleeves go all the way down to the wrists, and she's not wearing gloves. There are no longer armored plates on her shins, and there's less detail in her pants - not none, because the legs are sculpted with tiny horizontal wrinkles that tell you just how tight her pants are. The first Classified Cover Girl's face was... certainly a choice. As we said then, she certainly looked like a model, but she wasn't pretty. This new version changes things up, giving her a new head that has a much more traditionally pleasant appearance. The figure gets two heads, with different expressions: one serious, one smiling broadly. Neither of them are really true to the cartoon, since the GI Joe cartoon was never what you'd call "detailed," and she only appeared with this look for about two minutes of screen time, total, but she at least doesn't look harsh. Amazingly, she also gets two hairstyles, easily swappable. Wow, it's almost like that's exactly what we said the previous one should have come with, what an idea! They're not different colors, or even different lengths; it's just that we get one where she's letting her hair spill freely down her back, and another where she's got her hair braided and is wearing a baseball cap. A baseball cap promoting "The Pit's Garage," because ultra-top-secret military bases always love when you wear their logo. Both styles of hair look equally good on either head, so it's not like you need to worry about one of them being the "right" way to do it. As we said, the major difference between the two animation models (other than the hair length, which fluctuated a bit for the second model anyway) was the colors - Cover Girl's hue has always been various shades of tan and brown, but the Season 1 model put her in green. She could almost pass for a member of the Original 13, at that rate! Her shirt is now tan instead of cream, and there are identifying patches on her coat sleeves: AFV on the right, and "Krieger, Armor, E-4" on her left. Her hat is blue with a white front panel, and her blonde hair is a nice, rich color. Plus, no ugly makeup this time! 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 swivel/hinge ankles, swivel shins, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljoint/?hinge hips, balljointed chest and waist, swivel/?hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel/?hinge shoulders, pectoral hinges, a balljointed neck, and a barbell head. Her hair can restrict the head a little bit, since it hangs straight down, but that's a minor thing - in fact, having the hair pop off if you try to tilt her chin up will be more of an issue than anything else. We get some of the same accessories as before, but not all of them. For instance, there's the pistol (solid black now, rather than having a silver slide) and the wrench (done in light blue with a black jaw, so... Makita?), but not the shotgun nor the data pad, because the cartoon didn't have shotguns, and was too early for touchscreens. Instead, her long gun is the cartoon laser rifle, done in black and silver and green, and she carries a sledgehammer, perfect for knocking parts off armored vehicles when they need to be repaired. It is all nice stuff, to be sure. The pistols can holster on her right hip, and there's a loop on the back of the belt for the wrench. As for alternate hands, she's got one pair to hold things, and one pair of fists. I like the normal Cover Girl's uniform better, but there's no denying Retro Cover Girl is the better figure. The alternate heads and hairstyles are the play feature the 2023 figure should have had (and if it did, the swappable hair should have attached in the same style as this, so you could trade between all of them), and the accessories here are slightly better. It's unusual for a Retro Collection figure to be so drastically different from the normal release, but it's awesome that Season 1 Cover Girl, who appeared so briefly, gets such a quality toy. -- 01/16/26 Which version do you like better? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.