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There is absolutely no question that Cover Girl is the most desirable figure in the first year of the Joe Club's Figure Subscription Service. There are a couple other figures that rank right up there, but Cover Girl is the top. Because of that, I thought she'd either come in the first shipment or the last shipment. Clearly I was wrong, because this is only Month 5.
Cover Girl was a fashion model in Chicago and New York prior to enlistment. She grew disillusioned with the shallow world of modeling
and joined the military to take her life in a more meaningful direction. Now, instead of being swathed in silk, she is covered in grease, and couldn't be happier. She is proficient in diesel mechanics and gas turbine technology, can perform diagnostics, maintenance, and repair on any AFV that rolls into the vehicle bay, and can even fabricate new parts from scrap metal in the field. this glamour girl turned grease monkey feels completely at home in the GI Joe garage, where her only real challenge is fending off the advances of some of the team's more amorous lug nuts.
Cover Girl is not only a highly-skilled mechanic, she is also responsible for piloting vehicles to transport personnel and cargo for the GI Joe team. Proficient with operating all vehicle-mounted weapon systems to protect the convoy, she can also perform vehicle self-recovery as well as provide cover fire while expediting field repairs during battlefield emergencies.
So why is Cover Girl the big draw of FSS v1 and not,
say, Big Boa (especially when she's already had twice as many action figures as he has)? Because while GI Joe has always been a franchise friendly to strong women, they've traditionally been few and far between - and fans have been hoping for a new version of her since the 25th Anniversary Collection started. This figure gets her body from movie Scarlett, with a free-floating belt from one of the G3 Lady Jayes. Ladies Jaye? Whichever. The one in the box set that we still haven't reviewed. The uniform is light tan, while the boots, belt and jacket are dark brown, just like the original toy. The jacket comes from the G2 Cover Girl, but it was a much lighter color there.
Also coming from that figure? The head. This is a retooled version of the G2 head, sized to accept a smaller balljoint. It still sits a little too low on the neck for our tastes - she was a supermodel, so she needs to be more willowy. The hair is a bit chunky, as was the style at the time, but it's also blonde. Huh. That's different.
The original Cover Girl's hair was auburn, and so it remained in Generation 2. But in the IDW comics (which came out
after the movie, coincidentally enough), she was suddenly blonde. One one hand, this does put a blonde into the "main" group of female Joes (beside the redhead, the brunette, and the raven) without having to go all the way down to Bombstrike. Nothing against her, that's just an obscure character. [And yes, Baroness would be our first choice for black hair, but we're sticking with the good guys --ed.] The color still works for Cover Girl - once again, she was a model, so who's to say she might not choose to dye her hair (or was perhaps doing so before)?
Cover Girl comes with two accessories (not counting the belt or her jacket): a pistol and a submachine gun.
The pistol is the same one seen with a lot of Joes since its introduction in 2003, but most importantly for the purposes of this review, it was also included with Comic Pack Cover Girl. The big gun is an M-32 Pulverizer, a made-up gun based on the H&K MP5; it was first seen in 1982 as Stalker's signature weapon, but was introduced to the modern era with Tiger Force Duke. Its inclusion here is a reference to the character "Sparta," a repainted Cover Girl available in Argentina and Brazil who came with that same gun. Obscure!
Because there were no limits on how many sets you could order, most of the Figure Subsciption Service releases can be had at (comparitively) reasonable prices - that is, not much more than the Club is charging for them. But Cover Girl's price is topping $100 on the secondary market. Why? Because sellers know they can get it. She's a popular character who's gotten a great update, and almost every GI Joe fan wants her.
-- 05/10/13
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