Zanzibar was raised on a garbage scow and spent most of his youth picking pockets on crowded piers. He's tried river piracy, stock fraud and smuggling, but they were too much like real work and not nasty enough for his tastes. His lucky break came when he delivered bootleg gas to a filling station owned by Zartan and was immediately invited to join the Dreadnok gang.
Of all the figures in this set, Zanzibar has changed the most. If you were shown this figure with no further information, you might be able to guess he's meant to be the same as this guy, but chances are slim. The fact that he uses Iron Grenadier Destro's legs makes him look vaguely "piratey," but that's about all he has going for him. I guess every group of figures needs one to be the worst, so at least in this set it's easy to pick.
Zanzibar gets a new head, just like all the Dreadnoks in this set, but
his is... let's not beat around the bush, it's terrible. It looks entirely out of place, like it was designed for some other toy and repurposed as Zanzibar. Anybody know if there was going to be a pirate in that scrapped Jurassic Park line? His eyepatch isn't even on the right side! He's got a fauxhawk and a mullet, instead of the ponytail from the previous versions. Man, this thing is a total mess, and does nothing to redeem the lame design.
He's got the same shoulderpads/belt/holster combo
that Taurus wore, so it seems likely that piece was designed to split the difference between the two characters. It's closer to Zanzibar's waist, since he's a shorter figure. He has the same knife to put in the holster, but a new flintlock pistol to go in the holster over his heart. He gets the same sword and snub-nose pistol that IG Destro had, so the gun fits in the holster on his leg. Overall: nice accessories, but a crap figure to put them on.
Really, though, Zanzibar is the only clunker in this set. The rest of the 'noks are awesome, even with the changes that have been made to make them more "G3 friendly." So yeah, this set is definitely worth buying, if you're a Dreadnok fan - but it does make you ask yourself whether it's better to get an entire box set where all the figures have a few corners cut, or one where most of the figures knock it out of the park and one is majorly disappointing.
-- 01/20/12
engineer if he hadn't dropped out of a top technical school during freshman orientation. When he's not doing some mechanically destructive job for Zartan, he builds custom motorcycles. He can assume another person's body language and speech patterns with amazing perfection.
The head is new, and it looks terrific. The old figure looked more like Luis Guzman than whoever the card art depicted, but this splits the difference between the two. It used to be "is he black or is he hispanic," but this one looks 
figure came with one, but it seems that Torch's backpack and flamethrower were included based simply on the character's name. Yes, he's called "Burn Out," but it's not because he works with fire or anything. 
words, he's a lethal threat to every living creature on the planet. This alone would have made the Dreadnok gang greet him as one of their own. He's also a thief, card cheat and he always smells like the rancid hog-fat he covers himself in when he hunts. To the Dreadnoks, these are truly prize-winning qualities.
Storm Shadow's chest and 
The original figure had a removable hat, so it would be a step back if this one didn't as well. He's bald beneath it, and it grips his head no matter which side you want the "leaf" on. He's got his big mutton chop mustache, and a delightful sneer on his lips. He kind of looks like someone - like Hasbro based his face on somebody they based some other Joe on, but we can't place it.
of course, but also a knife to fit in the sheath on the small of his back and 
gang from one coast to the other for smelling worse than was acceptable even by their standards. He joined the Dreadnoks as a probationary member. They're still making up their minds about him, even though his brute strength makes him useful to the gang and he'll willingly stomp anything to pieces with little or no provocation.
was related to the "Pig" part of his name. This figure uses the 
Road Pig's real name, Donald Deluca, was taken from a former Hasbro design director, but the original figure's face wasn't - and neither is this update. He looks like a tough, brutish fellow, and he still has the white flattop with a red stripe running around his head. Wow, remember when we made fun of 
the cinder block on a stick - it's done as two pieces now, with a brown handle that has a wrapped handgrip near the end. He used to have a fancy armored plate that he wore on his forearm, but that's gone, replaced by an improvised shield made from a highway sign. This is a great choice for several reasons: first, it fits the "made on the fly" nature of his other weapons; secondly, the sign reads "alligator alley," which not only suggests the Dreadnoks' Everglades base of operations, but is also the name of the former U of F basketball arena. Why's that cool? Because his birthplace of Goblu, MI, is a fictional town 
next to him in the box, and the filecard says he uses a saber, so it's clearly his. It even fits into a slot on the back of his pads. But the question is why. He's never been seen to use a sword in the comics or anything, so where is this coming from? Well, the planned 1995 series of "Ninja Commandos" would have included a new Road Pig, and 
everything was never enough to satisfy him. When he was in his teens, he stole a motorcycle and hit the road to corruption. he ended up in the swamps, where the Dreadnoks welcomed him into the fold and channeled his destructive tendencies into profitable acts of sabotage and chaos.
Thrasher is built from 
but a G2 release dubbed him "Bruno La Crosse." This version renames him Brutus Cross, so let's consider it an alias. His accessories bespeak his affluent origins: the weapon his filecard identifies as a "mace" is actually a lacrosse stick with a spiked ball held in the head, and the armor he wears over his torn green shirt? Lacrosse pads. He's a preppy slumming with the Dreadnoks, sort of the GI Joe equivalent of "
he doesn't behave this way to do anything good for his target. Like his brother Zartan, he can disguise himself as anyone. He's also an expert with silent weapons and can remain motionless for long periods of time.
Zandar shares 
It's not just the big red lightning bolts on his face and chest, but the subtle weathering pattern on his shoulder amor: the edges of each plate have a silver app that suggest the blue paint is wearing off. Nice! His accessories include a large pink scarf, a blue holster with a silver pistol, a 
inch. That's how she can more than hold her own in the dangerous Dreadnok gang. She stole and panhandled to get by as a child, and learned how to take down opponents twice her size in hand-to-hand combat. She never knew her father until she found a way into the swamps and revealed her identity to him.
The head is good, though it does make her look slightly older than the character in the books - she was still a teenager, not an adult. It's a great sculpt though, with her green dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail and her multiple piercings all present: labret, eyebrow, multiples in the ears... 
Most of the Dreadnoks were known for a single type of weapon, but Zanya never got that far. Thus, he accessories are plain, simple guns: an AK-47 and a .44 Magnum. They're both nice pieces, plain enough that we can't tell you if they've come with previous figures or are new. They work for her.
