Zandar

Did you think we forgot about him? Zandar is a master of camouflage and covert movement like his brother Zartan and twin sister Zarana. His scarf is a piece of cloth torn from her jacket as a constant reminder of their special bond. An expert with silent weapons, Zandar is capable of remaining motionless for long periods of time. It's always a total crapshoot whether any given set of GI Joe Classified figures will show up in stores. Iron Grenadier, BAT, Storm Shadow, and Alpine? Sure. SAW-Viper, Leatherneck, Mainframe, and Zandar? No such luck! It makes it very hard to be a collector when you never know if things will exist or not. And Amazon for some reason was only selling this wave for $5 above retail, and refused to correct their mistake. I wasn't sure about the others, but I knew for certain I wanted Zartan's baby brother, so him at least I was okay with ordering online. Now that Hasbro's GI Joe team has a dedicated "Retro" line to play with, we no longer have to suffer through them catering to the nine very loud fans who want things to be exactly as they were in the past or else. And that means Zandar is free to have new costume elements! Like his vintage version, he wears brown boots, grey pants, and blue armor, but it's much more involved now. To begin with, he wears a full armored vest, rather than only covering his chest with a holster; there's still a holster on it, but that whole thing is a new creation. The armored pauldrons are a throwback, but these have stylized skull sculptures decorating them, and the one on the left arm has a bit of golden chainmail hanging from it, as well. A double-chain hangs from the belt loops on the side of his jeans, and while both boots get a shin guard, only the left foot has some sort of spike attached to the toe. When he (rarely) appears in fiction, Zandar is often the "mean" sibling: although his whols shtick is "wilfully going unnoticed," he also tends to get mad about no one remembering him and feels left out. Like the time he sided against the rest of the Dreadnoks in one of the Cobra civil wars. Surprising, then, that his face here has a slight smile, rather than some sort of dour frown. It's an excellent sculpt, just not what we'd have expected. Maybe he's enjoying silently tracking an enemy. You can tell fans are running Classified at the moment, because while the "Zandar's scarf is made from Zarana's shirt" thing has been a fan theory for years, it's never been given even a hint from any official source before now - clearly somebody is paying attention! Though if they really wanted to use that idea, they should have made this pink the same shade as that pink: it's slightly darker. Also the textures are not the same. And we're really annoyed the blue vest can't be taken off, because if you remove the head, and the scarf, and thus expose the neck, you'll find that Zandar has those same red markings you see on his face on his neck as well - and moving down from there, on his chest, just like the 1986 toy. So either he's wearing war paint under his clothing, or all that red is tattoos. Either way, if you'd been able to remove the vest, you could have had more options in how you want to play with him, including creating a semi-vintage design. No way to do that now without cutting the vest off or removing the arms. Zandar has all the usual points of articulation: barbell head, ball-jointed neck, swivel/hinge shoulders on pectoral hinges, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, hinged chest, balljointed waist, hips that are a balljoint mounted on a hinge, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel ankles, and swivel/hinge feet. His long hair barely impedes the neck at all, which is good, but the armor on his shoulders definitely gets in the way of raising the arms. Now, that won't be a problem if you were just planning to have him aiming his weapons or something, but it's still disappointing, particularly because both Marvel and Star Wars figures have proven it can be done better. The figure includes a pistol, a knife, and a... is that supposed to be an axe? It's some kind of weird blade on some kind of weird handle, and it fits in the sheath on his right leg, but it's not something we've ever seen before. His signature weapon is a harpoon barbed projectile gun, just like it was in the '80s, and he wears a backpack with extra harpoons barbed projectiles in it. Sculpted in it, not separate accessories. The backpack has a padded texture, which is a reference to the old toy, even if the shape is entirely different otherwise. His stats are Mercenary 3, Arrow Weapons 2, Infiltration 3, and Stealth 3. It's kind of sad, now, that Zarana came out when the loudest losers in fandom had convinced Hasbro that what anybody wanted was "the same thing, but bigger," because it means that out of the three Z siblings, she's the only one who doesn't get an updated design. The three of them do make a nice set, still, with the only big drawback being that none of them change color in the sun. But there's no denying Zandar would be a lot better if you could choose to take his vest off, and if his armor didn't get in the way of his articulation. -- 05/23/25 Do you want a Classified Zanya? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.