Aaron's
GI Joe
Adventure Team
Previous Adventure Team poll results are located here.
I rediscovered Joe around Christmas of 1996 soon after graduating from college. My wife and I were at Sam's Club and I saw one of the new Masterpiece Edition GI Joe Soldiers. I picked it up for $15.99 and took it home to play with it. It was a weird GI Joe with a bald head, but it had that certain familiarity about it. I jumped on the web and found out that not only were there these new Joes, but the Classic Collection was new, and there were still tons of folks out there collecting and playing with their Joes. I rushed back to Sam's Club and picked up about a dozen assorted ME Joes which were then down to $9.99 (I have since traded away all but a set of four in the boxes because they are just kinda neat shelf items).
More searching on the internet resulted in discovery of alt.toys.gi-joe newsgroup, affectionately known as the "Sandbox". This is a open forum discussion group about GI Joe (and his modern clones) and is inhabited by a generally great bunch of folks. I spend more time reading the "box" than I do my own email. I even got my first original Joe from a trade in the Sandbox.
Now, Joe has taken over a good portion
of my life and a big portion of my house. I have over 100
150 Adventure
Team figures, a handful of helicopters, jeeps, and other sundry vehicles
and play sets. Most of them are pieced together sets and Joes that
I managed to buy or trade for over the last few years. What can I
say, Joe is Joe and there is nothing else out there like him. He
stands for all those things that are so rare in our society now, like honesty,
duty, sacrifice, and commitment. Anyway, enough of that babbling,
that is where Joe and I stand.
GI Joe and My Kids
(Added 11 August 2012)
So, like all fathers I know, you want your kids to share in some of the things that you love. In that light, a few years back during a deployment to Iraq, I spent some time online shopping and sent my kids a 40th Anniversary Joe Collection Christmas. Here are some pictures that my lovely wife shared with me since I missed Christmas at home.
Joes on the Living Room Floor next to a Christmas tree. Reminds me of the early 70s.
JD playing with his new Joes.
Andrew checking out his Joe loot and understanding firsthand the awesomeness of KUNG FU GRIP!
This link is the most popular on the site. I have listed each uniform set by year and on each list what items complete the set. Each that I own has a picture of the actual item from my collection. Items I don't have are annotated so you can see what is missing.
This will eventually catalog all the non-uniform included accessory kits. Where I have the set, I'll post pictures of it with or without one of my figures as appropriate. If it has multiple pieces, I'll list those.
Vintage
AT Box Art
This link has pictures I've come
across of some of the excellent box art of the Adventure Team.
Reproduction AT Figures
A collection of the recent Reproduction AT
Figures including the GI Joe Collector Club, Walmart, and Hot Topic figures.
Monster AT Commander
Custom 1:3 Scale (24" tall) Adventure Team
Commander
Mini AT Figures
Some Custom Mego Scale (8 inch) Adventure Team
Joes that I pieced together.
Micro AT Figures
GI Joe Collector Club 3 3/4" Adventure Team
Figures
This GI Joe Adventure Team site has been visited at least times since its beginning on 29 December 2001