Gi Joe review: Arise Serpentor Arise DVD Battles Pack

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I found this on clearance at my local Wal-Mart for $15. Couldn't resist, especially since I've been looking for it for a couple of months now and it has Serpentor in it.

This set features three figures- Serpentor, a new-enough BAT, and Dusty. Also included are weapons, a DVD with the 'Arise, Serpentor, Arise' miniseries, a piece of the MASS Device that can be assembled after buying all five current Battle Packs, and a glorified accessory taking the place of a figure in this set, Montezuma's Skeleton.

We'll start with the figures. Dusty will be first. You, as of press time, can't get Dusty anywhere else, so for most collectors, he's the big draw of the set. He looks great. The original Dusty came out in 1985, and looking back on it now, you can see the strides Hasbro has made in paint apps. Now Dusty looks like he didn't fall face first into a pile of shit, so that's got to count for something.
The BAT will be next. He's exactly the same as the BAT you may or may not have purchased in wave 9, save for some new paint. It now has a red visor instead of a silver one, and the blackwash on the android parts isn't present, making it look a little more like the BATs you see on the included DVD. It's always good to get another BAT.
The big draw of the set for me was the new version of Serpentor. The wave 2 and Air Chariot versions were based more on Serpy's Devil's Due comic appearances, and while that was great, I was hoping for a cartoon accurate version from Hasbro, and they delivred in this set. Serpy gets some more snake accoutrements and a new paint job, pulling off the look very effectively. I could have gone for a bronzed version like the original figure, but considering Serpentor's meager popularity with everyone but me, I'll take what I can get.

Then there's the DVD. I think this five-part miniseries kicked off the second season of the GI Joe animated series, and it's full of all the stuff that made the cartoon great- lots and lots of military hardware, guns blazing, American troops treading on foreign soil without permission in an attempt to stop Cobra, and bad accents on both sides. Of course, in Reagan's America, this was all OK, and judging by all this being in a kid's cartoon, even encouraged. And to think that Hasbro, in 2002, censored the word 'terrorist' from GI Joe packaging.

Yeah, you want to buy it. It's worth the full $20 it normally costs, but saving $5 makes this a damn good package.

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