GI Joe Collector's Club Big Boa





Back in 2011, the GI Joe Collector's Club offered the first series of their Figure Subscription Service, a little thing intended to get into collector's hands those figures that Hasbro had no interest in offering. I've been a member for years now, since the Club offered Dial-Tone as a free membership figure, so that has to be 2010.

The Service costs around $400 for thirteen figures, so it's HUGELY expensive. I never bought in again after the first series, since the value to me isn't there. (I have no desire for repaints of Hasbro-made characters in international repaint colors, and that's what far too many figures are in each year, in my opinion.) The only reason I bought in was for Cover Girl and Big Boa, since I figured (rightly) that those two would be the most expensive on the secondary market. A cursory glance a eBay just now shows carded examples of these two at around $300 for the pair, which is damn crazy, but that's how it goes.

As a figure, though, Big Boa is fantastic. Part of the much-maligned Cobra Circus of 1987 (other members included Raptor and Crystal Ball), Big Boa is Cobra's trainer. He was initially designed to be Cobra's counterpart to GI Joe's Rocky Balboa, who, believe it or not, was going to be in the GI Joe line in 1987, like Sgt. Slaughter and The Fridge in 1986. Alas, Sylvester Stallone's agent got too greedy, or it was that Stallone's likeness was already being used by Coleco for their Rambo toyline, so Hasbro had no problem scrapping the idea. They kept Big Boa, because he's just so perfectly weird that it would be a crime to deny GI Joe fans the opportunity to add him to their collections.

Either Hasbro didn't have time to get this guy into the 25th Anniversary line, or they thought it was just too weird, but that didn't stop the Club. But, let's face it- this guy was going to be a sensation as a $30 figure, of which maybe 3000 were made. Had he been offered at retail, in a run exceeding 25,000 (or whatever number GI Joe 25th Ann. figures were made) he'd have been the worst pegwarmer in the line. Which is the case with most of the figures the Club has been offering. Now in its fifth incarnation, Raptor is about to drop soon, and I'm willing to bet he'll command some serious coin too. Not $150, but a lot.

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