Dusty (Pursuit of Cobra)

May 18, 2011 | By More


Dusty is one of the GI Joe characters I always kind of liked but never owned. A bit snarky, he always seemed out of his element when you would see him in the comics or animated show. “Here’s our desert trooper in the arctic.”

Since much of the worlds combat these days happens in arid environments, Dusty seems a lot more useful to the Joe team than soldiers ready to battle in a forest or jungle.

Appearance:

Most of the Pursuit of Cobra figures have got updates to put them in a certain environment. In Dusty’s case, it’s just an update. Truth be told, it was time. The Beau Geste look may have appealed to us folks when we were younger and only knew about desert combat from watch movies about Rommel. Today, folks see combat troops on the news and know what their desert gear should look like.

And they did a pretty nice job of an update here. Mostly he looks like a modern combat troop.

The shoulder and knee pads looks like actual protective pads. The knee pads actually even have painted straps. The gloves are detailed out as well, and again look like actual combat equipment.

 

His arms, I don’t quite understand. His sleeves are rolled past his elbows. It seems like a good way to get a bad case of sunburn, or in this case, bad paint. The paint between the elbow and shirt cuff is almost like an MC Eischer painting. On one side it looks like a shirt sleeve, on the other it matches his arm. It’s minor, but it’s present on both arms.

The main portion of his body appears to be some sort of tan and brown colored body armor. His stomach is covered with an odd combination of web gear and hip armor.  The more I look at it the more I’m not sure how practical that web gear would really be. I also think they missed out with either a sculpted or accessory “Camelbak” for this figure.

The paint overall really give Dusty the look of somebody who has been stuck in a bad spot without access to a shower.  The arms and face look both dirty and tan thanks to a brown wash. For the record, this wash works better than it ever did on a Sandtrooper. There is a slight line where the wash ends on his forehead, but I’m not entirely sure that isn’t intentional or unrealistic. Sadly, his slightly too long neck is painted in very pale colors that don’t come close to matching his head.

Speaking of the head, it wasn’t what I quite expected. The side part gives a bit of an old fashioned look. If anything, he looks like Damian Lewis’s Captain Winters from Band of Brothers to me.

Well, it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. In the promotional pictures I saw, Dusty had on a sculpted shemagh around his neck. The piece is present here, sculpted in black. It would have been nice to have a little paint on it to represent a pattern on the piece.

However, I’d never seen a picture that showed the piece of fabric hanging down from it in the back. Essentially, Dusty has a cape. The fabric is the same worn tan stuff they used for the Vintage Collection Sandperson robe. It looks like something that has weathered numerous sandstorms. However, it’s not removable from the scarf piece. It’s also not big enough to wrap around him in any useful way. He looks like a little kid trailing mom’s old worn out tea towel behind him.

Fun:

While I mentioned the regular head above, I didn’t mention his helmet. Much the same as the shock trooper, the goggles are a separate piece. And again. they sculpted a bit oversize for my taste. The helmet, while not painted, is pretty much what you would expect to see as current issue for desert troops.

To make up for the goggles not practically working, Hasbro did something cool by including a second head. This one is geared up to weather a storm. The hooded version of Dusty has has a ballcap on and his goggles down. A dust mask of some sort finishes off the bottom of his face. The cool thing they did here was making the goggles a separate clear piece that lets his eyes show through underneath. This ads a bit of realism to the head.

I’m actually surprised with the proliferation of pistols we’ve seen in the Joe line lately, Dusty doesn’t have one. He does have two machine guns to make up for it though. Molded in grey with some detailing, they are okay. Not the best weapons, but far from the worst.

The accessory i really wanted to see was the barbed wire. Yes, Dusty comes with a coil of barbed wire. It’s okay. The barbs seem a little oversize, buy I’m sure a lot of that has to do with scale. The down side? There’s noting to hook it too. If he had some little base pieces this to hook this too it would have been way cooler. I’m sure it will find it’s way into a diorama someday for me, I just have to think about how I’m going use it.

Overall:

I think this is a pretty good update of Dusty. It just makes more sense than his old look. Having an extra head is very nice touch.

The overall look makes me not even miss his old brown camo. As most of you know I like accessories, and I think Dusty fell just a little short in that department. His cape doesn’t make up for the lack of a pistol or having barb wire with no practical way to use it.

Engineernerd Score: 90/100

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Category: Featured, GI Joe, Toy Reviews

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Comments (3)

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  1. Errex says:

    Cool figure. I’m not entirely sold on the scarf/cape thingie, but the overall aesthetic reminds me of the Colonial Marines from the Aliens movie.

  2. Engineernerd says:

    Huh. I hadn’t thought about that. I can see it now that you say it though. I think one of the new Cobras comes with a Stedicam gun as well.

  3. Matakin Skywalker says:

    I think Dusty is a very cool figure. I’m surprised this seems to be one of the last Joes to leave the pegs in some places. One of my favourite PoCs.