Ace (Vintage)
Well I didn’t think was right to look at the new Ace without taking a look back at the vintage one. This Ace came with the original Skystriker and his design was featured in most of his early comic appearances:
Appearnace:
He looks like an astronaut. There I said it. It’s probably not Hasbro’s fault. I’m sure there were plenty of futurists and technology gurus at the time that said this what future pilots would be wearing. If I remember right some high altitude air craft do require this kind of suit. Just not the F-14 Ace flies.
The large collar and Michelin Man arms and legs lend the most to this appearance. They are okay. It’s obviously a pressurized suit and one of my favorite details is the locking cuffs on the gloves.
There are some splotches of red to brighten him up in places. The color scheme was echoed on the 25th line’s Matt Trakker. Honestly, I honestly wondered if the base figure for Trakker was intended to be Ace at some point.
Speaking of paint, his groin is painted in superhero fashion. He’s got a red Speedo and some grey harness around his groin. I can say in battle, that’s one area I wouldn’t be painting a target on.
What is missing paint is the gun sculpted on his chest. This makes much more sense to me than the new versions ankle holster.
Fun:
As a vehicle pilot, Ace probably wasn’t the most exciting figure in kid’s collections. I would Imagine he got shunned for lack of accessories and astronaut looks.
To be fair, he has one accessory, his helmet. I always thought this worked out pretty cool. At this scale, it’s nice to see they could work out a removable helmet that you could still see his face through.
Overall:
While I’m not a huge fan of him as a pilot, I do like Ace. Of course, I dig astronauts as well. As a symbol of his time and representation of the character, he’s pretty much spot on.
Engineernerd Score: 89/100
Category: Featured, GI Joe, Toy Reviews
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Wow, who’d guessed you’d do vintage Ace back to back with the 30th Ace? 😉 Anyway I promised a story and here it is: I got the Skystriker for Christmas the year it came out, and my brother and I wasted no time testing out the parachutes. We climbed out onto the roof over the front porch of our house and I balled up the parachute and hurled Ace skyward. The chute opened perfectly and we watched as it glided gently toward the ground, narrowly missing a couple branches. We climbed back in the house and ran outside to retrieve Ace and his ejector seat and when we grabbed the seat and chute realized Ace had come loose and was not there. My brother and I started looking around but it was a white Christmas and all we saw was snow, and even with his bright trunks and patches Ace was nowhere to be found. While understandable upset, I didn’t lose too much sleep over losing Ace, I just promoted someone else to pilot and moved on, just as Ace would have wanted us to. I made some adjustments to the seat by adding a rubber-band on subsequent ejections. Fast forward a couple months and as the world started to thaw, my brother and I were out on routine maneuvers, I with my APC full of good guys and he with his HISS tanks and bad, when what should we find laying in a flowerbed but good ol’ Ace! He has ridden out the winter by sheltering beside a landscaping rock and aside from some rusty screws had survived intact, including his helmet! From then on Ace was elevated in rank and became our chief SERE instructor. Alas my original Ace was lost to me later when I parted ways with my collection but I was able to “replace” him a few years ago when I got back into the hobby.
The Trakker base figure WAS Ace at one point. ;^)
http://www.yojoe.com/action/08/captace.shtml
It was? I must have missed that one!