Ripper (Dreadnok)

January 12, 2011 | By More


Ripper is the first Dreadnok in my small GI Joe collection. I just never really understood them. They are essentially an Aussie motorcycle gang. I’m sure they were styled after the baddies in the Mad Max series of films.

It’s not that they aren’t entertaining, but other than a diversion what military purpose would they serve Cobra? Surely, the masses of the Cobra army contain troops that could do the same tasks.

Anyway, Ripper here is the first of the gang to make it to my collection. Mainly due to the insane price I found him for.

Appearance:

This version of Ripper is obviously styled on both the original figure and his cartoon appearances. The bright colors are a testament to that. Bright yellow shirt like thing and bright blue pants.

I’m sure these are suppose to be some sort of blue jeans, but I’m not sure they come across that way. They are really bright blue. The cargo pockets are on the front of the leg instead of the side as well.

There are a couple things with his pants that kind of bug me. The knee color is slightly off from the leg color. This makes the knee piece stand out and look more like a knee pad than part of legs.

The second thing that bothers me involves his boots. A wash or some detailing would have helped these brown blobs out. They just look plain. But what stands out on them is the blue piece used in the ankle that matches the pants. A brown ankle piece would have been a much better choice.

His upper body fares much better. The green web gear is well done, and has some detailing on it. I think the vest is suppose to be animal print, but it looks much more like random black blotches. Animal prints were all the rage back in the days when this fella was around so I’m guessing that’s what it is.

Playing into the whole biker persona, the arms are flesh tone with black gloves. Other than the black gloves, the only paint on the arms is a Corbra tattoo. It’s well done and clear for the size. Seems odd a mercenary type would put an employer’s emblem on his arm. It would be like a clerical temp getting an IBM tramp stamp while she was working there.

To me the head comes off looking a little thuggish due to it being a little squat. I suppose that’s okay, the Dreadnok’s never seemed overlay intelligent. There some silver shades to finish off the road warrior look. While the sunglasses are painted well enough, I still wish they would find a way to cover up the flesh tone at the bottom of the hairline. It just bugs me for some reason.

Fun:

I did say above that the Dreadnoks were entertaining. And to cause that mischief and mayhem they have some pretty specialized gear.

Ripper of course has to come with something cable of ripping something apart. And he’s made a great choice, a portable jaws of life unit. There’s three components to it, the backpack, the cable (tube), and the hand unit.

The pack is two pieces, a frame and a motor. I don’t believe the real life version of this particular tool has a pack mount option, but the GI Joe world has characters that lug 50 cal machine guns. It’s got a decent amount of detail in it. In general, a pretty cool little piece that a customizer could turn into any number of small gas powered accessories.

The cord for the jaws in the real world would most likely be some sort of hydraulic lines filled with oil. I understand at this scale that is heard to convey. However, the tubing included with Ripper keeps wanting to go back to it’s packaged shape. I think a rubber piece instead of vinyl would work better. I might even see how he looks with a heavy braided string.

I’m a little disappointed in the jaws themselves. I expected them to be geared or ratcheted instead of just free moving pieces. They are nice, but not as cool as I thought they would be.

Rounding out his arsenal is a machine gun with a blade on the end. While it’s not spectacular, the silver detail on the end gives it enough visual umph to not look generic.

Ripper also comes with the requisite figure stand with his name on it.

Overall:

So in general, there’s a couple of things that are a little less than perfect, but nothing too awful. He’s got a fair amount of gear as well. I’d have to say he’s a pretty solid figure. If you were mild fan of the Dreadnok’s, I’d think you would be happy with guy. If you can find him at a bargain price like I did, you really can’t go wrong.

Engineernerd Score: 89/100

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Category: Featured, GI Joe, Toy Reviews

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  1. Engineernerd says:

    I don’t know if I realized it at the time, but I’ve been DVRing some GI Joe RAH episodes on Hub recently and picked up on it.

  2. Errex says:

    I had never made the Mad Max connection since I watched some of the cartoons dubbed, and the comics he appeared in translated, but now it all makes sense.

    The figure looks nice enough to pick up and the accessories are rather unusual, which can be a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view.

  3. fishmilkshake says:

    That’s how all Australian bikers look. Amazingly accurate really 🙂 I do like his Fred Flintstone shirt too. Nice one Errex.