Beachead
We all have our favorites and I am going to start off very quickly with this profile telling you Beachead is my favorite Joe. First I do want to note something, I do tend to put Beachead's name as one word, its something I have done since he first came out and I really have found no practical reason to stop. Some of you can call me on the spelling mistake, but it will still stand as it is.
I found Beachead in 1986 along with the rest of the line from that year. There was something I liked about him right away. As I have stated my Parents had already told me I was "Too Old" for toys but I grabbed BH and a few others that year (In fact 1985 and 86 are the two years that I acquired mostly in the second hand market whereas I got most of the rest at the time they came out).
Beachead's cartoon persona was deathly serious, a direct conflict to previous characters like Shipwreck. This is one of the major things that appealed to me. However I ended up expanding that idea further. Beachead is carrier military, but not in the sense that he hopes for General someday. I put on him an aspect of myself which is a workaholic. When I am in a job, any job, I tend to do a great deal towards it (a fact many past employers have tried to exploit). Beachead IS the job (a part of my personality that tends to be detrimental at times since I tend to forget about the rest of the world).
I made Beachead dead serious (this is when I know my workholism has become a detriment). He never cracks a joke, rarely shows emotion other than anger (again a determent sign) and generally is hard to get along with (sign number 3 for me as well). But I still felt the character hadn't been fleshed out totally until GI Joe the Movie.
While for the most part I hated the film, it did add an element to Beachead that gave me something to really work with, he was the trainer of the Rawhides. My thought was if he was trainer he had to be really good with hand-to-hand combat, so I came up with the idea that he had studied martial arts, LOTS of martial arts. I got this from his fight with Jinx (even though he lost in the Movie I felt he had to know his stuff). I had him figured as a guy who went through several different forms and picked and chose his favorite and most effective moves.
This is also about the time I figured out Ninjas were not Supermen. At that point I ended up deciding that Beachead was just slightly better than Snake Eyes at straight up hand-to-hand combat. A fact that when I put it out in a Diostory I got a lot of criticism for. Still I stand by it since I think while Ninjitsu is good, nothing can really beat a combination of styles.
On to the figures:
Right off the bat I was a bit disappointed in Beachead. To say he has a melon head is a slight understatement. He defiantly personifies some of the things I disliked about the ARAH style. I do still love his torso and arms and legs, all of which are practical and very military without making him look "regimented" as so many figures in this paint scheme could be. That little detail of the beret held in his shoulder was icing on the cake for me in the day. I never even noticed it for a year after getting him LOL.
Still I tried to explain away the melon head by saying he had extra wrapping around his head, although I never had an explanation for that honestly LOL.
Later came the Battle Corps version of Beachead that I just wasn't happy at all about. He really didn't have the right look in my opinion. I used to have one, but traded it off years ago. There were two paint deco's and while the mold was decent, again it just wasn't Beachead to me.
Beach went several years being kind of ignored, he never appeared in the TRU exclusives nor in the collectors editions. Personally I was pretty ok with the original at that point, but I would have liked one without the huge head.
Be careful what you wish for.
So with JvC we got a Beachead with a normal proportioned head, but somehow had HUGE hands. Add to the fact that when purchased the legs needed to be swapped (to avoid the bow legged look) and you could say I was a bit disappointed in Hasbro. I tried to explain away the fists with the fact he was wearing Miner Gloves (being in coal country like I am I have seen these a great deal). They are huge gloves with metal inside to protect the fingers. They are impractical of course since it is so hard to grasp anything with them (However the idea is that you are grasping huge rocks and tossing them on the line). They are not as in use now as they used to be but can still be found occasionally. But if you have seen them you can imagine getting hit by one and how bad it would hurt.
Amway that was the idea with Beachead (and honestly if he could have gotten away with it while holding a gun I bet he would have done that, but the gun was the problem). It worked in my mind briefly, but then I started wondering if there would ever be a Beachead I didn't have to explain the flaw away on.
Later came the "mustard" repaint of this figure (with the same leg problem). Which also came with one of my favorite New Sculpt army builders, Sand Viper. Because I loved Sand Viper so much I got a ton of Mustard BH's. I turned them into everything from Urban Cobra Troopers to Red Shadow Troopers (Which I have shown enough I don't feel the need to present them here).
The Spy Troops movie came out about this time and with it what I consider one of the worst Joe characterizations in any media. Beachead sounded like a Ninja Turtle, I understand the logic but really it was just sad to watch. I know Hasbro thought "Beachead, give him a surfer's voice." but really on screen and in practical use it just feel flat. I got into a few fights on the internet over that, but I still maintain it hurt the Spy Troops movie.
Then came one of the most inexplicable repaints I ever recall.
Rampage, who came with the Split Fire (which I never really knew why it was called that since it didn't split as far as I have been able to tell, but that is beside the point I suppose). But the part that got me was his file card where it said they dress alike. OOOOKAY. I really thought this figure could have worked as a "Frankenstein" rather than a direct repaint. He even had the leg problem I mentioned above. What is really odd is when you go into Rampage's history as a character in the Joe line. The original character was a direct repaint of Heavy Metal with a file card that just replaced HM with Rampage's name. Basically the character is kind of a throw away name when you look at it.
Still the constant repainting was one of my biggest complaints about GI Joe and Hasbro at the time. It did seem that every time you turned around there was yet another repaint. While it was said this was to reduce costs to the line, I thought it was more cost effective to just slow down a bit and maybe go back to a single pack formula (Something Hasbro seems to be doing now, but not slowing down LOL).
But speaking of repaints, Night Force is up.
Now with things like the Night Force pack I am less critical since the whole purpose of their release is to update the paint jobs of older and usually less seen molds (At least until they become overused). Beachead was a nice update with some interesting colors, but of course he still had that melon head that the original had. With the darker colors the head is less noticeable but still pretty rough. The NF version was released again with the GI Joe Hydrofoil (A repaint of the Cobra Hydrofoil with a Joe theme). It was a fair toy but not something I jumped at since I had the figures with it anyway and had my original Hydrofoil.
Of course VvV took a stab at Beachead
And I have to say feel a bit short. It took me along while to figure out what it was that bugged me about both paint jobs. There was no proportion problems. There was a lack of detail, but it was exasperated by something else. I wasn't a huge fan of the chest piece but that wasn't it. Another part was the loose fitting sleeve coming from the tight one (kind of unrealistic to say the least). It was actually a comment by Tim Elf of Joecustoms that made me realize it, Beachead had no eyebrows. I couldn't believe it was so simple and yet I missed it. I tried with an extra single pack to draw some on him but it still fell short.
So at this point I was bummed, I figured maybe a comic pack might bring a decent head to Beachead but that wasn't to be. Also more problems for Beachead were on the horizon
That's right it was convention time.
This figure was given to me by someone who had a Beachead replaced (Look and you will see the mistaken arm). Hence the sign. However this figure, well there is no nice way to say it, is really bad. With his melon head he looks like "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" version of Beachead. I wanted him for love of the character but really what was someone thinking here. He defiantly takes second in command of my Whacky figure brigade (Headed up by Toxo-Zombie). If you look in his eyes you can see the depression entering his soul, asking "Why did someone use such a crappy design on me." Really a sad, sad figure especially for the price.
At this point out of frustration I made a custom Beachead. I had an abundance of new sculpt parts and that is what I went with.
I think he is ok, but not great. He works for what I had him as but I really wanted Hasbro to give me a great BH at this point. Honestly I hate doing any established character and while I do like this custom overall I kind of wondered why Hasbro couldn't give me something closer to this since it was so simple for me to do.
Well yet again I got a surprise.
The 25th anniversary version of Beachead really delivered to me what I wanted with the character. No melon head, no exaggerated hands, no orange. I ordered this one online since the distribution problems with the line were (and are) so prevalent. Of course I have seen this figure in the store since (but a year later). Still I do like him, Like him a great deal in fact. His vest hides the terrible chest joint that has given me fits since I first saw Duke. He does have hands that don't quite go a full 45 degrees, but with all the problems he has had in the past I will accept that as long as I can not have swollen hands or something. Of course the diaper crotch is a letdown, I have heard there is a fixed crotch version, but I have yet to track it down. Still I will work with this one and make him stand all the time.
Like Roadblock, I have always had Beachead a bit taller than the rest (If anyone remembers the cover on the DD GI Joe series of BH looking down at a recruit that is fairly accurate to how I have viewed him). So in that regard (Just like Roadblock) he fits in with my Joes nearly perfect (with what I was thinking anyway).
With all the history this next pic should be obvious.
Not saying he is perfect, but that he is pretty darn good. Again, after all my proportion problems just having a BH that is proportionate to himself and has eyebrows and not a dull body type, well you get why he is here. Still I think Hasbro should have been on the ball with my favorite Joe and given us a much better rendition 5 years ago, but nothing can change that.