G.i. Joe Classified # 179 Wet Suit
Navy SEALs are the toughest, meanest bunch of soldiers around, able to take on the military’s toughest training program and Brian M. Forrest may well be the roughest of them all. Specializing in Underwater Demolitions, Wet Suit can take on any undersea mission without breaking a sweat.
Wet Suit has the distinction of being my very first G.i. Joe figure. While I didn’t know what G.i. Joe was at the time (the cartoons weren’t airing yet locally back then). I guess as a 11-year old kid, I was attracted to the bright orange gear he as equipped with. Plus, it was a choice between him or Dr. Mindbender who were the only figures on the pegs at the store at that moment. Lol…
Wet Suit comes with a sidearm that can be mounted on his right thigh, as well as a knife that can be sheathed on his left thigh.
His scuba tank backpack is pretty reminiscent of the vintage toy’s.
Thankfully, the “air hose” is pretty thick this time around. This thing tended to break really easily back on the vintage toy.
Getting the helmet to fit perfectly can be a bit tricky, though. It took a few tries to get his eyes to come out above the lower edge of the goggles.
Swimming fins
Wet Suit comes with his diving gear, namely a big diving search light, and a sea sled
While the original Wet Suit figure didn’t come with any weapons, at least this guy has his pistol, which hopefully works underwater…?
In the real world, the Marines and Navy SEALs have an ongoing rivalry between them. This is faithfully depicted in the relationship Wet Suit, a SEAL, and Leatherneck, a Marine. They love being sarcastic at one another, but when there’s a job to be done, the two always set aside their differences and work together to win the day.
Overall, another pretty amazing release! I love how much this reminds me of the vintage toy. The sea sled and scuba tank are really great reminders of how cool the classic toy design was. I also love that we’re got an un-maskable head with this release. While it’s not really quite spot on to the Sunbow cartoon model (the head sculpt reminds me more of Torpedo), at least we’re getting something, as opposed to the lack of an extra “unmasked” head, like with Torpedo.
My only real gripe would probably be the lack of any real weapons, or at least some explosives for Wet Suit to mess around with, as underwater demolitions was his primary specialty.
Hasbro’s internal oddball codename for pre-orders for Wet Suit is “Mrburns”, after the Simpsons character.
Gold
