G.I. Joe Convention 2013 - Nocturnal Fire Night Force Muskrat

As evidenced in other reviews for the Nocturnal Fire Convention Set, 1988 was a strange year in the G.I. Joe mythos. You had outlandish characters like Hardball, totally bizarre designs like Charbroil, and even an honest to goodness Samurai in a military special operations toyline. Yet, within the confines of a strange entry in G.I. Joe lore, three figures stood out the most to me. First of all, as one might guess, was Hit & Run. The second one was Shockwave, who I found very cool in spite of his bright blue uniform with yellow mixed in the camouflage.

The third figure was Muskrat. For some reason, I absolutely fell in love with Muskrat in 1988, and his character was a total blank slate. I mentioned in Hit & Run's review that he was the top operative in the G.I. Joe team in my little Joe story from the early 90's. Muskrat was right there with him, skidding along on his kickboard, hacking Cobra's with his machete and whacking them with his shotgun. He was the man.

So here we are, many years later, and we have the first "modern era" version of the venerable swamp fighter. You know what? Yeah. Still the man.

Muskrat is a very basic formula. He's not 100% vintage faithful, but that is totally okay. He retains the look and feel of the original, without being totally devoted to it. Muskrat has the familiar PoC Snake Eyes legs, a generic torso, and the great arms from the Pursuit of Cobra Duke. His head sculpt is a new one for the G.I. Joe line, though it has appeared as part of the Jurassic Park line in some pre-production images. I love the angry scowl on his face, and the parts choices are terrific. Without his vest, he looks like a pretty generic black-suited operative, which is awesome. The arms, knees, and torso allow for nearly flawless range of motion, and I'm beyond thrilled that the Collectors' Club now has access to some of these later parts and pieces to craft these figures.

Another great aspect of this figure is the paint scheme. Obviously Night Force is Night Force because of some darker colors... I really loved Muskrat's original green colors from 1988, but his Night Force version is darker, and even more interesting, in my opinion. The base uniform is pretty much all black with some very nice green trim. Muskrat's hat and vest are a nice metallic blue which adds some terrific color to the figure, without going overly bright.

ACCESSORIES

Muskrat has a nearly perfect allotment of accessories, though I would have loved to have seen him come with the boogie board that the original came with. That aside, I love what I see here. He has what appears to be a newly sculpted boonie hat which fits the head perfectly. He has Lamprey's vest. which is not the least big vintage accurate, but it really doesn't have to be. It simulates the look of the classic vest, and with the underwater valves, it only makes more sense for a swamp trooper.

He has a great curved machete, and the familiar Snake Eyes knife and pistol w/ silencer. Rounding off the complement is a great upgrade to his classic shotgun, the new automatic weapon that the Slaughter Marauder Lt. Falcon originally came equipped with. Every accessory here makes sense. Very good stuff.

A magnificent base figure, with some really nicely detailed and articulated tooling. Some muted, but still fun, color schemes. An almost perfect slate of weapons. Yes, Muskrat has it all. This is a fantastic update to a character I really love, and the Collectors' Club knocked it out of the park. One of the highlights of this entire set. I really love this one.

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