Roadblock is one of the earliest instances of a GI Joe duplicating military specialties with another member of the team. Roadblock is a Heavy Machine Gunner, which was originally Rock 'n' Roll's job has the teams Machine Gunner. I always enjoyed Roadblock on the cartoon, and loved his v2 figure. I just never really got into this version as a kid. I'm not a big fan of the pants that almost match his skin tone and I couldn't figure out what was going on with his shirt. I now know he is wearing a camo "wife beater" with a harness over it, but as a kid I couldn't figure out the sculpt and thought it was a really strange shirt with no sleeves and no visible shoulder fabric. I just thought it looked weird. Like Gung Ho, the original Roadblock also seemed too skinny compared to the way he appeared in the comics and cartoons.
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Roadblock was one of the last figures to come with the standard helmet (it's light green like the gun... kind of looks tan in the photos). He also came with a really awesome .50 cal machine gun with a tripod. In addition he also came with a brown backpack with a removable ammo box. (The tan backpack pictured is from a weapons pack) His tripod could be attached to his backpack for when he carries the gun.
I appreciate this figure a lot more today than I did as a kid. The Tiger Force version shares this mold and was very popular with several of my friends growing up.
I have a couple of RoadBlocks but not this one yet. : )
ReplyDeleteI had this one. First appearance in the comic was issue 20 right?
ReplyDeleteI also thought his face was a bit off when compared to the cartoon version.I have this version but never as a kid.I remember picking the Tiger Force version because it was the closest to the original.
ReplyDeleteOwned that one as a kid. Wish I still had him...
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