G.I. Joe (60's, 70's)

My first Joe was an Air Adventurer, complete with orange county-prison jump suit , blonde afro and beard, and a shoulder holster containing a Lebel revolver that was lost within 4 hours. Better than that, though, was the "super deluxe window box adventure set" next to him- "Fantastic Freefall!" the box proclaimed.
I thought there was another GI Joe inside, but some evil toy designer had dressed the cool pilot uniform, working parachute and crash helmet around some joe-shaped soft hollow plastic.
The $%*^&@$s.
I kept the hollow "Joe," which resembeled a botched attempt at cloning, and used him as an all-around evil nemesis. This was Christmas in the early 70's, and all the boys my age in the entire neighborhood had gotten joes this year, as though we'd all passed some right of passage and were now men enough to play with dolls. Of course, these weren't dolls, not even "action figures-" there were GI Joes.
How many Barbies bravely jumped off the roof with their working parachute, floating gracefully down to the earth, when tragedy struck and the firecracker that the enemy had somehow shoved in their pants exploded. The limbs flew, their bands snapped, as the surviving torso stoically descended.
Our older brothers scuffed at our Joes- My cousin, seven years older than me, had built a diorama with his army-style joes, the kind made in the mid sixties that had heavy weapons, bazookas, sandbags, and sets with names like "beachhead assualt" and "Green Beret Machine Gun Outpost." The diorama was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in five years. Over 20 joes, complete with three jeeps, fought the imaginary and unnamed enemy. It was nearly flawless ( a shortage of joes had forced him to use a blue-skinned Dr. evil from the Captian Action series as a jeep driver and a Marx Noble Knight as a medic. He did dress them in combat fatigues, though.) He also won a major award at school for his realism of battle.
Although we didn't have the firepower of the earlier joes, we had Kung-Fu grip, and elemental designations for our adventurer Joes (they came in air, sea, and land...except for the african-American version who was mysteriously denied a climate of his own.)
Until Star Wars came along, I collected every Joe I could find. Even at sixteen, when I came home to a garage sale in progress, I took back the 1964 jeep some guy was trying to buy from my mom, boxed up the rest, and still have some of the joes I got back then. In the late 80's and early 90's, before E-bay, I came across a guide to toys and saw pictures of my beloved joes. In 1989 it wasn't unusual to find a box of vintage joes, captain action, marx, or other old action figures for $5. I bought some of the sets I'd never had and a few I did. I found Marx Knights in armor, james Bond, and on one strange occasion a complete set of barbie and ken outfits from 1962 that had never been opened. A dealer bought them through the mail, and they paid for rent and beer for a many months. Today they would probably pay for a new car.
I still have about 20 Joes and complete outfits, and the same of Marx and Captain action, but I've got them packed away.
Except for the Air Adventurer that I still keep on my bookshelf.
And I still keep losing his revolver...

Star Wars in Movies
Barbie in Toys
Captain Action in Toys
Star Wars in Toys
Afro in Fashion
Star Wars in Arcade Games