[TAO's Note: With all of the fantastic sales currently running on GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra figures, it's easy to start considering figures you had passed on before. If Sgt. Stone was one that wasn't quite good enough at $8, after reading this review from DrNightmare, you might be giving him another glance.]
Name: Sgt. Stone
Line: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Released: 2009
Price: Retail: $5.00-$9.99; Online: $5.95-$14.99
Scale: 3.75 in. (Figure is about 3.87 inches tall, 4.00 inches to top of hat)
Accessories: Pistol, Machine Gun, Knife, Vest, Airplane-Shooter-Downer
Sponsor Listings: Amazon-$3.95
Sgt. Stone is a beefcake, this is undeniable. The massive forearms, tall stature, square jaw, he's manly enough to make that sissy French hat look good. He stands proudly shoulder-to-shoulder with the original badasses like Sgt. Stalker, or even on his own. He walks up to 6-inch figures and breaks their knees so he can look them in the eyes as he takes their lives away. I'm disappointed that the face-sculpt looks nothing like Brendan Fraser (I don't think they were aiming for his likeness anyway), much like I'm disappointed Patrick Warburton (David Puddy from Seinfeld) wasn't cast for a part in the G.I. Joe movie. Those two goobs make any film worth wathcing. Hell, where's Tom Selleck? Where's Magnum!? You can't have a macho manly movie without those guys. Can't have Chuck Norris though, or even Mike Rowe, production would stop every time they came on-set as everyone gawked at them in shock and awe at their manliness. Anyway, this is a sexy figure, though the face is a little boring. I don't suppose y'all would like these figures to come with facial expressions? The standard intimidating stare gets stale after a while. How about alternate heads?
The legs are parts you'll see on a few other figures in this Joe-line, with slim generic pouches on the thighs and detailed boots. I love the shirt, looks like some of the Ex-Officio or Colombia shirts I used to sell, with a zipper down the front instead of buttons and the ties on the sleeves. The collar of the undershirt is also sculpted on there. The gloves have lots of intricate details, adding to the overall realism of the figure. At first I thought they had the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers logo ("MMPR") on the back of the hand...but they don't, it's just a funny-looking pattern, lol. The tiny Joe-logo on the hat is sculpted! Awesome. I think the arms may be a tiny bit too long, but look great once posed.
Sculpt Score: 8 / 10
Except for the knees, the pants are completely painted, with the camo getting sloppy in some places. The black parts on the vest are blurry at the edges with some chunks not entirely painted. Looks like the stencil or whatever was off-center. The hair/eyes/hat applications are neat, the irises are brown dots with a smaller black dot on top. I'm not thrilled about the upper-arms, they're flesh-plastic painted black, which means sometime down the road the paint will rub off and you'll have to touch it up. The gloves have the same "problem", but I've been sticking things in and out of the hands for a while now and the paint is still holding strong. The G.I. Joe logos are faded, not on purpose either, not enough paint was applied to them. The torso is black plastic with a painted neck, a bit sloppy around the collar. I wouldn't have gotten this particular figure because of the paint-job, but it was the only Sgt Stone left in the store. It's not all that bad though, I'm more concerned about bad faces than bad pants I can easily fix.
Paint Score: 7 / 10
A pleasant surprise awaits customizers when examining this figure, the disks in the elbow joints are flat in front so there's no need to grind them down to avoid paint-rub! There's already a small gap appearing when moving the joint, so the disk and forearm don't rub, eliminating any damage. You still have to grind the back of the elbow though, you can't win 'em all, but this is a major step in our favor! Makes our lives a little easier and Hasbro saves some money by using less plastic.
The arms bend a full 90-degrees, and that's all we can ask out of such bulky forearms. Hands can hold and use all included weapons naturally. The torso-pivot has full range of movement, but it's incredibly stiff when leaning to the sides, just be careful when posing. In fact, all the joints are rock-solid, this is a well-constructed figure. My only complaint is the limitation of the neck-joint. It's a ball-joint, but the sculpt doesn't allow any other movement but swiveling. Wearing the vest will of course limit the torso-pivot, but it's flexible enough to allow a little tilting even when equipped. And an off observation, the little rubber disks in the hips aren't needed to stiffen the legs, they're plenty tight without them so you can use this figure's disks to replace any you've lost in other figs. Also, every figure I've seen that uses this set of legs seems to have a little gap, along the seam, near the top of each leg, right there in the hip-area. Why is that? Maybe the molds at the factory are warped or something.
Articulation Score: 8 / 10
In this case, usefulness for customizing doesn't translate into fun for everyone, Sgt Stone is a generic soldier action figure. Plain clothes, plain face, the same lame firearms we've seen everyone else carry, and not even any holsters. The giant missile-shooting thing is awesome though, I wish all the figures would come with something similar, a large destructive weapon that actually looks good in the battlefield. It has a flexible plastic tube that runs to a control pad, but "control pad" is stretching it, it's really just a little square of grey plastic on the end. Looks more like a pedal-type trigger to me. And as usual, the projectile launches hard!
I hate that ugly PN90 rifle, and handguns without holsters irritate me. The knife looks cool, I like collecting different kinds of knives and armors for my figures, so I also like the vest. Looks like it's one of those new soft bullet-proof vests... my Punisher is gonna borrow that thing for sure. I guess I can't complain too much, Sgt. Stone showed up for only a few minutes it seemed, if that, and unarmed (I think) so we're lucky we got any weapons at all...why not stuff that cool vehicle he was riding on into the package? Huh, Hasbro? Why not!? :P I'm just mad I don't have a mini Brendan Fraser on my shelf... but whatever, paint his pants brown and you have ROC Flint.
Fun Score: 7 / 10
For 5 measely dollars each, you can buy Sgt. Stone and all the rest of the G.I. Joe and Cobra gang thanks to the price cuts being done by many of the major retailers. Recently, K-Mart even did a Buy One Get One Free sale, and they were only 3 DOLLARS EACH! It's worth waiting around for the sales because these figures aren't disappearing off shelves any time soon. If one store doesn't have a wave you need, chances are the store next door will have it. All current waves are still being seen all across this country (U.S.) so don't worry about missing any of them.
For the cost of a burger, you get a larger than average figure, 3 hand-weapons, 1 huge weapon, body armor, a stand, and those mandatory paper-inserts/mini-posters that show all the other Rise of Cobra stuff being sold. So, is this figure worth $5? Hell yeah! To me anyway, I don't know how much the average kid will like it. I mean, he's not all neon pink and orange like all the vintage toys, so I think kids will hate this toy, a G.I. Joe figure without a giant head or some other kind of obnoxious attribute is no Joe at all! *snark* But at $8...eeeehhh, I don't know, I think I'd rather buy a bunch of cheeseburgers.
Value Score: 8 / 10
76 / 100 - This is a Good Toy
A big beefy chunk of manly plastic with a respectable arsenal, the only thing manlier than this figure is the MMA and Build N' Brawl figures, with their exposed hairy chests and tight yellow underwear and booties.
-DrNightmare
This could be the figure given away in this month's Review Commentator Contest. Join the discussion by leaving a comment on this review for a chance to win!
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