Yup, have now clocked the international section!!
Waded through the Dutch in vain hope of understanding, will open my eyes next time. I see the point, Hasbro were obviously very smart marketeers on the Oranje 'continent'!
Small country? Every Flem I know says they are Dutch (despite having a Belgian passport and usually being having served in Belgian forces
), so it's a large nation in spirit! "Wie kommen an in Luik" (und so weiter), that's practically central France for Christ's sake (fkn Liegeoise even learn Flemish just bcos of the super-hot Flem girls
! Oh yeah, Luik is practically Maastricht
watch the hills emerge from the plain, that's the goddamn border!!! Schengen forever, no cops now
But one time riding from Groningen to Brussels with a bunch of Low Countries' paras as soon as we hit the first sign for "Arnhem - Nijmegen -Eindhoven", as the Rhijn loomed large in the evening light on the horizon, they muttered "Market Garden... British Airborne" before I'd even as much as raised an eyebrow or ranted about eternal Dakotas flying to Holland. So I guess there's some kind of Dark Age Frisian empathy/fighting spirit that connects the various Action Force universes across these forums!
It's great you've got a lively site. Prob for me is that when Cobra came out I stopped buying anything - only got a Cobber Commander cos it was free with BAF - but still persevered reading the UK comics even beyond the Flint debacle (but the Transformer thing did finish me off) - so nowt but an odd tuppenny bit to throw in, if that. Au fait with kit and characters in the BAF & Marvel Cobra comics but not the toys themselves if you see what I mean. Even though the frkn Water Moccassin and Hydrofoil are perfect for the Shads! So can't really discuss enthusiastically the intricacies of the Dreadnoks, Crimson Guard, Destro-Baroness-Major Bludd love triangles etc.
Would be great to have the same kind of family here as you guys have. I wonder if the original AF was not around long enough to spawn one comparable to that for Gijoe.
I can remember getting Quarrel, Stalker and Steeler - even Red Laser! Their imperious thousand yard stares (apologies Laser) kinda freaked me at the time! Plus their vice like grips on crossbows & uzis! But they were just better at physical CQB...
And the realistic comics played a huge part. Ironic that just as the new additions to the range were being fully reflected in BAF the next thing we knew it was all being junked for Cobra... Creative and imaginative lines and the whole concept and story lines fitted in perfectly to the fighting spirit movies and comics we were being brought up on and the current events of the time (reflected in the comics) of plucky SF units against terrorists (and the odd full-scale war too). Dammit, I seemed to be force-fed the Dambusters and similar on the BBC after Sunday lunch at least once a month! Don't get me started on D-Day anniversary in 84, D-Day Dawson WAS in the Longest Day!
Speaking of which btw, my cunning plan if Gijoe.nl wins the poll is to send her Britannic Majesty's finest
back to win another battle honour at Walcheren!!!! Bugger, now I sound like the Baron.
And thus, yep, America was THE trendsetter, but hitting us with the full on Joe/Cobra was not so much hitting us as the market moved towards a peak and a well-fed plateau but more Reaganesque fumbling on the Lorenz tax curve - they could've got a lot more cash out of us kids with a more astute move through AF-ATT development! Or maybe that's my UK-biased blinkers.
So he we are, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers...
Fk, US aspirational reality branding or wotever it's called has sucked me into its interminable web once more, Nooooooooooooooooooooooo !!!!!!!!
