G.I. Joe began his life as America's Movable Fighting Man in 1964 in the form of a one-sixth scale, fully articulated action figure. After more than a decade on the shelves of toy stores across the country, Joe retired in the mid-70s. With the popularity of Star Wars figures, G.I. Joe returned in 1982 as a 3 3/4" Real American Hero and that's where my adventures with G.I. Joe began...
Airborne: Deep Behind Enemy Lines
Right from the start, I thought these little guys were awesome and when the 2nd wave of figures hit the scene in 1983, I was excited to expand my team of Joes. One of my absolute favorites from the second wave was a Helicopter Assault Trooper - Code Name: Airborne! According to the file card on the back of his package, Franklin E. Talltree was a Navajo from a Arizona. His family had made their fortune in the oil industry and as a kid, his parents let him take Sky-Diving lessons. Originally, Franklin pursued a career in law ...and even passed the Arizona State Bar Exams. However, he felt that his true calling was jumping out of airplanes, so he enlisted in the Army and graduated at the top of his class from Airborne School at Fort Benning in Georgia.
My original Airborne File Card from 1983
Airborne came with three accessories. He had one of the coolest guns of any G.I. Joe: a dark gray M-16 with a bayonet attached. I loved this gun! And considering how many times Hasbro re-used it in different colors, I must not be the only person who thought it was awesome. He also had a very cool helmet. It was similar to the helmets that came with most of the first wave figures, but with much better detail. It had the texture of a cloth helmet cover and it had goggles molded on. I thought it looked so good on Airborne that I rarely took it off the figure. Lastly, he came with a tan backpack. Technically, the backpack had a bedroll molded onto it, but I use to pretend it was a parachute. It also had an entrenching tool (or shovel) molded onto the back. As with Airborne's M-16, this backpack was re-used a good bit.
Airborne with his rifle, backpack, and helmet
Initially, upon his release, I thought Airborne was going to be one of the main guys for the next wave! The first commercial that I saw advertising the new 1983 figures featured four characters: Snow Job, Airborne, Doc, and Gung Ho. And around the same time, Airborne made his comic book debut in G.I. Joe #11 "The Pipeline Ploy" in May of 1983 with the same three guys. Unfortunately for Airborne, his role in that issue was a very minor one.
My childhood Airborne still looks good after years of adventures!
Airborne did occasionally make appearances in the G.I. Joe comics over the years, but usually had a relatively minor role as part of a flight crew. However, one of his bigger comic book roles can be found in issue #31 from January 1985. This issue introduced the wave 3 character Spirit Iron-Knife, the much more blatant example of a Native American Indian in the G.I. Joe universe. Airborne and Spirit were assigned to keep an eye on Snake-Eyes without being seen by him, which proved to be much more difficult than they thought it would be. This issue of the comic was pretty cool and had a lot of action! During the entire run of the original Real American Hero line, this is probably the issue that featured Airborne the most.
Spirit Iron-Knife and Airborne in GI Joe #31
Things are even worse for Airborne in the cartoon series. Even though he was featured in a couple of episodes in a drastically different uniform, he was mostly relegated to being the co-pilot in a helicopter or appearing in the background for a couple of seconds in an episode here or there. He certainly wasn't an A-List character in the cartoon like Duke, Stalker, or Scarlet. But he was always a favorite character of mine. Despite his typical absence from the cartoon and comic book, he made constant appearances in my G.I. Joe adventures and continues to be one of my all-time favorites even today!
1983 Airborne is ready for action!
Do you collect G.I. Joe figures? Which character is your favorite? Tell me below in the comments!
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I just started collecting G.I. Joes as an exciting hobby. Scarlett was always my favorite and still is. I also like Cover Girl, Lady Jaye, and Jinx. Even though I am a man I always felt that there could have been more female soldiers. I also have a lot of male favorites like Flint, Tunnel Rat, Zandar, and others. But Scarlett is my very favorite and was the first one I bought
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I just started collecting G.I. Joes as an exciting hobby. Scarlett was always my favorite and still is. I also like Cover Girl, Lady Jaye, and Jinx. Even though I am a man I always felt that there could have been more female soldiers. I also have a lot of male favorites like Flint, Tunnel Rat, Zandar, and others. But Scarlett is my very favorite and was the first one I bought
ReplyDeleteI do collect action figures my favorite gi joe is duke
ReplyDeleteIve got a retro 3.75 inch for sale of duke
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