REVIEW: GI Joe: Pursuit of Cobra - City Strike Firefly

City Strike Firefly | Produced by Hasbro | Released August 2010 

Firefly works for Cobra as a saboteur with expertise in explosives, espionage and silent infiltration. During the urban battle he uses multi-resonance structural demolition (MRSD) pods to collapse a building, trapping the GI Joe team members inside. His titanium body armor and arm shields protect him from the blast.

After our months of Making Mine Marvel, we continue our new trend of Going for Joe(ing.) 

I need to work on that one...

Packaging

City Strike Firefly uses the standard GI Joe single-carded figure blister-pack. I like that Firefly is shown with his helmet rather than mask (see below), as it helps distinguish him from, say, Beachhead. Indeed the two share some thematic similarities and I think they're intended to maybe be arch-enemy/counterparts or a Yin to the others Yang.

The rear of the pack also includes the cut and collect ID card for Firefly, along with a brief biography.

Sadly, like most carded figures these days, the blister-pack must be cut/torn free to allow access to the toy.

Firefly

Firefly is one of the more realistic villains from the range. Indeed - as said earlier - with his mask-head in-place he looks very similar to Beachhead, one of the more realistically-modeled Joes. Firefly is clad in grey camo pants and a dark-grey chest piece, over which he's wearing his titanium armour. The armoured vest - which is removable - has a good, solid look to it and a lot of detailing, including pads, pouches, explosive charges and even what appears to be some kind of electronic control system. All-in-all, there's a lot of detail here without it looking too busy.

He also comes equipped with a slot-in backpack. I'll talk about this more in the Extras section but it's a very-nicely designed piece that slots through the vest into the port in his back and remains there quite snuggly. It's also functional, meaning you can open it and store equipment within. I'd be tempted to buy a number of Firefly figures just to get the backpack alone, as there are a lot of GI Joe figures that would benefit from having that storage space!

Paint is nicely applied, with some subtle details on the camo pants and the limited palette of blue-grey and black works very well. The arm-protectors are especially worthy of note, with a pre-applied transfer (or is it stenciled-paint?) being very clean and crisp, as are the straps around his legs.

Unfortunately, my Firefly has an assembly problem: his right leg is missing the screw to hold the thigh-pieces together, something I discovered when his leg fell-off as I was posing him! The pieces stay together without any problems (and a bit of glue or a new screw will fix it) but if there's any kind of pressure placed on the leg, it tends to pop open.

It's a shame, because the rest of Firefly's production is excellent, which is great because the design is superb and it's good to see it being done justice. Everything with Firefly just fits together nicely. His backpack can accommodate both his pistols and spare head, or - if left open - his Assault Rifle. The MRSD pods pop nicely onto the backpack and his arm guards are a nice fit (even if I did mount them upside down in the photos...) Given that this is the only time I've seen any such issue with a GI Joe figure, I'm hoping that this was just bad luck on my part and the other Firefly figures don't suffer from this problem.

Articulation-wise - disregarding the incomplete thigh assembly - Firefly is a good figure, with the range of motion you'd expect from a GI Joe figure. The longer helmet can prohibit movement slightly but he's still perfectly poseable and the clever backpack design allows for a wide ranges of scenarios.

Extras

City Strike Firefly doesn't come with as many weapons as some of the other figures in the line - which is actually a relief, given how many spare weapons I currently have lying around from other Joes.

Arms-wise he has two pistols (which are the Cobra standard-issue laser-sight automatics) and an Assault Rifle. Twin MRSD pods - which attach to the backpack  - two arm guards, a spare head and the excellent backpack round-off his arsenal.

I want to spend a moment to highlight how good the backpack is. The straps are tight and it looks initially like a solid piece. However, it's actually a functioning backpack into which you can place his spare equipment. I don't understand why it seems only the Cobra guys (Zartan also has a bag) get extra storage. Are bags evil in the world of GI Joe? Who knows. Anyway, I wish more figures included accessories like this, as I'd much rather have more storage space than more weapons.

Final Thoughts

City Strike Firefly is one of the more militaristic Cobra agents. Indeed, with his mask head in-place he's - as I've said a few times now - a dead-ringer for Beachhead and given both are in combat fatigues and vests, it could be quite easy to mistake one for the other.

Firefly's strengths are many. The figure looks great, with a colour-scheme that sounds boring yet looks striking, thanks to its limited palette. The design of his armour is particularly good and the whole toy just looks tough.

What's really nice though is the thought that's gone into his design. Every piece fits together and works. You're not left with spare parts you can't display with the figure, or pieces that drop-off when you so much as look at the toy. Everything is just so precisely-designed and it's that extra level of thought that I really appreciate in this toy.

OK, so my Firefly has a production problem and I really shouldn't have to fix a brand-new toy. But that's just my experience - maybe I was incredibly unlucky. Given my track-record with GI Joes I certainly suspect that is the case. And if so, then I can't hesitate to recommend City Strike Firefly as another great entry in this line.

Scores

Sculpt	A-
Paint	B+
Articulation	B+
Production Quality	C+
Final Score	B+

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