Holy crap, i actually had some of these. Which is odd given that I never liked Action Force (as it was called over here) and ended turning them into X-Men. Voltar was Cyclops and Law was Wolverine (complete with cocktail-stick claws). I can't remember who I turned Snake Eyes into... It might have been Night Thrasher.

Yeah.

Anyway, Voltar was a fun Cyclops. I can't remember if he pre-dated the one-eyed, Age of Apocolype Cyclops or if he was inspired by same.

That Snake Eyes/wolf combo is fantastic.

Apocalypse.

Balls.

A Due South reference?

My day is complete. Thank you, I'm going back to bed.

The fact that there are seventeen items on this list frightens and confuses me.

I love the old packaging listing the code name in such smaller print.
And the end of the Joe line, repackaging older characters with new paint jobs and/or animals is pretty sad.
However, every toy should come with a shark that shoots missles.

"that Serpentor almost killed Duke with, "

Dammit, that he DID kill Duke with until all you whiny brats got so teared up because your precious Optimus Prime had died that Hasbro panicked and changed the dialogue.

One day, they'll go back and remaster that scene and kill Duke off properly, which will be awesome since Scarlett bawling her eyes out over his corpse while Hawk sheds a single tear is a hell of a lot more emotional than a bunch of Transformers no one had ever heard of until ten minutes earlier (... and Perceptor...) playing hot potato with a McGuffin.

All my years as a child collecting GI Joe figures I managed to somehow avoid purchasing any with animal companions.

Thank you.

You wouldn't be so quick to mock the Baracuda. Go on You Tube and watch those devil-fish-beasts tear people apart.

But if you can train a barracuda to do your bidding, then you're on to something.

Croc Master is awesome. Sure he's just a crazy reject alligator wrestler from Gator Land (http://www.gatorland.com/), but compare to the other pet handlers he just looks awesome.

I hated Polly and Shipwreck. The most annoying duo on the Joe Force, right up there with the Leatherneck/Wetsuit tandem. Freedom (or Billy in GI Joe Sigma) was badass. Remember when it caught one of Storm Shadow's shuriken in mid air. Now that's an awesome pet.

No one's said it yet?

Obviously #12 was Cobra's attempt to rid the world of the Crocodile Hunter.

Their first successful plan ever.

( I know, I know, it was a stingray, not a manta ray, but it's so close... )

I love this site.

Not only is Due South namechecked in an article about GI Joe, but the basassery of Fraser and Diefenbaker is evangelized for those who might not be aware.

Preach on!

This implies that there were actually MORE than 17 animal buddies in the line. Thats unpossible!!!!!!

Croc Master? Should have been named... Master Gator

the only reason most of these figures like raptor were bought was due to the animal. though having a kangaroo in the line one wonders what the execs were on. and this list is the first i heard of sandstorm. and glad timber is number one polly always thought was annoying. plus was going to mention timber died in the comics .

Whose Responsible this?

Ah memories,
I had Serpentor, got him for Chrismas one year...twice.
I was allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve.
What a great choice!!!! Serpentor
WTF!!!...Missing pieces!!!!
His hover craft thingy didn't have any of the black coloured pieces in the package!
Had to wait until the 27th to return it.
Second one was complete.
That summer my friends and I thought it was a fun idea to throw our GI Joe's at the school wall.
BOOM!!!!
Serpentor's snake head dress splints in half...one piece went flying not to be found again. The other stayed attached to his bald head. He also lost one of his arms from the elbow down.
It looked so much cooler this way, especially when I took a red marked and drew veins on his bare skull.

Gotta agree with Lo Pan here ... calling this "the 17 coolest animal sidekicks" implies that there were others, some of which had to have been uncool. But this is just a list of all of them.
I guess the Eco Warriors Deep Six with dolphin was left off ... remember that one? Since when do dolphins have jagged teeth?
Now that I've taken my dickhead hat off ... really fun list. Cobra's ability to train marine life always boggled my mind.

Dammit, forgot about the dolphin (Finback)! What was cool about him was how huge he was. And he originally was meant to be a killer whale, and some samples of that version got out there.

i had the Alligator !
...nostalgia...
And the GIjoe too. But .. he lose his legs.. and his arms, too. Hey don't cry ! he deserves it ! He was raping youngs allogators, and many furries animals ! He responsible this !

Nobody has never given me an answer on where Sepentor was suddenly able to pull live snakes out from behind his back. They should've sold that version of him.

Maybe it was intentional, but there are no animal sidekicks from the JvC VVV days on the list. The original sand viper came with a kick ass Komodo dragon.

Wow. I collected GI Joe as a kid and I had no idea there were this many animal sidekicks. Or maybe I just blocked it from my mind. Or my damn parents wouldn't buy them for me.

Buy all our playsets and toys!

Oh wait, wrong cartoon...

I had a Kangor and didn't know his original name (Big Boa) up until now!!

So he only came with the kangaroo here in Brazil? Nice. Does it add any collectible value?

How did I miss the missile-shark? I really think Junkyard should have been number one. He was a bad-ass dog. The only reason you put Timber at the top is his connection to Snake Eyes.

I have a pair of friends who are brothers and HUGE Joe fanatics. They had so many of them as kids that they couldn't even remember what many of them were.

That being said, they had the yellow Cobra Eel, but didn't know that it was an Eel. They didn't even know that it came with a missile-firing robot shark.

How the hell can anyone not remember having something as boss as a robot shark that was a billion times cooler than than the lame ass figure that it came with?!?

Of course, I think they may have eaten lead paint chips by the pound as kids because one of them thought that Raptor was the coolest Cobra EVAR...

W

T

F

?

HQ-Man, using eBay as a judge, Kangor looks to be pretty rare.

So the guy's name is Big Boa, and his sidekick is a Kangaroo. What? Why a kangaroo and not, oh I don't know, a BOA CONSTRICTOR?!? Yeah, I'm expecting logic from this. Foolish me.

Seriously, though, it is a little weird that more of the COBRA types didn't have snake sidekicks.

Awesomeness abound!

impressed with the Constable Frasier & Diefenbaker reference-nice.

manta ray and i had many a great adventure in the bathtub

I liked the old Joes better. i should have had my old buddy croak from an, "accident", so I would command the capture chopper. rember the Buck Rogers toys? She didn't look like Erin Gray!

Unfortunately, according to a recent episode of Robot Chicken, Junkyard dies from eating a chocolate statue of Roadblock. As you know, chocolate is harmful to dogs in large doses.

I never could believe that Shipwreck was a Navy SEAL like his file cards said. He carried a double barrel flintlock pistol with a scope on it for one reason. Polly always seemed smarter than him.

DUE SOUTH FTW!!!

I loved that show when it was on. Granted I was 4 or 5 when it aired, but I thought it was funny because it was a cop show featuring a Canadian Mounty. The concept to me at that age was way to funny to pass up.

Must dig up a torrent on that.

Hehe... Shipwreck as a reject from the Village People?!?!

http://www.psychoreindeer.com/t-shirt/Joe_M_C_A

F'ing classic!!!

All due respect? #7 doesn't count. It's a cheat. Lord, you can make ANY kind of list of strangeness for GI Joe:RAH by going to overseas releases. I call shenanigans.

I wonder; Big BOA was named after Rocky BalBOA? How clever. Give him a pet snake and codename it "Sly".

I wonder; Big BOA was named after Rocky BalBOA? How clever. Give him a pet snake and codename it "Sly".

I'm amazed no one pointed out the excellent Joe story from the Devil's Due era called P.E.T.S.

It was in the back of one of the Special Missions issues, but it featured most of these fine animals.

To answer HQ-Man, Yes, Kangor with the kangaroo was only sold in Brasil. Estrela found that the Commandos Em Acao figures that came with animals were very popular, so they whipped up a set of figures that focused on animal sidekicks. I'm genuinely shocked that Hasbro didn't do the same in the U.S.

Not as single one of you caught it! Voltar had a Vulture sidekick!! LOLs