Specialist (Matt) Trakker (25th Anniversary)

Height: 10.5cm to top of head.

Articulation: 22 points total- ball-jointed neck; 5 points each arm: universal joint shoulder, universal-joint elbow, forearm swivel; mid-torso ball joint; 5 points each leg: ball-joint hip, double-joint knee, universal joint ankle.

Colors: Molded light gray, gunmetal, brown, black, flourescent green, and fleshtone. Painted red, black, blonde, and silver.

Accessories: Mask, Flight Pack, Assault Rifle, Stand.

Author: RAC

(more...)

Specialist Trakker leads a secret unit which develops ordinary-looking vehicles that convert into advanced combat vehicles. Joining forces with the G.I. JOE team, the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (M.A.S.K.) team battles V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem), the unit COBRA formed to construct its own converting vehicles. Specialist Trakker uses his next-gen technological devices to preserve peace throughout the world and stop the corrupt forces that are using the same technology to amass power in a quest to control the world.

So say you're Kenner, and it's 1985. Your Star Wars cash cow has dried up, and Hasbro is ascendant with their GI Joe and Transformers properties. How do you counter that? You take a little from column small-scale-action-figures and a little from column vehicles-that-turn-into-stuff. In this case, though, the vehicles didn't turn into robots but other vehicles. (If Kenner could've managed high-quality piloted transforming robots, the MASK revival might not have been limited to one figure in the GI Joe anniversary line.) Matt Trakker was the leader and creator of MASK, and judging from the first episode of his show is a fairly low-key guy most of the time- which is a heck of a trick when you're usually driving a bright red car that turns into the worst approximation of an aircraft ever.



The Figure


Like a lot of 25th Anniversary figures, it's not a perfect match for the original Matt Trakker. Like most of the 25th line, it's much better. The outfit is largely the same- a light gray jumpsuit with red pads, belt and gloves. The biggest change being that the harness is a separate piece instead of being molded-on detail, and there's a new armored breastplate attached to it. It's a separate piece but glued on, so if you want to deface the figure for the most accurate Trakker figure possible, have at it. (Does anybody care about MASK that much, though? Of course they do, what was I thinking?) It also likes to pop loose in the back- the designers chose a very subtle place for the connector, but that also means it's not a super-strong fastener and it likes to pop loose- which can make the helicopter pack difficult to align and plug in.

Matt has a very square jaw, and a chiseled face- at one particular angle he looks like Harrison Ford a bit too, but largely he just looks like a really serious guy. Good, crisp sculpt, but he looks a little too gruff for the relatively soft-spoken, bland guy I saw in the cartoon. The ball joint for the neck really only acts as a swivel, though. The shoulders swing fairly far out to the sides- not straight up, but close. The armor plates are on the front only and they're flexible, so there's not a lot of obstruction there either.  As a matter of fact the only time they hamper arm movement even slightly is when both arms are in the same position, pointing straight forward or up. The elbows are the worst joint on the figure, barely bending 45 degrees. In fact, I turned them a number of times to make sure they weren't backwards. Sadly, they're not. The wrists are loose and the hands pop off far too easily. Luckily his rifle is pretty light- and the added unintentional flexibility can be a minor help when using the backpack.

The torso joint is hidden perfectly by the harness and body armor. You'll never see it unless you go looking. The frontward tilt is really good, the back is average, and even despite the harness you can turn the waist far enough in either direction that his spine would snap if he were not plastic. Oddly, there's a visible gap in the halves of each thigh- I've seen some of that on other GI Joe figures, but he's the most severe case I've encountered. Hip range is good- more than enough for you to plant him in a vehicle, if he had one. Knees bend into a very tight V- with differently-shaped thighs he'd manage the U no problem. He can lean forward into his ankles just a little, but they tilt back far enough for him to point his toes.



Accessories

-Mask

Though it's not an exact match, this is pretty likely supposed to be Spectrum, the Mask that Matt Trakker used in the cartoon I can barely remember.(How little do I remember? Here's how little: the theme song claims Spectrum has "super vision," or something like that, and I remembered it very distinctly as "superstition." We all know super-powered computer hats are a superstitious and cowardly lot...)

If there's one constant in the history of military organizations, it's that the man in charge saves the most interesting hat for himself. Besides (ahem) super vision, Spectrum, as far as my research can tell, has power over anything that you could say has a "spectrum," like light or radio waves, and can fire an energy beam from the visor, most likely a laser. In toy terms? It's a helmet. Looks good and matches the outfit nicely, especially with the addition of the body armor. Now I understand why the armor was added: the original MASK toys were basically designed as though the mask clamps down to the chest, which would of course kill any head movement. This setup is much better. It still sits pretty flush with the torso, so turning the head means you might need to raise the mask a bit.


-Assault Rifle

This seems to be a Heckler and Koch MP5K- the basic shapes make it a fair match for either the MP5K or its later offshoot, the SMG II. I haven't been able to find either with a foregrip of that particular shape or the massive scope on top, or the iron rail on the back. So that's my best guess.

Interestingly, Matt only has a separate trigger finger on his left hand. And the handgrip for the backpack is on the left side as well- among the things I don't remember about MASK is whether Trakker was supposed to be left-handed or not, but it seems kind of likely this toy was at least. At any rate, the gun fits the left hand best and a two-handed grip is just barely possible with his substandard elbow range. All I can picture is Matt trying to fire this thing one-handed while using the helicopter pack, and the recoil continually blowing him off course. Maybe we can get an Inspector Gadget GI Joe figure next...


-Flight Pack

I love this. It's not based off of any particular MASK toy- though there are some clear styling influences from the Condor bike/copter thing -but it's so `80s Kenner it hurts. The color, the tabs that keep the control stick and guns on, the fact that it's a funky backpack... it's great. I would not be surprised if some of the old Kenner designers worked on this.

It's a flourescent-green-and-black helicopter pack, and on a figure that's mostly gunmetal and muted blue-gray it looks downright jarring. The rotors can point straight up or straight back- I guess for vertical or horizontal movement. There's attachments on each side, with a control stick on the left and a pair of little guns that Trakker can just barely grip on the right. Maybe Spectrum can control it for him, I dunno. It's not incredibly functional, but for what it is that's not too surprising. I swear there's some other functionality I'm missing though- a scalloped edge here and an odd shape there, plus MASK's transforming vehicle gimmick. Seems like there should be something... At any rate, it's a fun accessory, and even though it throws him off-balance to the extent that the stand basically becomes a requirement, it somehow makes the figure for me. My favorite corners of GI Joe toydom are the ones that are modern takes on `80s absurdities, and this definitely fits the bill.


-Stand

A plain 25th-style GI Joe stand with Trakker's name on it. Useful, but meh. I know we were lucky to get this figure at all, but a new MASK-logo stand would've been awesome.


Closing Remarks

This figure was a pleasant surprise, both in premise and quality. This is, let's face it, about the only way we'll ever see a MASK revival, and it's a fun addition to my Anniversary GI Joe ranks as well. If it weren't for the elbow issues I'd probably call it Excellent, but I think I'm going to go with Very Good. Now we just need a Sky Commanders revival- City Strike Snake Eyes already has the backpack, even!

-RAC