Got Alley Viper at the beginning of the week and BAT today, both from Amazon.
AV was a nice little bit of Nostalgia but didn't move me as much as I expected. I had this guy as a kid and he was cool and all, but honestly the 2nd Alley Viper, black and yellow with the dragon mask was the one that really hit with me, and I kinda found myself wishing for that instead.
My Entertainment Earth order is still on for July. I just refuse to pay the premiums I'm seeing. Not when I expect both to be the kind of figures Hasbro keeps rerunning off and on for a good while (especially the BAT).
1989 was my big "Joe Year". I think I ended up with something like over half the year's product line, more than any other individual year. Because of that and DiC's Operation Dragonfire, I have a TREMEDOUSLY strong attachment to the 89 Alley Viper. See, Hasbro was REALLY shorting the line of new, named, Cobra villains towards the end of the decade. The only new named bad guy was a freakin' Dreadnok!
Because of that, DiC basically promoted "Alley Viper" to an individual character so that the Cobra heirarchy would be more than old toys. Voiced by Jim Byrnes, he was a ruthless Crimson Guardsman who "transferred" to the AV Corps to further his career in Cobra. That characterization always stuck with me, especially as there were so few "lieutenants" released during my Joe era.
It also helped that the cartoon changed the AV colors to a proper red and blue before dumping them for newer Cobra toys to promote.
Also, in some GI Joe news:
Reportedly there's a Tiger Force Duke (with vehicle) on deck for this year at Target. Promo images of the 3 POA value figures are out (the GI Joe equivalent to Transformers Authentics).
And listings are said to have revealed a new GI Joe retro line: Classified figures on retro packaging. Probably stuff for the 40th, and might be a good chance to get some harder to find figures or figures in more attractive deco. Baroness and Lady Jaye confirmed thus far.