Packaging: The Timeless Collection series has been making some great boxes since last year. Unlike the first two years, which featured bland gray-green boxes without any information on them, the new boxes are exciting! The G.I. Joe trademark is embossed in gold foil, and the boxes are usually black & gold with white lettering. These new boxes are much more stylish, and they look more expensive and not boring like the old ones. The Perilous Rescue box is a window box without a flap cover. It puts all of the merchandise in your face, and it looks good. The Perilous Rescue brings a lot of gear, and aside from being a "Classic" set, it is still a very exciting and fun collectible! This set has it all!
Headsculpt & Figure: This is the black haired G.I. Joe with the original body with the golf-ball hip-joints. These Timeless Collection Joes have a reputation for being more fragile than the originals, and the faces are also a bit wider than the originals. Supposedly, the original JOE mold sank in a ship back in the 1980s when Hasbro was moving a warehouse and factory from Hong Kong to Taiwan. So when the G.I. Joe was revitalized in the 1990s, a new mold was made from a JOE figure, and thus the Timeless Collection and Masterpiece Edition Joes have that 2nd Generation fuzziness about the face. I still think they could have just taken the new mold and thinned the head so it would look more like the originals, but apparently that is not going to happen any time soon.
Outfit: Finally a black rubber scuba suit that does not look like it is going to stick to everything and slowly melt and disintegrate. This is it! The scuba suit that G.I. Joe fans have been waiting 37 years for! This scuba suit feels thick, and the rubber is different! It is not the same crummy rubber suit that was sold as the 30th Anniversary Sailor! Yes, how many people treasured their 30th Anniversary Sailor and then discovered that the suit was falling apart and sticking to the backing board?? This scuba suit is THE REAL DEAL!!!
Gear: The gear is GREAT!! The yellow raft and oar, flare gun, medic kit, searchlight, scuba mask, scuba fins, buoy with flag & string, Breecher Buoy, Rescue Life Ring, knife & sheath, wrist depth gauge, Scuba Tanks & harness; and vintage-style dog tag. What is outstanding is that the flag on the buoy is rubberized so that after a few uses it won't just turn into washed up paper and go down the drain! The Breecher Buoy is much better constructed than the original. This is a set which is a "collectible" but it has been built to outlast the originals! The wrist depth gauge is ultra-cool! The Rescue Life Ring and Breecher Buoy & the Life Raft make this a set that demands to be played with! It is a set which will have you breaking out the other Joes! For the first time in about 25 years, this collector filled up the tub and put the Joes into the water, presuming that most of the stickers on the various outfits would fall off and float away. But none did! These are not just collectibles, but they are built for PLAY!! The Perilous Rescue may be the best one so far by the Timeless Collection division.
Overall: Great gear, awesome play value, and it is collectible too!
GRADE: A+
