Joe Declassified

Among the hundreds, if not thousands of strange international variations out there to collect, this Argen “Blue” Storm Shadow has definitely raised some suspicion. (And with good reason.) These were first discovered back in the early 2000′s by some collectors directly from Argentina; during the influx of left-over stock that was being imported by U.S. toy dealers. Only being released in the C.O.P.S. set (usually packaged with a random PAC RAT toy), this Blue Storm Shadow figure was the only one different than the standard figures released on blister cards.

Upon closer inspection, the Blue Storm Shadow had some noticeable signs of being tampered with. Among those signs, were the fact that it had a glossier finish paint than most normal figures; the Cobra symbol on his chest did not exactly scream “factory made”; and the most noticeable sign, was, the blue paint was chipping off of the figure, and the paint was smeared onto the cellophane window in the box.

Unfortunately after further investigation, it was established that this particular variation was actually a hand-painted white Storm Shadow figure. I say ‘unfortunately’ for the obvious reasons—who wouldn’t want a blue Storm Shadow variant figure?! I mean, we’d already gotten the “Red” version (Satan) and the “Black” version (Ninja-Ku) from Argentina, the “Teal” version from the U.S. (as the mail-in Ninja-Viper), and a slew of other colors over the years. Even though this particular Blue Storm Shadow turned out being a fake, it’s still highly sought after on the secondary market.

To further complicate matters, nobody could explain for certain where these Blue Storm Shadow figures originated from, but regardless, the figure still sells for quite a bit of money every time it comes up for sale. One reason is, even though this is not a factory made figure, it’s still rare. One could argue “Well, this could be reproduced even today, making it obsolete as far as value is concerned.” I beg to differ. To find a boxed white Storm Shadow C.O.P.S. set from Argentina is hard enough, but to take the figure out, find the exact blue color used, paint it, then cellophane the package shut and resell it…, well, that would take time, money, and would still not match the exact version pictured here. Furthermore, reference the DeSimone exclusives from the early 90′s (Police Starduster, Racecar Ace, Cobra Jinx), as well as the Canadian Joe Convention exclusives (Black Ice, Timbit, etc.). Those are still hand-painted figures, but fetch high prices when sold. Well, this Storm Shadow figure falls in line with those. Although not “factory real” so-to-speak, it’s still a very interesting and expensive piece of Joe history.

Personally, I have ideas of where they came from. My feelings are a very crafty toy dealer in Argentina had seen the high dollar amounts that repaints like Satan and Ninja-Ku were fetching on eBay, and created a new blue variant himself. He must have also used cellophane or shrink wrap to encapsulate the entire C.O.P.S. set, thus making the figure look legit to the U.S. dealers he was selling to. Either way, this figure is one of my favorite pieces, and is very hard to find whether or not it was actually a sanctioned figure.

Drew “Dryhawk37″ Hagerty