Red Shadows Crowdfunding - Order of the Crimson Moon by Fresh Monkey Fiction

[nacho]

In a clever twist, Fresh Monkey is adding Not-Red-Shadows more overtly to their Monster Hunters line they produce in conjunction with BBTS. Some of the Monster Hunters figures could be part swapped to make reasonable facsimiles of Red Shadows troopers, but their campaign to add the Order of the Crimson Moon figures to the mix really allows you to build out almost the entire OG Red Shadows command team with just mere head swaps between figures. No paint, no hunting accessories, just lazy bastard head swaps.

THE ORDER OF THE CRIMSON MOON (freshmonkeyfiction.com)

Fresh Monkey Fiction Action Figures, Statues, Collectibles, and More! (bigbadtoystore.com)





While I'm not an expert on Action Force/Red Shadows comics lore, much of which contradicts Marvel/Hama lore, I still find it interesting and look forward to adding yet another vintage villain faction to my Joe rogues gallery. I ordered the first five characters, but I have no use for the zombie troop. Although I would like to have his beekeeper helmet as an alternate look for Ironblood... I can't justify a full figure for that. But overall, I think they look great. I ordered two of the regular troopers, but I might talk myself into a couple more, just to fill out the ranks.

These are BBTS exclusive, and they're already 80% of the way toward the minimum orders needed to activate this campaign with 38 days to go. So it seems these are very likely to fund. And the beauty is, unlike most crowdfunding projects, you order through BBTS and don't pay until the orders are filled (in about 18 months supposedly), taking the risk out of a normal crowdfunding project.

 

[ThunderDan19]

What do you think about this fellow?

Total play to customizers as fodder for a Hooded CC custom?

 

[nacho]

I asked that question at TFW and got lambasted for it. I assumed he was the missing link between Ironblood and CoCo, for the UK fans that pretend they are one and the same. That question was not appreciated.

He certainly could be pandering to the hooded cc fans, but there are so many 3p options already out, I'm not sure this offers anything new in that regard... other than the suit, which they could treat as a nod to the 25th SDCC suited figure? The all-red deco kills it for me, as I'm not a fan of "crimson everybody", so I'm the wrong person to ask.

 

[ThunderDan19]

I figured the red was easily enough remedied with some blue paint, and a better starting point than an unpainted head. But, I don’t know much about the intricacies of that, so I was just genuinely curious. Seemed from the pic that replacing the red with blue and the skull with a Cobra logo, and he’d be a pretty cool early version of CC from the comic.

 

[nacho]

I figured the red was easily enough remedied with some blue paint, and a better starting point than an unpainted head. But, I don’t know much about the intricacies of that, so I was just genuinely curious. Seemed from the pic that replacing the red with blue and the skull with a Cobra logo, and he’d be a pretty cool early version of CC from the comic.

Oh, I agree. It really comes down to how badly do you not want to paint eyes!

 

[ThunderDan19]

Yeah, that seems like a skill that few have fully mastered, so having those done by automation ahead of time seems like an important perk. Anyway, I hope you didn’t get castigated over there on my account. Who knew fanboys could be so sensitive?

 

[nacho]

Yeah, that seems like a skill that few have fully mastered, so having those done by automation ahead of time seems like an important perk. Anyway, I hope you didn’t get castigated over there on my account. Who knew fanboys could be so sensitive?

No, this was a couple of days ago, and I think some of the limey guys took offense that I phrased the question like "for those who pretend they're the same character". They didn't like the insinuation that the UK continuity was "pretend". Of course, I explained that these are toys and we're all pretending, but they wanted to get their knickers in a twist. Can't stop someone determined to get offended.

Same thing happened when I criticized Lenny for referring to Sarge's duffle as an "itty ditty bag" over and over in the livestream. Those of us that grew up watching that episode a million times know it's "itty bitty ditty bag". Alliteration, groups of three, and the fact that we've had the line drilled into our heads meant it sounded weird every time Lenny quoted it wrong. I felt as the brand guy, if he's gonna quote it, he should get it right. But somehow that got twisted into me saying he wasn't a "real fan". Gotta love the old classic "real fan" argument. It had been a while. The internet never changes.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Lol, reminds me of the good old days back on the ‘stank. “Real fans will buy everything Hasbro slaps a Joe brand on, no matter how bad or obscure, or we’ll never get this thing or that thing that you’ll actually like…”

I like Lenny in general, certainly 1000x more than his partner in promotion, but there are plenty of times I don’t know what he and his design team were thinking, and I won’t spend money on it. That definitely doesn’t make me “not a real fan,” rather a discriminating fan with enough agency to decide what I’m interested in and what I’m not. We’re not mindless consumers. I suppose that’s how a lot of us ended up over here in the first place.

 

[nacho]

Well they thought I was accusing Lenny of not being a "real fan" because I concluded that if he didn't know the line from the cartoon by heart, he must have grown up during a later era. That seemed logical conclusion to me. To them, I was minimizing his fandom (the horror!)... Nothing like internet heroes white-knighting a hasbro brand manager who messed up a famous line. Snowflakes never disappoint.

 

[nacho]

Both stretch goal figures have been unlocked and are available for PO at BBTS, in case anyone wanted a Red Hooded CoCo or a black RS trooper.