Remembering Baron Ironblood
A forgotten childhood pop culture villain, and preamble to an upcoming toy review
I have to give a lengthy preamble to my next toy review with a little bit of toy history you may not know if you grew up in the U.S. When I was a kid in Ireland, the main toy line that competed with Star Wars was Action Man.
Action Man was basically 12-inch GI Joes, repainted, occasionally with UK-specific accessories. During the Cold War, a lot of moms in Europe both-sidesed the global situation, seeing America as being as bad an actor on the global stage as the Soviets. All-American military figures were not thought to be a winner with such parents.
When Star Wars took over, Action Man, like its American counterpart, created a 3-3/4 inch figure line with vehicles. But it wasn’t G.I. Joe – initially, it was all original figures and sculpts called Action Force. The figures were basic five-points articulated, with generic faces, and they didn’t have individual names; just functions.
With the second wave, Action Force divided into sub-forces and gave its characters names as well as functions. Z-Force was traditional military, SAS Force was the British SAS all in black, Q-Force was sea-based, and Space Force was space. They fought against The Enemy, colloquially named Red Shadows because that was what the basic infantry troopers were called – think red Imperial Stormtroopers by way of actual Nazi Stormtroopers (they utilized slightly retooled versions of the enemy German soldier figure in the first series). The Enemy were led by Baron Ironblood, whose iron mask hid a Fu Manchu-ish face, but the vehicles were Communist-coded. They had Cyrillic lettering and were all red, though Ironblood and his second-in-command Black Major looked more like Nazis, and the skull-and-crossbones was their logo. (German editions of the toys erased that symbol, banned under anti-Nazi laws.) Ironblood was canonically South American.
Weirdly, some of the vehicles were repainted G.I. Joe vehicles, and came with repaint G.I. Joe figures, whose look didn’t fit in at all with all the extra articulation. One of my favorite birthday presents ever was the “Hyena with Red Jackal,” a red HISS Tank with a repainted Destro figure. I’d long coveted Destro from afar due to his chrome head, but my parents didn’t want me getting into G.I. Joe. Action Force, however, I could buy with my allowance and they couldn’t stop me.
As the line continued, all the original UK characters and vehicles got phased out, and the line became full-on G.I. Joe, but still called Action Force. The Action Force comics did some heavy retconning, explaining how Baron Ironblood was now Cobra Commander, who had turned on the Red Shadows to start a new army.
I had loved the original Action Force comic, which ran in the usually more mature-skewing “Battle” comic, rebranded “Battle/Action Force,” even dressing as Baron Ironblood for Halloween one year.
My classmates, at a certain point, thought it hilarious to call the character “Baron Pisswater,” with one claiming that he actually took a marker and wrote on a Z-Force base playset box in the store, ‘Baron Pisswater’s Base,” or as he pronounced it, “Baron Pisswa’her’s Baes.” “And somebody bought it!” he insisted. This being pre-Internet days, I’m guessing that joke was limited to the village of Straffan in Ireland. Today it has virality potential.
In fact, I’d say Baron Ironblood was one of the major pop culture figures of my childhood, for a stretch of maybe 2-3 years. The comics made a big secret of what his face looked like, despite the fact that they’d revealed it in the first issue, and the figure was totally unmasked in the package. There was no cartoon for that version of Action Force, but merely in comics and toys, Ironblood was as large a pop culture figure for me as Cobra Commander.
So it took me a while to get sold on G.I. Joe with a British coat of paint – in fact, I resented it. As an American in exile, I wanted my American heroes to be American. Action Force was British, and they fought Red Shadows, damn it! Action Force became literally G.I. Joe products, but with the stickers changed – instead of a U.S. Flag, they had a faux-international flag, of a big blue star centered amid red, white and blue stripes. Some of you Joe fans who bought surplus by mail order flag points may have been confused by some of these. Later, the name was modified to “G..I. Joe: The Action Force” and finally just G.I. Joe, minus “real American hero.”
Palitoy was the company that made UK Star Wars figures and Action Force. I’ve asked Hasbro a couple of times about Baron Ironblood and the Palitoy Action Force characters, and they honestly do not know what the legal ownership status is. Hasbro owns the rights to characters that were G.I. Joe repaints – we’ve seen Quarrel in the Classified series, and Red Laser (Cobra Commander repainted as a Red Shadow) in Super7’s Ultimates. The Action Force trademark was grabbed by Valaverse when Hasbro was slow on the gun, as was Steel Brigade. But Baron Ironblood, the Black Major, and their minions are in a legal limbo, as best anyone seems to know (Ironblood is mentioned on the file card of Super7’s O-ring Red Laser figure, but pointedly not with a TM after his name). That also means that if you rip them off, nobody knows who has the authority to sue, I suppose. Enter Fresh Monkey Fiction.
FMF have done military figures in 3-3/4 and 6-inch scale, and they are fond of unsanctioned homage figures – they have made, for example, military figures who look strikingly like “realistic” takes on the likes of Charlie Brown, and the Mario brothers. Operation Monster Force is like G.I. Joe Classified meeting classic monsters in a military theme, so you have characters like the Invisible Man fighting for good against vampires fighting for fascism.
Their Order of the Crimson Moon wave, however, looked very familiar. On the surface, they fit the Monster Force theme, but with the extra mix and match parts, you can remake them into Baron Ironblood and his Red Shadows! That made them an instant preorder for me, about a year and a half ago.
I’ve heard and seen great things from these figures, and I know Hasbro is unlikely to ever give me Action Force’s classic The Enemy in G.I. Joe Classified any time soon. This is it. Maybe the last nostalgia itch figures I HAD to have. And it isn’t all of them yet: we are still missing Muton (a deep sea diver robot with a gun and radar on his helmet), Kraken (a green sea monster with trident and net weapons, whom my Irish classmates insist on calling “Kraekin”), Red Wolf (a frightening space pilot who flies the Roboskull, which resembles a TIE fighter with a skull-shaped cockpit), and Skeletron (a reanimated skeleton). Maybe they will come next.
This is all my preamble. My review, which will attempt to assess them both as Crimson Moon characters and Action Force enemies, is coming soon...
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I was unaware of the geopolitical context behind Action Force. It is a shame that the uniqueness of that line got bulldozed by G.I. Joe, but fans, of course, did not forget. Looking forward to your review!