With the July 4th holiday coming up this weekend, things will be hectic. My family always has a ginormous barbecue on Independence Day, and my online time will probably be brief tomorrow as well. So this is going to be my big post for the weekend. Independence Day is important to me, and to my family. Yeah, we have fun, but more than that, we respect it as a day to commemorate those who have fought, bled, suffered, and died so that we can get together and burn massive quantities of meat once a year.

Some people love their country only when it’s convenient. We love our country especially when it’s not.

Anyway, enough preaching. Let’s look at some toys. In honor of the U.S. of A., I thought I would wheel out some more G.I. Joe figures today, including the new incarnations of old favorites.

Yo Joe!

As I mentioned in an earlier Toy Stories feature, I often forgot that General Hawk was the actual leader of the G.I. Joe team. He’d often take a backseat to the field leader, Duke, when the spotlight came around. As I got more into the comic books, though, the ones written by the creator of this Joe team, Larry Hama, I started to realize just how great a character Hawk is. Tough, strong, proud — a leader in every sense of the word. The Joes may have looked to Duke in battle, but they got their courage from Hawk.

You dont even remember me, do you?

Even though Sgt. Flash here was one of the first Joes, he faded into the background quickly, never becoming as popular as Duke, Stalker, Scarlett, or Snake-Eyes. Honestly, the only reason I even remember him is because I distinctly recall having the original figure back in the day. I really got this figure mostly for nostalgia’s sake, rather than a love for the character like the rest of these figures.

I'm number three! I'm number three!

I have much fonder recollection of Flint here. Flint was third in command of the Joes, after Duke. He was a good soldier, but not quite as uptight as Duke could be. This was the leader more likely to crack a joke. This particular Flint figure is a reproduction from the character’s “Tiger Force” days. Tiger Force was a total effort by Hasbro to release more toys at a minimal expense, and damn them if it didn’t work. Flint and his Tiger Force teammates (each a repainted version of the older figure with tiger stripes added) used captured and re-decoed Cobra weapons against them. Basically, Hasbro took pre-existing G.I. Joe toys and Cobra vehicles, repainted them, and released them as a whole new line. We ate it up.

I'm totally freakin' outnumbered, aren't I?

The opposite number of Tiger Force? Cobra’s “Python Patrol.” G.I. Joe vehicles repainted in a snake motif, paired up with Cobra toys in a slightly different snake motif. It also worked like a charm. I got this guy because, let’s face it, you can never have too many henchmen.

Nemesis Immortal: Co-bra-LALALALALALALALA Falcon: I swear, I'll pay you a million dollars to stop saying that.

Finally, this two-pack of figures was based on the animated G.I. Joe: The Movie — a film that, while not nearly as awesome as TransFormers: The Movie, will probably turn out to be about a trillion times better than the live-action monstrosity rolling our way. Like the TransFormers film, the cartoon producers were instructed by Hasbro to introduce a slew of new characters to coincide with the new toys. This pack includes Lt. Falcon, younger half-brother of Duke who needs to Learn a Valuable Lesson, and the maniacal Nemesis Immortal, brutal warrior from the kingdom of Cobra-La, which is evidently where Cobra Commander really came from, which the comic book and everybody who has touched the G.I. Joe franchise since then has blissfully ignored. The figure was still kind of cool, though. I’m not sure why the name is changed, through — in the cartoon, he was “Nemesis Enforcer.” Now he’s “Immortal.” Which kind of sucks, because I always liked to imagine the beat-down Sgt. Slaughter gave him in the movie was permanent.

Anyway, folks, hope you dug this walk down memory lane. If I don’t talk to you before then, have a great Independence Day, and God Bless America!