GI Joe collectors creepy?

Yeah, kinda.
I wouldn't go as far as to say creepy on a hot wheels collector level but some of them are rather "intense".
I've had GI Joe toys all my life. Some of my first toys. They were a LOT cheaper than Transformers and were pretty cool to play with. Neat weapons and vehicles and a cool TV show to boot. But with the end of the 80's so came the end of GI Joe, or mostly. The toy line and show petered out for the most part. There were a few lines over the years since. Not all that successful, until recently. I want to say it started slightly before Sigma 6 There was a new line with slightly different design. Less Joe style more super hero style. The toy design that is. I guess it was pretty big with the collectors and based on their input the toys slowly moved back to more of the original design. Ball joint hips and swivel waste and such. I got a few of these here and there. Just my favorite character or 2, not a lot.
Then the new cartoon, Sigma 6. I am pretty sure most collectors and die hard fans hated it. I actually liked the show, and the toys. They were no longer the 3 inch figures with cool vehicles. These were 9 inch figures that focused all their detail on the weapons and accessories with some very cool results. I got quite a few of these. Great to play with.
So after that show ended (as all good things do because kids these days all have ADD and can't watch the same show for more than one season. I call it the power rangers effect. Revamp the entire show very season just to keep the kiddies hooked. Another topic in entirely.) Hasbro knew that had something. Every other 80's property had be relauched so why not GI Joe? Shortly after there were some very similar to classic GI Joe toys being sold direct to customers from Hasbro's website. I didn't care much so I never got any. Eventually these started making their way into stores. They looked pretty cool. I think I might have got one. This eventually lead to the launch of the 25th anniversary line. Complete remakes of all the original characters with today's technology. Much more detail, better joints and much more durable materials. Again, I wasn't that interested so I only got 2. As more lines came out I snagged a few more of my favorite characters but hadn't really opened any since the beginning when I opened the first Snake Eyes and Timber. As I started getting a few more I got the urge to open another so I peeled open the new version one Snake Eyes. Wow. This toy was much better than the first Snake Eyes. I don't know if it was that toy, in particular, or maybe I was just in the right mood but I had to have more. It was truly a strange impulse. So the next day I went out to buy some more. Grabbed a few more of the characters I really liked all those years ago. Eventually I notice that these things are FREAKING hard to find. I would see a new character one time and then it would be gone forever, never to be seen again. I eventually decided that I was just going to have to buy every new character I saw right then and there otherwise I would never have the chance again.
Was that the fever? The thrill of the hunt? I am by no means a "completeist" collector but I sure seem to be buying a lot of these new GI Joe toys. I only really want one of each character, so I skip most of the repaints or 2 packs that have the same characters in a different color. But geez.. Is this why some of these guys are so intense? Maybe. But from what I've seen it goes way beyond that.
Getting into this collecting buzz I wanted to find some nice websites to keep up to date on the latest GI Joe info. I stumbled across a few web forums and blog sites. This is when I really discovered how "intense" some of these guys were.
I have never really been a collector of anything. Just buy the toys I like. The question is always there, "Is this something I would play with or is just going to sit in the box on a shelf?". I am still not sure where this GI Joe line sits. I had planned to open all of them but they are so freaking hard to find it is almost a shame to open some of them. But I don't want to buy toys that I have no intentions of playing with. Ehhh.. Drifting off topic again.
The stuff I have seen on some of these websites is truly amazing. Many many of the people build and even mold/sculpt custom figures. Some of them look amazing. Just as if Hasbro had done it them selves, sometimes better. Then there are the army builders. People who buy 5 or 10 (or more) of the same "trooper" figure, the viper, B.A.T.s, or Crimson Guard, just to build legions of these little guys. I have seen some very impressive displays to I'm not just talking like the stuff I've seen from Transformer collectors We're not just talking a shelf here with everyone standing in a row. I mean full blown battle scenes made with all that diorama building stuff, you know the little fake grass and trees for you model train set kinda stuff. They are awesome looking.
Maybe it is just because I am not really used to this kind of stuff. I have primarily bought Transformers and random super hero toys in the past, as GI Joe was somewhat passe. I have not seen anything like this. Many of these people are truly "completeist" collectors. The spend hours hunting ebay for a missing gun or panel from one of the original 1982 vehicle. They have gone back and completed the collection they had as a kid. They really do have it all.
I just can't imagine... I got out my box of original GI Joe toys just after I got back into it. The original toys really kinda suck, at least compared to the new ones. The same goes for Transformers, probably even more so. The new Transformer toys are amazing while the originals were cool if you could actually more their arm. :)
I dunno. Maybe I am just coming from a different direction most of these guys. I just get this weird, creepy, feeling when reading some of these forum posts. I am far from "normal" that is for sure but I guess we all have our standards. :)
There is just something about this toy line though.. I never want to get all of everything. So weird. Almost just want to step away before I get sucked in...

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