fighting man from head to toe

I was thumbing through an old sketch book and came across this pic.

I always liked the face of the original GI Joe, before the life like hair and the kung-foo grip.  The action figure line has changed a lot down through the years.  This is the little soldier I first met when I was a little soldier...in the early 60's.  I like the face because he doesn't have the face of a warrior.  He's got a face of an average Joe.  He's got the face of a good guy.  On that good face was a battle scar. It said something.

I remember when Hasbro later started issuing Soldiers of the World and had GI Joe as a  German soldier.  That looked very unsettling to me.  The face didn't fit the uniform.  At the time I thought that THAT Joe needed a different kind of face.

GI Joe was an action figure, he wasn't like Ken who seemed to me to be just another fashion accessory for Barbie.  Joe had movable parts, he could hold guns and grenades.  Ken was a wuss.  Ken was 4-F at birth.  I once tried to recruit a Ken, but the clothes hung off him, he couldn't even fill Joe's boots.  All he could do was play dead, and that's the way I used him.  GI Joe might have had a handsome and friendly face, but he was a fighting man from head to toe.

After the war, Joe came home and married Barbie.  Ken eventually came out of his pink closet and is living with another Ken.