1986 G.I. Joe Trading Cards

Were you aware that Milton Bradley put out a G.I. Joe trading card set in 1986? I sure wasn't! If I would have seen these in 1986, I probably would have picked them up. I never saw them, so my money went towards Baseball Tattoos, All-Star pop-ups and G.I. Joe comic books.

I was a huge G.I. Joe fan in the mid eighties. I thought most of the storylines in the cartoon were imaginative and well thought out. It never seemed like they were trying to just sell a product. It seemed like the staff of the cartoon and the comic book really cared about the characters and enjoyed what they did.

This was a set of 192 cards and 12 stickers. I would have been up to the challenge of wasting my money on trying to complete the set, in 1986. Now... not so much. I still get a nostalgic twinge when I run across anything G.I. Joe related. I'll pop in the cartoon DVD sets that I own on a whim. Maybe once every three years, I'll dig out the old comic books and give them a read.

I can't help it. G.I. Joe was a huge part of my life back then. It's only natural to go back to the well when you need to feel like a kid again. If the stories would have sucked, I don't think I would ever want to relive those plotlines. I appreciated the fact that the writers never dumbed anything down for the kids. Not intentionally anyway.

To see pictures of the packaging and a more in depth look at the set, check this out.

The cards featured art from the action figures, the vehicles and stills from the cartoon. This would have been right up my alley in 1986. There were 8 cards and 1 sticker per pack. 96 packs came to each case.

Cards 1-30 featured the Joe team. Cards 31-65 featured Joe accessories. 66-95 featured action shots. Cards 97-113 featured Cobra members. 114-126 were Cobra accessories. 127-191 were more action shots. Cards 96 and 192 were the obligatory checklists.

The card checklist looks like there was some thought given to alignment. It seems pretty much in order. It would be interesting to see how all of these cards would look in an album. The art that I've seen uses the 1985 blister pack artwork from the action figures. I preferred the 1985 packaging with the more cartoony explosion, rather than the 1986 digital Morse code burnout that took over the background.

It appears that the corners are rounded on the cards. I really like that on some card releases. It seems to fit well with the subject matter and the artwork. Actually, I think I'm glad that I never saw these in 1986. Those cards would have been destroyed from overuse!