1992 Nunchuk

Nunchuk is among the Joes that made up my childhood collection. I loved him from the moment that I got him on Christmas Day of ’92. Not only was he a ninja, but he seemed like the sort of character that could double as a legitimate and normal member of the Joe team. While I liked the rest of the Ninja Force, I sometimes kept them as their own team separate from the Joes. This wasn’t a hard rule, but my kid brain felt that ninjas didn’t belong in a firefight. Nunchuk was the exception, due to his camouflage color scheme. I would often arm him with spare black rifles, shotguns, or SMGs.

Nunchuk was often a faceless Joe mook as well. I had learned to read mainly so that I could read the filecards. While most of the filecards excited me, and gave me ideas as to who the character was and how to build a story around them, the Ninja Force left me perplexed. The seemed like characters that would fit in better with DC and Marvel Superheros. Hence, the Ninja Force were some of the first Joes that I disregarded the filecards for. Instead I used most of them as actual superhero stand ins for urban stories, typically fighting the Headhunters or other urban troops and criminals. Nunchuk was the exception in most cases.

Nunchuk was also one of the few NF members to not be hampered too badly by his requisite gimmick. I really didn’t like the Ninja Force gimmicks at the time, as they made the figures awkward to play with, and weren’t really fun gimmicks. His overall design is great too. He has enough ninja trappings to make it apparent that he is indeed a ninja (unlike Dojo and T’JBang), but have a nice green and black camo motif that lent him to being a normal member of the Joes. His sneakers were an odd, but interesting touch (though I wonder if they were a bit of a joke too). It’s because of them that I thought of him as an urban combat specialist too.

We only saw his parts used to make Bushido, and a “repaint” in the Shadow Ninja’s sub-line. No international variations exist to my (limited) knowledge. I always sort of wished we could have gotten a repaint of Nunchuk, but the gimmicks probably killed that.

Nunchuk came with a pair of…nun-chucks, a Baqua Dao style sword, and a figure stand. When I was a kid, he used his martial arts weapons in urban environments with the other Ninja Force members. However, when used with normal Joes, he was typically armed with one of the generic M4’s or some other SMG/AR style weapon. His sword is a funny inclusion. From what I understand, baqua dao swords are typically associated with Taoism and Tai Chi. I remember it being a somewhat exotic looking accessory, but at the same time somewhat hard for Nunchuk to pose with. His nun-chucks were rarely used, as I remember breaking some Corps figures thumbs with them. From that point on I threw them in a parts bin to never be used again.

Overall, he’s a fun figure. You can find him loose for under $10, usually paired up with some other “junk” figure and some of his accessories. Carded examples were fetching $40-$60. I think we’ll see loose and carded examples get much cheaper soon, as the bubble seems to be bursting on the Joe market (and on most other collectable markets from what I can tell).