Toy Review: G.I. Joe Classified Cover Girl Is Fun, Inventive And Nails It

I’m always of mixed feelings about retro-carded modern action figures. On one hand, I want to pull these figures out of the box and pose them. On the other, most of these cards are fantastic. So how did I end up feeling about opening up G.I. Joe Classified Cover Girl?

Courtney “Cover Girl” Krieger is one of the more out there Joes. She started out as a supermodel, but then joined the U.S. Army after finding life as a model unfulfilling. In her new career, she was challenged for the first time as she found proficiency with anti-tank ordinance and diesel mechanics. Yeah, G.I. Joe is bonkers sometimes.

Cover Girl was a character I personally didn’t love. This is mostly because she was entirely just a background character by the time I got into the comics. It was the much more recent Energon Universe revival that sparked my interest in her- especially her three part adventure with the Baroness in G.I. Joe #9-11. This figure also caught my eye though, for a lot of the reasons I’m about to talk about.

Okay, so really, this is one of the few retro cards that I didn’t actually feel bad about opening. The box art here is extremely awkward, to the point that some fans accused Hasbro of using AI to create it. The figure looks good on the card, but the card itself is kind of meh.

But really, beyond that, this figure is fantastic.

Now, I know a few fans are going to look at this figure and say “that’s not Cover Girl, she had short brown hair and a bomber jacket.” And you’re not wrong — her first Classified figure matched that appearance pretty closely. However, in Cover Girl’s first appearance in the cartoon, she much more closely matched this design. I’m a little surprised that this figure doesn’t have auburn hair, for a half-way in-between look, but I like this design a ton and she’s very posable.

So let’s get into the rest of it.

First of all, the design rules. This is the look you’d expect out of the Joe team’s best mechanic- a simple uniform that you’d expect can get dirty easily, but would also be functional for field ops. The alternate hairpiece with the braid and ballcap is fantastic too, creating a casual and distinctive look for the character. The two head sculpts are also great, showing us a Cover Girl enjoying her job and pushed into a tough spot.

I love the accessories too. First of all, her hair is swappable between the head sculpts — if you want the braid and ballcap (The Pit’s Garage!) on the smiling head, it’s engineered to easily swap. The “hair-down” sculpt doesn’t fit perfectly on the serious head, but overall it works. Meanwhile, the two guns are exactly what she needs to combat, and I love that she actually gets tools as the mechanic. Her belt even has a belt loop for her wrench. Not enough highly specialized characters get their specialty as an accessory (looking at you Roadblock, AKA the Joe chef).

And there’s a stand. See Hasbro, you can do it. Why not just include this stand with everything, not just Joes? Everything.

This figure is probably the closest to perfect that I’ve seen this year. And I’m thrilled to have her as a part of my small Joe collection.