 Mzimu Corps (Pecan)
One of two - a variant more saturated skin is also available with different arms
Operation: Recall Wave 1 Action Figure
Item No.: Asst. F005 No. Y1W1F3
Manufacturer: Locomotion Media Group
Includes: Vektor SS-77 General Purpose Machine Gun, Bipod, 5.56x45mm Nato Ammo Belt, Machete, Ammo Can Backpack, Figure Display Stand, Art Poster
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $30.00 Kickstarter, $25.00 on web store
Availability: December 2025
Other: Ex-Hasbro guys and superfans made what amounts to Year #44 of A Real American Hero
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As an adult in 2026, I do not take for granted how amazing it is that some experiences have returned to this world. I can buy new records (or reissues of old ones) and spin them on record players. People are making new NES games on cartridges. For the last 8 years, Hasbro has been making Kenner-style Star Wars action figures. And now, for some reason, there is a small explosion of 3 3/4-inch o-ring style action figures. And some of them share the brands and/or creative talent of the ones from the 1980s. Will this last forever? No. We're not seeing 8-track tapes en masse, 1950s style diners are a rarity, and there hasn't been a revival of Beany and Cecil since the 1980s. Enjoy every one of these oddball fossils until your demographic is no longer profitable. It's kind of a miracle that I can go to a few record stores, then go to Target to look at o-ring G.I. Joe figures from Super7, and then count the days until Target ships me an all-new wave of 1978-style droids and aliens and Rebels.
Fan R. Carson Mataxis rounded up ex-Hasbro employees Ron Rudat, Larry Hama, Kirk Bozigian, Bill Merklein, Mike Good, Mark Pennington, and other industry vets to bring us Operation Recall action figures like this Mzimu Corps (Pecan). A number of other companies - including Hasbro - are making o-ring figures, but these have the benefit of vintage Hasbro employee expertise. Working from designs from fans, we now have figures with a glossier finish and swivel wrists. The new line bucks the old buck system, adding wrists and variable height but maintaining the basic construction of old. I thoroughly enjoyed shifting through the creators' YouTube channel, so I bought the first set back in May and received if a week later. They're not real Joes, but the wrist swivel feels like a good improvement and were it not for the gloss, I'd say $25 was a relative bargain for a carded indie figure of this quality and parentage.
I've been playing with some of my very few vintage-era figures, some recent Super7 guys, and of course some Hasbro early 2000s remakes - and this guy feels like one of the best of them. The Mzimu Corps figure is the first Operation: Recall figure that I opened. It's also the first trooper figure I've ever seen with variant arm texture as the creators made two versions of him. There are also slight changes in skin tone.
Pros: Wrist articulation makes it easy to pose with nearly any accessory. Smooth articulation feels like an actual 1980s figure. All accessories can be held or stored on figure at once.
Cons: Hair is so tall, it prevents figure from sitting in enclosed vehicles like the Cobra Mole Pod, Cobra H.I.S.S., and so on. The shine is great for photography but looks a little odd up-close. Fingers can be stiff.
This line started out as a Kickstarter in 2022, arriving late December 2025, with a second wave on the water and expected in July.
Click here to check availability at eBay.
The figure's sculpt is excellent. The chest and pants have great plastic fabrics, with the arms featuring very distinctive scarification markings. His foot peg holes are pretty consistent with original toys and the hands can hold most accessories I threw at it. The hair looks good, the mask is a little exaggerated as the seams in the fabric part of the mask are a little soft. But they're in the back, and it's not exactly a problem.
He's been able to hold nearly every accessory I've thrown at him - even big spring-loaded ones. The foot pegs seem to fit most stands. His backpack hole is very close to the 1980s-2000s G.I. Joe figures, but his own backpack is quite tight. It seems it was painted green, which of course impacts form fit tolerances. For those keeping track, Super7's ReAction+ figures have larger holes, so Hasbro o-ring figures can't share with Super7, but some Recall stuff fits in actual vintage Joe backs. Hasbro's more recent 2020s o-ring action figure reissues have smaller holes, so I couldn't fit this green backpack in my 2022 Duke and Cobra Commander reissues [FOTD #2,618]. But it fits fine in my mail-away Agent Faces.
Operation Recall put the copyright information on the inner thighs of the figures, which is a smart place to put them. Hasbro frequently put them on the butts and often in very visible places on back of the legs, so I see this as a massive improvement. The soles of the boots have tread, so if you're a toy photographer you can kick other figures without seeing the word CHINA down there.
This figure has distinctive arms. The bicep has a curved scarring pattern going down. The other variant has dots going around the arm. The design retains the classic swivel-arm battle grip, but the new wrists let them hold a rifle with both hands - that's great! The right wrist on my sample feels a little loose, but so far it hasn't resulted in any problems. I can get him to hold pretty much any accessory in a reasonable way without toppling over, and the stand really helps if there were any gravitational challenges. His glossy makes it hard for me to see some of the finer details (arm scars, copyright info) but it seems to a good job highlighting the work in the torso sculpt and highlighting the fingers, gloves, and texture in the mask.
The Mzimu Corps accessories are single-color affairs and look like a better version of what Hasbro would have done. A gray machete slides in the backpack, but it's a tight fit. You can attach the ammunition belt to the gun, and everything fits together pretty well. I had no problem getting the stuff in his hands, which are made of a harder plastic than I would prefer. I hear that's been fixed for the wave two characters.
Paint is excellent. It photographs very nicely, and in person I found it to be very glossy - I believe a clearcoat was used, and it's more overwhelming on Breacher than it is on masked figures like the Mzimu Corps trooper. This figure seems like a great demo unit. The ex-Hasbro people and the new talent brought out a figure with more muscular, distinctive arms, a unique hairstyle, a nicely textured chest, and excellent pants. I really would love to have seen an "unglossed" version to see if it looked better, but at least this one seems to suffer the least from the shine.
In addition to this figure, a variant is already available with different arm deco and tooling. Two additional variant concepts have been shown for future release. If you watch their streams, you can see outfits featuring brighter colors with unmasked heads. I haven't yet decided if I'll collect them all - I'm happy with the wave one figures I've opened, and if wave two is de-glossed? I'm in for more.
--Adam Pawlus
Additional Images
See more Locomotion Media items in Figure of the Day:
Day 3,093: Locomotion Media Group Operation: Recall Mzimu Corps (Pecan) Action Figure
See more Operation: Recall items in Figure of the Day:
Day 3,093: Locomotion Media Group Operation: Recall Mzimu Corps (Pecan) Action Figure
