I bought the BBTS-exclusive Slaughter's Marauders box set months and months ago.  It feels like decades.  They've just been sitting unopened next to my desk in a pile of other stuff.  The problem was I couldn't find my goddamned Sergeant Slaughter.  And I refused to let myself open up the box and take the dudes out until I found him.

I hadn't seen Slaughter since we moved to this new place.  And I knew he was one of the last things to get packed, which meant that he probably wasn't with my G.I. Joes, but in a separate, unique spot all his own.  And, indeed, I had torn apart all of my toy bins, one by one, several times just to look for him, to no success.  And I have a loooooooooot of toy bins, and they are laaaaaaaarge.  And so my Marauders went unopened.

Until I was digging through my photos and found an image from the middle of the move of just my Masterpiece King Grimlock and Sergeant Slaughter sharing an otherwise empty spot on a shelving cube unit near our television!  Aha!  This was his last location!  This might be a clue!  I checked my MP Grimlock box, no dice, but ultimately found Slaughter in the bottom of one of those canvas storage cubes, under a bunch of Wii crap.  Huzzah!  Opening time, at last!

Look, I don't know who most of the guys in this set are, but I am pretty sure they weren't all Marauders.  Sure, there's Lowlight, Spirit, Barbecue... but who's this football guy?  Was Falcon in the team and I'd forgotten?  And some other folks.  Naw.  According to the Internet, these are just guys who hang out with Sergeant Slaughter in the animated film, retroactively considered Marauders, and taking up spaces that REAL Marauders could have had!  I coulda had a Footloose and Mutt!  Instead, I borrow my normal Mutt.  I have no Footloose.  (There's apparently only a movie-style one, but he came in another box set.)

So screw those non-Marauders.  They can stay in the box.  ...maybe I'll keep the football guy.  For the football.  We'll see.  The rest need to stop taking up space in my house.  This is a hollow threat, because I'm pretty damn sure I have a pile of other Joe box sets I've bought and taken one or two figures from and then abandoned.

But seriously!  Slaughter's Marauders!  These were THE EFFIN' GUYS when I was a kid.  I realize I am probably fairly alone on this.  But I latched onto these guys pretty strongly.  I was already a fan of Sergeant Slaughter, and these were his dudes!  And they were older dudes who I hadn't owned, so I built up this personal mythology about how they were so awesome just based on the strength that they were older toys who were so awesome that they got to be rereleased as Slaughter's posse.

They were also so awesome that they could apparently get away with looking like they'd rolled around in some spoiled neapolitan ice cream.   Despite this, nobody messed with them.  Needless to say, these newer versions are an improvement.

Anyway, I'm happy, because I am the biggest fan of these guys.  I was such a big fan I had to look up to see if Falcon really was on their team and who these other dudes were and who I was missing.  ...yeah.  Okay.

Nostalgia, folks.