Soooo... HnR and Lifeline, finally opened them up. Long story short, they're pretty good with a few caveats.
Hit-n-Run is definitely the better of the two. He was always one of my favorite later-80s ARAH figures. He had a tactical function that wasn't outlandish (or ninja-ish), his deco was green camo - not neon fuchsia, and he came with lots of cool gear. The Classified rendition hits all those marks. You definitely need to heat the helmet and goggles to get them on without risk of tearing the plastic, as they fit pretty tight. The goggles are actually molded in translucent red plastic and then the straps are painted black, not the opposite. I was pleasantly surprised that his face-paint is actually green, not a heavy brown tint like in some of the promo pics. That would have been terrible.
If I had one nitpick, it would be that his hands seem ever so slightly too small for the handle of his gun, so it doesn't want to stay put... or maybe the grip isn't shaped quite right. I have it situated just fine for display, but I know moving him much will cause it to fall out easily. The other minor niggle is that the notches on his up-down ankle tilt are exactly out of phase with where you'd want him to be. One notch has him leaning too far forward, the next notch, too far back. So you feel like you're straddling the razor's edge to get him standing straight up. The problem is compounded by him having a huge bag, making him more unstable. It's not a big deal, but a little annoying.
Lifeline is solid but could have been better. The obvious problem is his head sculpt that looks more like a steel mill worker than a dashing young doctor. The head belongs on a Tollbooth custom, not lifeline. Fortunately, once you put his helmet on, it covers much of his noggin and feels like less of a problem. I simply won't be displaying him sans headgear.
Speaking of his helmet, it also needs to be heated to get the chinstrap on safely. The helmet design is extremely similar to HnR's, clearly made by the same designer, if not the same mold with slight tweaks. Unfortunately, this means he suffers the opposite problem of Sci-Fi, in that Lifeline's helmet is far too bulky. It makes his noggin look huge, as if the helmet has lots of internal padding. It's out of place given the ARAH design of a very slim, tight, rigid hockey-like helmet. This one reminds me of something the Oktober Guard would wear, or those NFL players afraid of concussions that wear the bulbous padding over their standard helmets and look like bobbleheads.
The glasses are nice, translucent green as they should be. And they further hide his old-steel-worker face. With the helmet on, I was able to put the glasses in place and get them to stay put, which was nice. Getting them to sit in exactly the right place was challenging, but it could be worse. However, without the helmet, they would fall off just like Buzzer's glasses. I really wish Classified would abandon the removable glasses gimmick. No one displayed them without... unless the glasses fell off and got lost.
Overall, Lifeline isn't a bad interpretation. The head, helmet, and glasses could be better. I've heard a lot of online griping about how they minimized the big RESCUE on his leg to be smaller and in a different font, as well as the addition of kneepads. I don't like the kneepads, but I guess I'm just glad Lenny didn't give him shin-guards or tattoos. His gear is nice (oxygen mask, IV bag, opening med-kit)... except the medkit seems to have nothing but oxygen tanks inside, that aren't removable, nor do they have any way to attach the hose of the oxygen mask. WTF Mattel. I would be tempted to accuse hasbro of intentionally giving him all of these flaws to make the retro sell better, but I'm no longer convinced the line will be around long enough to ever see a retro Lifeline. I think this is as good as we're gonna get.
Oddly, while not being repaints of each other, both figures use a slightly new waist/thigh combo. They're both slightly taller than the basic Joe (compounded by the fact that Lifeline is now on my shelf right next to Leatherneck... LL should not be a bigger boy than the angry marine). But they also share a new crotch-cover that is... for lack of a better term... poofier than previous figures. Maybe they're trying to simulate baggy pants (?), but the end result is that they both give off 25th diaper-crotch vibes. It isn't apparent in photo shots, but in-hand, I couldn't help but notice.
Not a deal breaker, but it's just another indicator that they're employing some sub-par designers. Weird crotches, bad head sculpts, gear that doesn't work, doesn't fit, or isn't useful... for all that Classified has done right the last 6 years, they still haven't figured out how to not shoot themselves in the d!@#. That's a bad combination when they've raised the prices 50% since 2020.
