Amid waves of excellent Cobra trooper repaints from The Black Major and a few from Hasbro, there’s bound to be some figures that become overlooked. One such figure is the Comic Pack Cobra Officer, a figure that was rather well appreciated at one time, that has now fallen into otherwise obscurity.
Army builder mania was still strong in 2004, and Cobra Troopers that had been absent from the GI Joe line since it’s reboot were staunchly demanded. That year the popular Cobra Infantry Forces set was released and quickly sold out, leaving plenty of demand for another Cobra Trooper/Officer release, which came in the form of the comic packs. Mind you, most collector’s vastly preferred the Infantry Forces to these figures, but it wasn’t uncommon to see where people had army built these back then.
The figure makes some unfortunate mold changes from the Cobra Infantry Forces Officer that hurt it comparatively. The Thunder arms from that figure have been swapped for V1 Roadblock’s, and the waist has been changed to Roadblock’s as well. The arms, while being seen generally as a poor replacement, aren’t horrible. Likewise, I feel the waist works reasonably well, but the question that remains is why they would switch parts in the first place. It’s possible the entire part recipe was made in error for this figure given the penchant Hasbro had for such mistakes at the time. If my memory serves me correctly, the head was intended to be the new sculpt from the Infantry Forces set and was swapped due to a miscommunication with the factory.
The detail is fairly good on this figure with a few subtle touches I like rather well. On the sides of the helmet there is a Cobra sigil, and a good amount of silver detailing on the buckles and buttons of his web gear. Combine that with the vibrant, comic-based colors of the figure and you do end up with both a fairly unique and moderately attractive figure. A downside here is that the paint you do get is rather thick and poorly applied, a sad quality issue that is hard to overlook in some instances.
It’s almost not even worth mentioning the parts for this figure, as like most figures from this era he includes a small group of poorly chosen parts. The Baroness riffle that nobody likes, the large AK47 from Red Star, and the V3 Dusty pistol. This is a load out of parts ranging from decent to awful and it’s the same parts that a few too many figures included. That Dusty pistol was packed with more than twenty figures through that era!
All in all, this is a figure with a few flaws that was a mediocre stand-in for the vintage version back in 2004. Nowadays however, there’s so many Cobra Trooper/Officer repaints that this one has ended up with somewhat of it’s own niche, one that it really used to not have. The bright colors and mold changes make him very different to the vintage figure and there’s certainly no bootlegs that resemble him, so he provides something different in his own way. If you look around for him, you can get these for $5 a pop, sometimes less. For that much, it’s an alright figure to have around and provide some variety to the collection.
2004 Cobra Officer Links:
Nice blog and nice write-up of this guy.
My major complaint with comic pack figures is usually the new “pin head” sculpt, so if the head was accidentally swapped for the original I’m fine with that. It doesn’t have a bad look overall.
I’m also okay with the Red Star gun but the Baroness rifle is one that just piles up in my accessory bin and never sees the light of day. I should think of something, because it’s always good to seek out a challenge.
One suggestion, maybe show a pic of the weapons that came with the figure in the entries?
Thanks for stopping by, Keith!
That Baroness riffle is such a hard piece to use, definitely a challenge. I think I would find that gun less irksome had it not been included so much through the 2000’s. Oddly enough, I didn’t mind it so bad when I was a kid.
And that’s a good suggestion! I think I’ll start doing that in future posts.
I really liked this figure when it came out. I hated the Cobra Trooper from pack 1, but this Officer struck a chord with me for some reason. I lucked out and a few of my local Wal Marts clearanced this pack for $5 each in early 2005. Then, I matched him up with the plethora of Gas Mask Troopers I got on clearance, too.
This guy doesn’t get out much anymore due to the factory custom figures eating up any and all uses for Cobra Troopers. (I’ve always used Officers and Troopers interchangeably.) So, these guys sit in the drawer. I do use the body for my Skeres custom using the unproduced Comic Pack Hawk African American skin tone head. That fig gets use a lot.
I can’t recall the exact details of this mold. I think Hasbro found it and the factory that produced the comic packs had this mold and the other factory they used had the 2004 TRU molds. Hasbro would only use the molds at the same factory for releases (which is why we got so many dud figures in the figure sets of that era: the better molds were at a different factory). We got these molds in the Night Watch for the same reason.
But, Hasbro of time (and still today) had a habit of lying to collectors to get them off their backs at shows. So, they might have done it out of spite.
I’ve suspected the Baroness rifle would be improved by cutting off the trigger guard, but I’ve never been bold enough to try.
We never got o-ring Sunbow Cartoon Cobra Troopers with the off white with black trim webgear. I think they’d look better than the yellow.
Next time I get a spare Baroness riffle I might try that. Also, I think some Sunbow Cobra Troopers from the original sculpt would have looked great!
Black Major on line 1….
I actually quite liked the comic pack Cobra and Officer. They’re not really useful or all that good, but I think they’re kind of a neat period piece. Though A-Man’s on point about the lack of a Sunbow Cobra.