1993 Heat Viper (Version 2)
When I was collecting in my teenage years, my early vintage acquisitions were some odd ones, mainly flavored by both odd tastes and conditions. The condition being, that for a while early on I did not buy loose toys. Back then I was really bothered about not knowing where my toys had been, but with time I came to desire more vintage items then I did new ones, so the only practical solution was to forget this phobia. Still, it meant my early purchases tilted more towards what was practical to buy MOSC, such as the Battle Corps Heat Viper.
It was pretty fun buying a vintage figure for the sake of opening. I know some of you might find that sentence a bit sadistic, but on a cheap (and honestly crappy) figure like this Heat Viper, it’s an experience with enough novelty value I found it worth a small premium. The truth is, I don’t remember opening many ARAH GI Joes. Most of the oldest toys I had as a kid were ones I was borrowing from my brother, though I had my own collection of figures from ‘93 and ‘94 acquired on clearance years later. So there was a lot about the feel of the packaging I didn’t remember.
“This new generation of Cobra anti-tank specialists are equipped with the latest in hyper-kinetic, high-speed, armor-piercing technology. When they spot a G.I. Joe vehicle (especially a nice Battle Wagon, Patriot, or Mudbuster) they sit perfectly still, lining up the tracker sights on target to guide their projectile. Then they try to squeeze off one of their hand-held rockets knowing they’ve only got one shot because if they miss, there isn’t a G.I. Joe worth his salt who’ll let that poor fool try for seconds!”
Interestingly, his secondary specialty is listed as being the Earthquake Driver. They did this a lot in the line’s twilight years, where instead of including a vehicle driver with the vehicle, a random single-card figure was just named it’s driver. I really can’t see why a Heat Viper would also be driving what amounts to a weaponized construction vehicle, but oh well.
The Heat Viper himself is a boring, maybe even terrible figure. The original Heat Viper had it’s fair share of problems, so it’s amazing they created what is almost surely a downgrade from that. The figure is almost totally devoid of either sculpted or painted details. He’s just a guy in green tights, and he looks as much like an anti-tank trooper as he does a ninja. Besides that, he’s all of three colors, and he wears his underwear on the outside. So he doesn’t have much going for him visually.
Nothing gets better with his accessories. The generic combo of the PSG1 (Rock Viper riffle), the Annihilator’s SMG, and Iron Grenadier’s pistol all in fluorescent green makes him feel almost like a parody of a 90‘s figure. I normally skip commenting on missile launchers, but in the case of this Heat Viper, it’s one of his more interesting accessories. It shares a lot of details with the V1 Heat Viper’s bazooka, even having the distinctive “Fang” logo on the launcher. So for once, it’s character appropriate, and although it’s a very cumbersome part, it’s one of the only launchers I’d ever contemplate displaying a figure with, so there’s that.
In proper correspondence with the figure’s quality, the V2 Heat Viper is nearly worthless. A MOSC figure will still sell for about $12, which is maybe only a dollar or two more than what I paid for a carded one almost a decade ago. Save for the missiles, you can typically find these nearly complete for around $6. Through lots, you’ll get a good number of them for even less, which is what I’ve done over the years. There’s not much good to say about him, but it’s a cheap acquisition to pad out a 90‘s collection if you seek that.
At the time I thought it was strange they remade HEAT-Viper instead of say, Tele-Viper.
Yes, there’s not much connection to the original in design or colors. That’s another thing. The 1989 HEAT Viper wasn’t realistically colored, either. But, his yellow wasn’t so florescent and he had more than 3 colors on his figure. V2’s few detail are lost in neon green and black. And the green isn’t even as good as 1992 Firefly’s lime green. So a tacky figure that is somehow dull at the same time.
That said, I don’t hate Heat-Viper V2. I used to have a lot of them. It deserved a repaint that it never got.
Cobra issued 36mm pistol? I’m not a gun person, but isn’t that a rather large bullet size?
“Cobra issued 36mm pistol? I’m not a gun person, but isn’t that a rather large bullet size?”
Well, that would be a gun firing a projectile with a diameter just slightly wider that of the explosive shells spat out by the A-10 Warthog’s tank-killing GAU-8 rotary cannon, so yeah, that’s rather large. 😀
He’s an interesting figure to say the least. The comment about his launcher being based off the v1 figure’s bazooka is pretty neat! Have you ever thought about arming this figure with the Fast Blast Viper accessories?
HEAT Viper II has always been one of my favourite Battle Corps figures (and I actually like quite a few of them). I’ve always loved that shade of green, and the figure’s bodysuit has enough sculpted detail to look like padded/insulated combat gear rather than a superhero leotard. Interestingly, he’s kind of a diametric opposite to his predecessor isince there’s virtually *nothing* about his sculpt or accessories that strictly ties him to being an anti-armour specialist. He could be a Mega-Monster wrangler, a vehicle driver, or even an upgraded Tele-Viper or Night Viper, and that was how I tended to play with him as a child (particularly given the clunkiness of his missile launcher, which often proved hard to get the figure to grip due to the integration of the trigger into the actual grip of the weapon, causing it to shift back and forth in the figure’s hands during play and frequently fall off).