2021 Red Shadow Agent X (TBM Cobra Officer)
For one of his 2021 projects, The Black Major took a different route from his more typical repaints of popular army builders, and instead made sets of new army builders, from a more original recipe dubbed Agent X. Each figure came in four variations, with the main changes being the head, torso and accessories. Essentially, there’s two versions of Snake Eyes, a Firefly and then then a Cobra Officer.
It’s a different approach even if I think most of the figures that resulted from this aren’t too interesting. For me, the main draw to this series of figures are the Cobra Officers, while I honestly have enough Firefly and Snake Eyes repaints not to bother too much with those. With that said, a few of the color schemes are strong enough to warrant the extra variations, likewise, they do nice to supplement collections of odd groups like the Red Shadows. With that said, I think he missed a big opportunity by not doing SAS Force from this mold.
The part choices are fairly interesting too. In the case of the Cobra Officer, he’s made from the ‘83 Officer’s head and torso, ‘83 Snake Eyes arms and legs, and the waist from ‘86 Roadblock. Gotta admit, I’m not a big fan of either the Snake Eyes legs or the Roadblock waist, especially not when paired together. At the same time, they don’t look horrible, and I appreciate having the figure changed up in small ways that make me not feel so insane for buying copious amounts of the same toy in different colors.
This Red Shadow Officer is really well done and looks much more on point than some of the early Red Shadow customs. The red color is bright and a good match for the tones you saw on Palitoy’s releases. It doesn’t take too many creative liberties and mostly stays in line with the paint masks for the other Agent X figures, which in this case seems like a good thing.
The accessories are actually what inspired me to stock up on a few variations of this figure, although that might sound odd to some. Included is an M4 (Marauders Gun Runners sculpt), a 25th Snake Eyes knife, and ‘87 Chuckles’s pistol. I really liked getting the extra Chuckles pistols! That’s a really nice part and it’s not the easiest to get a few of, let alone in large amounts. The other parts work and are okay. I really enjoy collecting odd colored bootlegged ARAH parts from TBM, so it bums me out a little when he does MGR accessories. The 25th SE knife is a weird choice too, but it has a thin handle, which means it’s useful to old-sculpts at the very least.
The quality of this release seems alright, and about middle of the road as far as factory customs go. The joints seem okay, most of mine are pretty tight. Paint applications are tight and look very good consistently. Out of a little more than a dozen, I’ve yet to acquire any with any weird casting defects or anything like that.
At the moment, you can get these for about $15 retail, but he knocks off a few dollars when you buy a few at a time. I’m really curious to see how these will change in value over time. On the one hand, they’re fairly odd figures and I’m not sure how popular this set’s been compared to past releases. Then again, he’s also making a lot fewer figures than he used to, and Cobra Officers are popular. Personally, I speculate this figure will be more demanded later on, while the oddball SE’s and Firefly’s will probably languish a tad more, especially given that people might feel fine only acquiring one each of those.
I’ve yet to pull the trigger on any of these. Only one or two color schemes really call out to me. The unpainted Snake Eyes boots look weird to me on the Officer and Firefly. And, I just can’t spend $60 to get some. Maybe later this summer. I do love the gear, though. It’s nice to get some different assortments. But, the Officer should still have the classic AK-47.
It’s coincidental that the parts for these figures match up to some of the cancelled Wave 3 of Red Laser release part choices. I’d have much rather had something different. But, a factory custom Cobra Officer was desperately needed, even if has the wonky legs.
It’s neat that the Red Shadow officer’s mask isn’t painted. I like the effect, the matching bright red.
The Roadblock waist really turned me off this series. But I’ve ended up getting a few, since I couldn’t pass up a desert Officer or a desert Firefly, or the chance to have my first-ever take on the Invasor character. I’m picking up a few more when I can get them effectively for free in his big bundles. The waists keep bothering me though.
You make a really good case for this figure and it looks splendid in your photos. I have a couple of the skull-themed Agent X figures. I haven’t quite decided on a parts combo for them. I love that they came with an Alley Viper v2 shield, but I might need to look closer… maybe there’s a Chuckles pistol in there??
The regular Red Shadow Troopers TBM did recently are the best factory customs I’ve bought in years. They’re the first ones I’ve had no problems posing, standing, or getting to hold their accessories. I was really, really impressed. And now I kind of want one of these to be a squad leader…
I wound up painting the face black and the eyes white on mine, to give them a more classic Red Shadows look. This figure is in quite a nice red colour, while not a perfect Red Shadows match, is a lot closer than some of the stuff by TBM before it.
The full accessory compliment is pretty solid, I’m not a huge fan of the MGR gun, but it’s alright. The 25th Snake Eyes knife is okay, though I would’ve preferred a Falcon knife. The rest of the batch was pretty nice, I like Ripper’s gun, the Alley Viper shield is a nice thing to get, and the Quick Kick sword is one of the two best ones in the line, so being able to get them is a blessing, the black is a nice colour too.
I like the build on this figure a lot more than I figured I would’ve. The Snake Eyes legs and Roadblock waist are iffy, but it’s not the end of the world. The Roadblock waist is bad, but there’s a bunch of issues that would’ve arisen if they’d used the 82-83 waist.