2004 Cobra Viper, Valor vs Venom

Posted on May 5, 2017 by mwnekoman

In the summer of 2007, I’d finally got into Joe collecting upon falling in on the 25th Anniversary hype. I had flirted with the brand prior, but my tastes being focused mainly on 80‘s Joes left me with little to catch my attention until that point. Seeing pictures of the toys on the Internet had me hunting all over my town for anything I could find. Alas, I had no luck finding any GI Joes that summer, except for a smattering of leftover Valor vs Venom toys. One such toy, was the 2004 Cobra Viper and Alley Viper two-pack.

At first I hesitated given they weren’t “modern era” style figures. I may have even passed on the set once or twice only to find it still hanging there a month later at that same Big Lots. Disappointed at my lack of a growing GI Joe collection, I bought them just to have something new.

By no means were these my first “new-sculpt” figures that I had acquired, so I knew somewhat to expect from them quality wise. With that said, the Alley Viper was solidly disappointing and a garbage figure, but it’s not the subject of this writing. The Cobra Viper, was actually pretty satisfying. For a Valor vs Venom figure, the proportions of the sculpt are pretty decent, and he has standard articulation with no issues. With that said, the figure has no obvious issues from the outset so that’s certainly a good thing.

The color scheme of this Viper is probably his most distinguishing aspect. It’s rather unique and a bit unlike any other colors ever used on a Viper. The shade of dark red that comprises most of the figure bears a passing resemblance to the 1997 Cobra Viper, but only slightly. He also sports a fair amount of purple, which ties in well with the other dark colors. The black visor is another interesting color choice that sets him apart quite a bit from the standard Viper look, which is nice.

The accessories leave something to be desired, arming him with a measly G36 riffle and generic combat knife. To improve his load out, I’d usually arm him the the scorpion pistols from the Alley Viper since that figure had no value anyway and the accessories were wasted on him. The last part included with this figure was some sort of two piece “pod” as Yo Joe! refers to it. I have no idea what this is or what purpose it’s supposed to serve. As far as I know it was only included with this release and was never reused. I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out when I got this figure, but could only guess it was a crate of some sort.

Overall, he’s a good figure that could have used some better parts. I think if the Joe vs Cobra and Spy Troops lines had started with sculpts of this quality, the collecting community might not hold the era in such low regard as they do today.

Valor vs Venom Viper (Version 12) Links:

Yo Joe!

Joe A Day

1990 Vapor

Posted on March 27, 2017 by mwnekoman

My earliest childhood with GI Joe was strange to say the least. I had a handful of my own figures, mainly clearance priced 1994 figures that were lingering on pegs into ‘97. For the most part though, I mainly experienced the brand through my brother’s collection and through reruns of the Sunbow cartoon.

I was very opinionated about my brother’s collection. For the most part, I hated the lot of what he had, mainly because it consisted of oddly colored 90‘s figures and not any that looked like the guys I saw in the cartoon. With that said, a few figures always tickled my fancy regardless of if I knew the character or not, Vapor being one of them. This guy struck me as some kind of psychopathic, murderous cyborg who was immune to reason and overall a really though fight for some unfortunate Joes who might encounter him. I liked coming up with exaggerated villains like that…

As such, I have some rather fond memories playing with this guy despite his otherwise obscurity. I mean, really, if you just look at the figure you really have to ask yourself what on earth he is. His filecard is rather vague, saying little to nothing about his character. It’s not even totally clear as to if he’s a generic or a singular person, but I see him as the later.

Vapor has a decent sculpt. My favorite parts are his head and the Cobra symbol buckle on his chest. Nothing too remarkable other than that, but these are at least some decent focal points that give the figure a memorable appearance. As you might expect of a vehicle driver, Vapor has a slight lacking of too many painted details. The ugliest part of the figure is his solid red waist that gives him that “underwear on the outside” type appearance.

I like his colors a fair bit, being mostly grey with some red and black for details, and silver on his head. It’s a bit different, but his appearance looks somewhat cohesive with the A.V.A.C.’s, which is good. He was repainted only once into the Air-Viper for the 2003 Joecon, a decent figure although it’s colors arguable lack the contrast of Vapor’s. For that reason I think this one is the better of the two versions.

Overall, he’s a mildly interesting pilot and Cobra to come from the 90‘s. Given how saturated the line is with different Vipers, Vapor is refreshing change of pace. I’ve never used him in many dios, but he’s certainly worth using more.

More on Vapor (v1):

Forgotten Figures

Yojoe!

3DJoes

1983 Cobra Trooper

Posted on February 5, 2016 by mwnekoman

In a weird way, I find figures like the V1 Cobra Trooper harder to write about simply because there’s so much that can be said about them. I think the Cobra Trooper is the second most iconic GI Joe figure after the original Cobra Commander. Everyone knows this look, and it’s safe to say the ‘82 Cobras such as this guy established Royal Blue as Cobra’s defining color.

I think it’s because of this figure and his perceived importance to me that I ignored GI Joe somewhat as a child. As a kid I came really late on the GI Joe wagon, so most of the original figures were not accessible to me. The classic Sunbow cartoon on the other hand was more than accessible to me, where I was introduced to GI Joe’s excellent 80‘s cast. It always left me disappointed after watching the show to not have any similar figures to play with. Even going into the 2002 – ‘06 “New Sculpt” era, interpretations of the Cobra Trooper were sparse. As such, I lacked the most classic Cobra in many of my play times as a child, leaving me somewhat jaded at the time.

Years later I’ve acquired many fine Cobra Trooper variations including the vintage figure. It’s strangely fulfilling to acquire the figure so many years later, and I hold them as some of my favorite pieces in my Joe collection. However, I think I may be prone to over-rating the figure similar to a few other early ARAH pieces purely from my long held desire to own one.

Simplicity is one of the greatest charms the original Cobra has going for him. With later Cobras the detail on the sculpts grew to a very high quality, but likewise the figures often became busy with so many details. The Cobra Trooper avoids this, but still has eye-catching elements that makes the figure all the more interesting. In particular I always really liked the silver grenade-launcher shells and piano wire on his shoulders.

Speaking of the piano wire, I like others have often found myself puzzled as to why the lower ranking Cobra Trooper has a sniper riffle while the Cobra Officer has a fully automatic AK-47. I take the piano wire to be a hint that perhaps the Cobra Trooper was originally envisioned to be more of a stealthy, assassin like soldier than the brainless grunt he later became. It could just be a coincidence, but I sometimes like to view them as more competent, sinister characters.

In the end, this is just a figure I couldn’t imagine my vintage collection without. Like Duke, Roadblock and Snake Eyes, you just don’t have GI Joe without THE Cobra trooper. If I had to sell all but a handful of my collection this is a figure I’d always keep.

https://youtu.be/anse2STbpYE?t=1s

The Viper Pit

Tag Archives: Cobra