1984 Cobra Commander

There’s a lot to say about Cobra Commander. To a certain extent, you can argue he’s the central character of the GI Joe story line. After all, GI Joe’s plot entirely centers around countering and defeating Cobra, and by association, Cobra Commander. Of course, he’s also one of the most prolific characters too, with almost as many toy iterations as Snake Eyes, and in ARAH alone, more.

When I started collecting vintage figures, this Cobra Commander was among my first dozen or so acquisitions. At the time, I remember being ecstatic to own another figure besides Major Bludd that was so old, as it felt cool to collect figures that were a decade older than me. Given that, I don’t have many memories of doing much with this figure besides photographing him a lot. It’s weird, because other figures I acquired in the same period like Major Bludd and the Lamprey, bring me a nostalgic feeling for how exciting it was to buy old Joes back then, whereas this figure I’ve kind of just taken for granted. Of course, I partly attribute that to the fact that I already had several other Cobra Commander’s that were pretty good.

I really like the figure’s deco, it’s striking yet at the same time blends well with the early Cobra cast. With that said, it’s to be forever compared to the original CC color scheme, and those colors are ultimately my preference. The light-blue coupled with a bigger focus on a contrasting red color is both more interesting and iconic than this figure, which is dark and relies on gold for most of the secondary coloring. It’s not without it’s own merits and some like the more regal look of these colors, but to me, the brighter ones are better.

The sculpt’s an area where the figure again really shines, namely for new head. Among his ‘82 contemporaries, it was fair to say V1 Cobra Commander had a more interesting and nicely unique design, and that holds up well with the hooded version. The hooded head sculpt is well done on this figure. It’s simple, but portrays an ominous look fitting of an anonymous terrorist leader. It seems like a simple thing to get right, but when compared to subsequent hooded commanders, that wasn’t always the case. A few examples from Valor vs. Venom and the early 25th line show how it can be done wrong, and while I love the Talking Battle Commander/Battle Corps sculpt, it’s certainly a lot sillier looking than this one.

Like with V1 Cobra Commander, your only accessory here is his laser pistol. In ways, you could look at this as being kind of boring. In other ways, it was a charming example of a figure with a part that had play value built in to it, as well as expanding the character from just what could be seen in the toys. Being able to store the pistol on his back was a neat way for them to add a little more interest to an otherwise less action-oriented character. As well, the fact that Cobra Commander had a unique, sci-fi gun as his personal weapon over the Soviet surplus his legions came armed with, spoke to the character.

This would be the last V1 CC repaint besides Red Laser to come out, and sadly the 3rd party producers have yet to tackle this mold, either. I personally think it’s a shame as there’s a lot of potential left in the Cobra Commander mold, plus you can pretty easily make some army-builders out of him, too. The fact that the mold’s remained untouched all these years at the very least has prevented it from becoming diluted, but I’d still like to see it done up in the canceled ‘97 color scheme, or black and silver like some of the later CC’s.

‘84 Cobra Commanders have always been easy to obtain figures, and thankfully they look like something that’s going to stay that way, too. Last couple of auctions I saw for this figure ended around $10, which is pretty fair given the craziness of the market as of late. For one with a bit of paint wear, I got mine for $4 or $5 dollars as I recall, which was about a decade ago.

Cobra Commander Gijoe Hasbro ARAH vintage action figure

I did dioramas a lot differently 11 years ago.

1984 Cobra Commander Links:

Way back in 1993 just before the Joe line began to wear down, Hasbro released a fairly large amount of new figures as mail-away exclusives. A few, such as a ’91 General Hawk repaint were sold by themselves, while others were sold in sets of three to four figures, like this Stalker from the Arctic Commandos set.

The figure is a straight up repaint of ‘89 Stalker, and on the surface he doesn’t seem too interesting. ‘89 Stalker was already a really solid figure, so this guy doesn’t have much to improve upon. The main difference is that this figure replaces a lot of the green with more white, and the muddy camouflage pattern on the legs is more subdued. I rather like the change, as while ‘89 Stalker had an interesting palette, Arctic Commandos Stalker has one that’s more cohesive with the other cold-climate centric figures.

The parts for these mail-away sets were pretty sparse in general. This Stalker seemingly got the short end of the stick, coming with only a silver knife, the same one from V1 Shockwave. It’s a decent little part and Stalker can use it well enough, but it’s somewhat of a shame that he doesn’t retain any of the excellent gear from the ‘89 figure. Back when this guy came out I suppose the lack of decent weapons really didn’t matter much, since if you bought this mail-away, you presumably had some other recent figures who could share a gun or two.

Overall, the other 1993 mail-in figures were probably more interesting. But, this Stalker is a fun figure to have in a collection as both a novelty and an alternative to the 1989 figure. He’s niche and truly forgotten, so it makes him a fun and interesting collectible if you’re into that. He also benefits from being likely the best version of this mold color-wise, maybe second only to the 2007 Convention Rock ‘n Roll.

Just a few years ago all of the figures from this Arctic Commandos set weren’t too hard to find. Especially this Stalker, who some collectors ended up with in excess trying to army-build the Snow Serpent from the set. Times have changed though, and although he’s still relatively a bargain figure, none of the figures from this set are as common as they used to be. Excess stock of the 90‘s mail-aways were bought up by dealers at cheap prices and saturated the market for years. But like with Funskool figures, many once common figures are now hard to find as the GI Joe market is drying up. Still, Stalker here goes for as little as $4 to $10 when one does show up for auction. He’s a really nice collectable for that much.