2010 ROC (POC) Elite Ice Viper
I feel like my readers aren’t going to be much into this one, since this blog mainly focuses on classic o-ring molds, but since Forgotten Figures is having rarities month, I thought it’d be fun to profile a few pre-production and unreleased goodies from my collection. Of course, I don’t have that much unreleased Joe stuff, so I have no choice but to profile a movie toy…
Watching GI Joe the Rise of Cobra when it came out on DVD in 2009 was an actual chore. I’m not a connoisseur of bad films, but to this day I feel it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever forced myself to watch. I also feel that’s a pretty fair opinion, as since then, the movie proved to be a financial failure, most actors associated with the film regard it as a low-point of their careers, and toyline ended in premature cancellation, hence why this Ice Viper was never released. I could rant about all of these things, but the main point that continues to astound me, is the fact that Hasbro still insists that GI Joe’s future hinges on live-action movies.
Visually, the Ice Viper was one of the more attractive offerings from the Rise of Cobra line. The figure looks bulky, unique, and doesn’t venture too far out from what you might’ve seen in ARAH. Of course, for a GI Joe item, it’s relatively monochrome and somewhat unimaginative looking, but it’s not that much worse than something you’d have seen in Valor vs Venom. Overall, the figure features a fairly decent winter-uniform that doesn’t have the ugly alien look you saw on the horrid Vipers and Neo-Vipers from the same time.
The figure’s main issues are a greater reflection of the issues with the 25th Anniversary style construction. It’s a fully articulated figure, but because of it’s large and thick winter jacket that hides it’s barren and undecorated torso, the figure’s not much for posing. The sculpt has overly bulky legs that render it incompatible with almost any vehicle, but the jacket stops the legs from even posing at the waist. Overall, it’s still a decent looking army builder, but the point is that the toy can’t do much besides stand there…
The main attraction to the Elite Ice Viper, is that the colors are slightly tweaked to feature lots of red, and no camouflage. I notice a lot of people aren’t fond of red and white color schemes like you see on certain arctic figures from the Black Major, but I think they work, especially in this figure’s case. Ultimately, one of the worst things about the ROC toy line, was that the toys were flat, and colorless. Everything you saw was a sea of black and gray, which makes a toy like this more appreciable. The red highlights make the design more fun and look like a GI Joe toy, which I see as a major upgrade over the standard colors.
The parts are pretty bad, which is better than average compared to most of his contemporaries. You get the ugly sci-fi pistol that most ROC Cobras came with, as well as a bandaged version of one of the Neo-Viper’s riffle, and a ski-torpedo missile launcher. The guns are ugly, though this figure can hold them well enough, which is not something you could say about every figure from this time period. The missile launcher is just a waste of plastic and doesn’t solicit much comment.
Like with many midnight-run figures, it’s a canceled toy for a reason, and for years this figure was both plentiful and cheap. Since the early ‘10‘s, the supply of these from China has mostly dried up, and you don’t see them so much any more. However, the only thing that’s changed about ROC’s popularity, is that now there’s no more hipsters left to shill for the film, so you won’t likely ever see this toy become a coveted possession. If you’re in the market for one, I wouldn’t pay more than $25… But that’s not an endorsement of this figure.
The Viper Pit 