Tag Archives: Viper

1986 Viper

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1986 Cobra Viper

gi joe viper cobra 1986 vintage hasbro

For some reason, I’ve held off on writing about certain figures I consider important or prominent, as though I’ve needed time to come up with enough to say about a GI Joe toy as legendary as the Cobra Viper. Alas, between the blog being dead for the better part of a year  (Now going on two!) and it being this site’s 10th anniversary, I might as well chew on some thoughts about some classics I’ve left ignored. Also, after a decade putting a post about the Viper on the VIPER PIT seemed about right. Maybe.

Like many of the 1986 cast, the Viper is sort of a repeat of the Cobra Soldier. So there’s always been a slight divide between Viper people and Trooper people, usually having to do with what point you came into collecting at. Back when GI Joe forums were still relevant, it was funny seeing all the narrow-sighted criteria people would invent to justify what they do collect vs what they don’t, with the general theme being “I only like the stuff that was cool from before puberty, and not the stuff that was lame after gurlz”. Not that any of that’s really relevant anymore, as the modern o-ring collector seems so desperate for a hit of plastic even most of the neon-90’s stuff will find a home somewhere. Seeing the GI Joe community now versus how it was in the late 2000’s is somewhat jarring, as many of the people who are still around from back then seem to have totally reinvented their tastes. Then again, I don’t go to places like Facebook, so I could be missing out on a lot of the classic, abstract tom-jerkery that people invent to justify their tastes in toys.

For me, the comics and cartoons always showed them together, which is how I like it. Cobra troopers look basic and unskilled, like goons that are just given the bare-minimum and told to go commit crimes. Vipers however have much more sophisticated looking gear and uniforms; Nothing too fancy, but something more than the basic gear of their predecessor. In my head cannon, I like to imagine Cobra troopers as being the more organic, bottom-level enlisted soldiers, while Vipers have better gear and a minimal amount of training and experience. Assorted foreign interests pay Cobra to have Vipers do their bidding, while Cobra Troopers are more commonly criminals of 3rd world countries looking for a few dollars in return for some simple crimes. It’s much easier to move up in the ranks as a Viper, whereas Troopers are usually low-investment, unscrupulous criminals from around the globe.

The colors on the Viper mark somewhat of a change in the brand’s design philosophy. Red, blue and black are pretty well established classic Cobra colors, but the Viper uses red in far higher amounts than the trooper or See-see. Cobra colors were fewer and more solid with earlier figures like the HISS Driver or Crimson Guard, both of whom were bright red, but had more reduced palettes with fewer clashing colors, whereas the Viper is almost 50/50 blue and red. Again, the colors were used before, but the ratio seemed to change around this point giving the figure a bolder, but also less realistic look.

His sculpt is sharp and well done. He has a head roughly the size of any other ’86 release, which is fine, because he’s wearing a big clunky helmet unlike his contemporary Low-Light, who’s head is nearly the exact same size. I’ve always been fond of the torso’s detail and sharpness on the vest; the rest of the sculpt is similarly crisp. The 1986 line rarely had proportions on par with the 1984 line, but the quality and detail of the sculpts were showing steady progress despite the large amount of figures released in this year (Also, I’m conveniently ignoring Lift-Ticket with this statement.).

The Viper comes with a very basic rifle and backpack. I guess that’s an upgrade from the trooper’s one sniper rifle, but still not a whole lot. As far as I know, the Viper’s rifle is a mostly original design, and doesn’t appear to be cobbled together from other sculpts like Ripper’s gun or the Crimson Guard’s. The off-white color shows the detail of the sculpt fairly well, and it’s a nicely designed gun. “Iconic” is overused term in the modern lexicon, but I hold this design up there with Cobra Commander’s pistol, being somewhat the symbolic gun of Cobra. On a passing note, I’ve seen way more Vipers with broken left thumbs than other figures, which I suspect is from people (children?) trying to use the fore grip on the rifle. The backpack is big and bulky, and honestly I dislike it. The rigid look of it’s shape coupled with how badly it throws off their balance has me wanting to reach for any possible replacement any time I handle a Viper. You really only see this part in my photos just for the sake of authenticity, but I really think it makes them look worse.

gi joe vintage o-ring tele-viper 1985 hasbro cobra

The world had no shortage of Viper repaints after this release, with frankly far more of them than I care to list. Of course, the full sculpt with the legs was only intact for the Sonic Fighters Viper and Python Viper after this one. Sitting that aside, the remnants of the Viper mold was released by Hasbro another 9 times until 2006. Some of these recolors were more enjoyable than others, but the sculpt was mostly used to it’s fullest potential. Personally I’ve never even been eager to collect most of these Vipers, as I feel it is nicer to have 40 Vipers in 4 or 5 color schemes, as opposed to 40 Vipers in different colors each. Environment specific Troopers and Vipers were the collecting dream for years, but the law of diminishing returns comes into effect pretty hard here.

Mint, complete V1 Vipers hit around $30, more or less. These days I don’t find that a horrible price to pay, and it’s pretty much in line with the “iconic” army builders of the first few years. At the very least it’s nice these are a tad easier to get a hold of than a mint, swivel-arm Trooper; those not only being more seldom, but also more often in poor shape. Next year the Cobra Viper will be a 40-year-old action figure, given that, it’s not outrageous to pay a premium for such a figure. With that said, the collectible market is still overly inflated, so I think prices will continue to slump over the next few years.

gi joe viper cobra 1986 vintage hasbro

2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

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2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

Filler week! I have some good memories of Valor vs. Venom, but not so many that it’s really worth talking about the VvV Viper sculpt again after I already wrote about the red one, and this guy’s pack-mate, the Tele-Viper (Python Patrol) on another occasion. Yet, here I am, because I ran out of time this week, and I have a couple of old photos of this guy anyways.

I completely ignored GI Joe in 2004. Spy Troops garnered my interest for a bit thanks to it’s fun designs and cool gimmicks, but this was lost with Valor vs. Venom. I had a lot of toys I wanted that year, between getting every last Gundam product I could find at retail and trying to save some out from Transformers Energon, GI Joe didn’t have much of a chance, especially for toys I considered a somewhat pitiful showing. The Valor vs. Venom story line of DNA altered Cobras, plus many of the goofy characters like Coil Crusher and Venomous Maximus, drove me away primarily, but the drab and often boring Joes did nothing to help.

Years later though, I was thirsty for anything GI Joe I could get, and most of the ‘03 through ‘06 figures started to look more appealing, especially once people started dumping off their collections for change. Many of the aforementioned elements of VvV still didn’t appeal to me, but browsing YoJoe! for some hours revealed a number of toys I felt would be more at home in my collection. It also helped that the then current 25th Anniversary Viper was a pretty lackluster figure, so this older sculpt gained a stronger appeal for having normal wrists, and the ability to sit properly.

This Viper is a fun toy, and a good representation of the sculpt. For a guy wearing a helmet, his head is a little small, but the proportions are much more solid overall than what you typically see on releases from this era. He can’t get super-authentic tacti-cool real-military poses, but the feel of the figure is pretty similar to a classic o-ring from ARAH. Right now, I’d love it if they could just go back to selling figures like this at retail, as while GI Joe has put out some great collectibles since ‘08 or so, the New-Sculpt construction was the last time GI Joe was a good toy.

Like many New-Sculpt figures, this guy seems to suffer badly from the cracking-chest phenomena. All of mine have a small crack at the neck now, which I know is common to figures from this era. So far though, a lot of my Comic-Pack guys are still perfectly fine, and many of my other new-sculpts are fine too, so if I had to guess I’d say these are a little worse than average. Between figures commonly yellowing and the neck-cracks showing up, it’s really not fun to collect these any more, which is sad.

For accessories, you get possibly the three most generic parts that were in-use between 2003 to ‘06, that being an AK-47 (with bayonet), a G36 rifle, and a knife. What’s funny about these parts is that they were used so much, I can barely guess which figure first included them, but honestly, with so many uses, they were probably never intended as someone’s special gun to begin with. Why does a Viper include two rifles? An SMG or an explosive-launcher of some type would have been nicer than two guns that fill the same role.

No one does auctions anymore, so finding a few of these guys at a price they’re worth isn’t too easy. Still, even the dealers that only list BiN’s rarely bother asking for more than $8 for one of these guys. You’ll find them in lots and with the Python Tele-Viper often enough for around $20, too. There’s a lot I miss about figures like this one, but sadly it’s really not something worth paying that much money for. Mainly, that’s because there’s a good chance this figure will continue to age poorly and degrade, which they’ve proven to be doing at a much faster rate than the 80‘s figures that are twice their age.

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1989 Python Viper

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1989 Python Viper

Viper repaints are something I like; Python Patrol repaints are another thing I like. Naturally, I like the Python Viper a lot because of this, but that’s not much of a surprise. It’s not a figure that does anything particularly amazing, though at face value it’s probably the best Viper repaint ever made, which by extension makes it the best Python Patrol figure ever made too.

The Python Patrol as a whole, is a set that works best in harmony with each other, though not so much piecemeal. Each figure’s colors pulls off another in various ways, which makes oddball repaints like the Python Crimson Guard look much more reasonable when in the company of the Python Viper and Tele-Viper. I think that’s part of why some fans desire a requisite Python repaint for virtually every Cobra, since they have a nice aesthetic and represent an interesting idea, though not many figures outside of their group really match with them much.

I never got to read most of the Marvel comics until just recently, and the comic’s take on them as stealth units being deployed by Darklon in eastern Europe struck me as an interesting idea. In particular, I’ve always viewed them as Cobra’s jungle fighters, since that’s what almost everything else seems to pin them as, including the fact that they’re the Cobra analog to the Tiger Force. Besides that though, pairing them with Darklon and other contemporary Cobra’s is antithetical to my view of them as a harmonious set; it’s cool, but I still don’t think it looks as good in practice.

The Python Viper is very nice for several reasons. One is that his colors are mostly gray and black with some yellow details, which is pretty much the perfect ratio of drab to bright colors for a GI Joe figure. The brighter gray is also very nice for appreciating the sculpted details of the Viper mold, which are much easier to overlook on the original blue and black colors. Other than that, it’s cool because it’s different. That may sound dismissive, but army-builder repaints like the Python Patrol are usually a little superfluous like that.

You get the same rifle and backpack from the ‘86 Viper, just now in black. It’s a simple kit that works, and while the light-gray weapons were originally something I didn’t mind, the Viper rifle looks much more convincing in darker colors. I would like them even more if I actually owned some, though Python Patrol gear always runs up the price of a figure more than I feel like it’s worth. If given the choice, I’d rather have two Vipers with replacement guns than one that’s complete.

I feel like prices are faltering some on Python Patrol items, at least from the height of the post-covid market. Oddball auctions for Vipers are starting trend lower, though just a few months ago there were still tons that were hitting upwards of $40. Incomplete figures usually go for less than $20, which is a slightly more reasonable amount. I get the sneaking feeling the prices on the Python Patrol got pushed way up by that wave of post-covid speculators, and a lot of morons who were hoarding oddities as “investments”. I like these a lot, but I won’t be getting any more until prices come down.

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1994 Viper

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1994 Viper

Although I’ve actually talked about the Battle Corps Viper on here before, that post was from a different time, years ago, when I hadn’t really figured out what was doing with this blog. That’s important to note, because rehashing old topics isn’t really something I feel like doing, yet I have a lot I want to say about this figure, so he’s kind of an exception to that.

Without a doubt, the Battle Corps Viper is one of the coolest Battle Corps toys, and honestly one of the best Vipers ever made. I don’t think he’s better than the original Viper’s design, just because I can’t really see this one filling the same role that that figure does. This version of the Viper looks less utilitarian, and more like an intimidating soldier of the future, with state-of-the-art gear that can take a few hits. He’s been various things to me at various points, though what I’ve settled on is an elite soldier in top-class combat gear. He can move quickly, but also take repeated gun shots without stopping. Perhaps this figure’s only flaw is that he looks like something more than just a basic Viper.

There’s so much detail going on with this sculpt to comment on. The look of his helmet is both unique among GI Joe designs, but also reminiscent of something a little pulpy and old. Personally it kind of reminds me of something you’d have seen out of Japan from decades prior, like the Cyborg Men from Cyborg 009, or maybe a little like Hakaider (though, it’s probably the pointy shoulders that remind me more of Hakaider). It cements them in my mind as intimidating foes; though it’s also an interesting direction they took with the Viper’s design. Making this connection and then thinking about the live-action GI Joe advertisement from the time, I’m left wondering if Tokusatsu was an inspiration behind this look. Probably a stretch, but nerds have always liked Japan, so maybe not too unrealistic.

This figure’s always been a favorite of mine, though my opinions have come and gone on his colors. Back in my teenage years I used to stare at this figure, and contemplate what he could’ve been with better colors. Of course, there was the drool worthy Iron Anvil figure floating around, which for a while I wanted much more than this one. Then at some point, my opinions flipped, and I’ve been stuck ever since feeling like the Iron Anvil was shallow and largely a missed opportunity for something else, while this figure became the more interesting usage of the mold in my mind. I think part of that’s because both visually and in terms of story, the Iron Anvil doesn’t really have anything new going on, where as this guy seems more like an interesting and unique Cobra, that doesn’t look just like every other figure in his faction.

This mold still could’ve been so much. With how expensive and tedious factory customs have become, someone like TBM bringing back this sculpt could really reel me back in from my recent wave of disinterest. Coil colors, Red Shadows, Arctic, Jungle, Cobra CAT… Heck, put out a Cobra La color-scheme reminiscent of the Royal Guard. It’s really just a shame that such a solid sculpt was only reused once, and in none other than the Iron Grenadier “magic-sauce” colors.

For parts, you get Monkeywrench’s speargun, a ’91 Toxo Viper pistol, ’92 Spirit’s pistol, the Hydro Viper’s knife, and a figure stand all in bright red, with a requisite missile launcher and missiles (‘93 Alley Viper’s). From when I was a kid until now, I really loved how that Toxo Viper pistol looked with him. In my mind, this was an experimental and highly dangerous weapon, like a railgun, that could even penetrate tank armor. Some of his gear takes a little imagination to rationalize, but I like it more than I really should. Plus, if you use the logic of an FPS game, that trident-launcher is probably the most deadly weapon after a riot-shield.

A ‘94 Viper will now run you around $15 for a complete example, but you can get partless figures for army-building for around $8. Unfortunately though, this figure has gotten a lot harder to find. Most of that probably has to do with eBay’s seller policies being so crappy now, compared to years ago, but regardless you won’t find figures like this as often as you used to. When you can find them though, he’s relatively cheap for a ‘94 figure, which is still a nice thing to see.

Battle Corps Viper 1994 Gi joe hasbro cobra vintage Battle Corps Viper 1994 Gi joe hasbro cobra vintageBattle Corps Viper 1994 Gi joe hasbro cobra vintage

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2002 Cobra Viper

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2002 Cobra Viper

The collecting community in the 2000‘s was all about army-builders; especially the coveted classic Cobra Troopers, BATs, and Viper. The first two I mentioned Hasbro struggled to deliver on, though Viper repaints were put out in numbers not too different from Firefly figures. This Viper was one of the first recolors after the Cobra Infantry Team in ‘98.

A lot of the appeal of this figure is lost now because of the subsequent repaints that came after him, and the availability of some more interesting factory customs. In it’s own right, this is a passable Viper repaint that I think looks pretty good for it’s lighter, desaturated greens compared to the similar olive one from 2003. Another thing that makes this repaint nice to me, is that Hasbro kept the visor silver rather than painting it some weird color like they did on the later repaints.

The paint masks are really questionable on this figure, particularly referring to his lower legs. Because the figure uses BAT legs instead of actual Viper legs, the designers decided to paint the entire lower leg piece, including the knee above the boot, solid grey. The idea was to simulate the look of the classic Viper’s knee-boots, but it really looks horrible here. On many of my figures I removed the paint on this part which improves the look slightly, though I hate doing mods like this.

Of course, the figure also suffers from all of the classic tooling issues that plague almost every Viper repaint post ‘97. That includes the tab on his neck that makes him permanently look down, and using BAT legs instead of Viper legs. The head tab doesn’t bother me that much, but it would’ve been nice if they could have removed it. Why is it that it’s always too expensive to remake lost molds, but they can modify a mold at a moment’s notice for an obscure set of reissues made in smaller numbers?

The Viper really suffers from the poor accessory choices you saw often in the 2000‘s. Included here is ‘84 Baroness’s gun, and the backpack from the SAW Viper; generic items used extensively in later 00‘s releases. I’ve really softened my views on the Baroness rifle in recent years, as it’s not really a terrible gun, but just an okay one that was really overused in this period. As a kid, it was my go-to weapon for the Python Tele-Viper, and it has the benefit of being a relatively easy weapon to hold. The SAW Viper backpack was also not that bad of a part, but really just didn’t feel appropriate here. Even among a catalog of parts Hasbro frequently used at the time, there were better items that could’ve been chosen for this figure.

In all of the uses of the Viper mold in the 2000‘s, I really like this one for it’s colors. The 2002 Crimson/Fuschia Viper is probably the best looking use of the mold, but it’s niche and expensive. Another blue recolor came out in ’02, which was pretty nice, but it was also very darkly colored and somewhat bland. Three more were released in separate colors under Spy Troops, which all looked a little phoned-in to me. Then you had the Viper Pit set come along in pseudo ‘86 colors, which had it’s own series of problems associated with it. Putting all that in context makes me realize that Hasbro never did anything very interesting or curious with the mold, despite that the Viper is ubiquitously popular and would’ve fit well into a TRU 6-pack. To a certain degree I’m glad we didn’t see it again though.

One of the last benefits you can attribute to this figure, is that it’s a common and relatively cheap Viper. They’re a little tedious to look for among so many Viper releases, but you can get them often with the Mirage he was packed with around $10, and if you look long enough, you can get this guy by himself for around $6 or $7. Even just a few years ago this was a cheap and fun figure you might get as a toss-in purchase, though it’s a little less often now with the current market.

gi joe arah joe vs cobra 2002 vintage hasbro viper vs mirage
gi joe arah joe vs cobra 2002 vintage hasbro viper vs mirage

2002 Cobra Viper Links:

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Bootleg Cobra Viper (Tele-Viper colors), Red Laser Army Customs

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Bootleg Cobra Viper (Tele-Viper colors), Red Laser Army Customs

I’ve been meaning to get around to reviewing one of the Red Laser Custom Vipers, and the one that’s caught a lot of my interests lately is the Tele-Viper colored “Telecommunications Infantry” Viper. It’s sort of odd, as on the surface it still looks mostly like a normal Viper, but some of the nuances are what makes this color scheme appeal to me.

For the most part, this figure looks pretty much like a normal, 1986 Viper. He’s still mainly Cobra blue, but swaps the traditional black vest for a purple, Tele-Viper colored one. All of the red is replaced with either more blue or black, and like the Viper Pit Viper, the gloves are painted a separate color from his blue arm guards. It’s a pretty nice color scheme that’s different enough from a normal Viper, but still retains enough of those early 80‘s Cobra colors that he doesn’t look out of place with figures of that era.

To me, I think this figure provides a similar appeal as the different Phase II Clone Trooper regiments from Star Wars. Most Clone Troopers look a lot alike, but their regiment is distinguished typically by a single color. Normally, most Cobras come in disparate color schemes and don’t really form cohesive looking squads. The V1 Viper and Tele-Viper aren’t that different, but when a few colors are changed out like you have on this guy, it makes for a more uniform squad.

With all of these customs, a topic of high interest is usually the construction quality. With some of the other Viper customs I’ve acquired I have run into some issues, but these are pretty good. They hold their guns perfectly, paint applications are very tight and consistent, and the joints are okay. They’re not super tight like a card-fresh figure might be, but it’s reasonable enough they can hold a pose well and no modding seems necessary.

For parts, you get the standard V1 Viper backpack and riffle, with the addition of a removable helmet. The helmet’s nicely done, although it’s a very tight fit over the head. It’s really strange to me that despite there being almost 30 figures of the Viper, Hasbro has never once made one with a removable helmet, which heightens my appreciation for this feature.

Red Laser Customs still has some of these for sale on eBay, at the price of $12 each. If you’re into custom figures and you like these colors like I do, there’s not a very good reason to wait on grabbing some. As the market for factory customs has become more inflated with a wealth of odd and interesting figures, prices for oddball stuff like this doesn’t seem to go up as much. However, army building figures like this at a later date will likely prove challenging.

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2006 Viper (Cobra Viper Pit 6-Pack)

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2006 Viper (Cobra Viper Pit 6-Pack)

I’ve thought about discussing this set for awhile, and being that my blog shares a name with this set, it seems right to talk about the Cobra Viper Pit at some point. The amusing thing is, I really just liked the name and thought it seemed unique for a Joe blog, but I’m not the biggest fan of the set. That isn’t to say I dislike the figures by any means, however.

The Cobra Viper Pit set and it’s Vipers are somewhat infamous in the GI Joe collecting community at this point. Namely, the reason for that is due to how incredibly fragile the figures are, and how poorly they’ve aged in comparison to other delicate feeling figures no one thought would last long.

The main problem with this Viper is that the crotch, sans modification, will almost be guaranteed to break. This is because the thighs are newly recast Viper thighs, while the waist is the same one from the BAT that Hasbro used on all Viper repaints from ‘97 onward. As it turns out, these parts are not a great fit, and the t-bar puts enough pressure on the crotch that sooner or later, it breaks.

The problem is compounded if you leave the factory o-rings in this figure, though twelve years to the release of the set and it’s mildly hard to find any still intact. Hasbro used undersized o-rings in these and they should be immediately replaced upon acquisition of the figure.

To correct the crotch issue, one can use a nail-file and grind down a portion of the inside of the figure’s crotch. This alleviates the pressure issue and seems to help the range of motion in the figure’s legs. I’ve owned four of these Vipers for about four or five years now with no problems thanks to this, though it’s a serious shame a figure needs modifications just to prevent it from breaking.

It should be mentioned as well, that these Vipers inherit the neck bar from the 1997 line, a modification intended to limit the head movement down to left and right like all of the pre-1985 figures. It’s dumb, and has been an annoyance on all of the Vipers released since then, and it’s present here too.

These glaring quality issues are a huge damper on what could’ve otherwise been one of the best GI Joe items of it’s era. A set of 6 Vipers, all in classic colors with decent parts and great painted details, it’s a premise that’s hard to screw-up, yet Hasbro somehow found a way to do just that.

The painted details of this figure is where they really shine in my opinion. The colors are very similar to the V1 Viper’s, but a lot of details are highlighted on this version that were easily overlooked on the original Viper. The goggle lenses, gloves, vest buckles, grenades, they’ve all been swapped out from large swathes of red and black for additional colors. I think it looks so good, I’d dare to say they’re an upgrade to the V1 Viper, visually.

The parts really aren’t bad either. 2000‘s GI Joes are known for coming with random, tired and terrible parts (good example: The Cobra Infantry Forces), but these guys come with a little variety of new and old guns in appropriate colors. Four of the Vipers in the set have Ambush’s bullpup in light gray, while the other two each got a black LMG from the DTC SAW Viper, and a light gray MP5 like the one from the DTC Range Viper. As well, the set included four backpacks from ‘92 Gung-Ho.

With all that said, these should be great figures. But, requiring modifications just to work as intended makes them a failure of a product. Still, I really like these Vipers and enjoy using them in photos from time to time. With current Joe market pricing, I see full sets of these, carded or loose, running between $30 to $50. Like all of the other mid-2000‘s GI Joe sets, the supply of these have really dried up, and prices have gone up accordingly. Personally, I think you’d be well advised to spend your collecting dollars elsewhere, as at the moment these just have too many problems and cost way too much.

Cobra viper DTC gijoe 2006 direct to consumer TRU 6-pack hasbro Cobra viper DTC gijoe 2006 direct to consumer TRU 6-pack hasbro

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1990 Sonic Fighters Viper

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As ARAH moved into it’s final years, Hasbro started experimenting more and more with adding different gimmicks to figures. One example, is the Sonic Fighters from 1990. Unlike the later Super Sonic Fighters and Talking Battle Commanders from ‘91 and ‘92, the Sonic Fighters were comprised entirely of repaints, such as the Viper of today’s profile.

The Sonic Fighters Viper is fairly memorable for being the last appearance of the 1986 Viper mold in it’s entirety. As many fans didn’t fancy the use of the BAT legs on every Viper release there after, this adds some significance to the piece despite the relative obscurity of his sub-line.

The Sonic Fighters Viper has been a lot of things in my collection. For a while, it was the only version of the original Viper sculpt I owned, so for that alone he was a tad more interesting. By and large though, he’s flipped between two roles I think he works well as. The first, is as a body guard for 2002 Headman. It’s a strange idea and I’m not the biggest fan of that figure, but as he is technically a Cobra, I think it’s interesting to match him with some similarly colored Vipers. The second, is as a desert version of a normal Viper. That idea may be a bit less original, but the colors are well suited for that role.

Speaking of colors, it’s a rather eye-catching figure. He’s largely caramel brown, with black and gold details, as well as a orange visor. These are attractive colors, and also likely the most unique ones the Viper’s ever been featured in. Some might be bothered by the orange Visor, but I think it adds to him somewhat, and doesn’t seem like an unreasonable color just for the visor.

The parts are an interesting mix on this figure. They’re all cast in gold plastic, and you get Shockwave’s pistol, Hit&Run’s carbine, the Annihilator’s SMG, Downtown’s mortar, and the gigantic backpack with the sound gimmick. The pistol is a notorious thumb-breaker that looks dumb if you can get a figure to hold it, but the other guns are both pretty good as is the mortar. It’s a figure worth having most of the parts to, and if you want to army build them, one complete figure can arm a few other incomplete examples, which isn’t bad.

Of course, I guess I could comment on the backpack too. The Sonic Fighters backpacks are hilarious monstrosities. They’re so heavy it’s impossible to stand a figure with one; and difficult even if you use a figure stand. It makes 4 different sound effects, which are amusing for a few seconds but get boring after that. Doesn’t seem like much to be worth pushing the price of a figure up a few dollars, but they kept the gimmick for two more years so obviously kids at the time liked it well enough.

At a time, this figure wasn’t as expensive and collector’s didn’t like him much. Clearly, opinions have changed as his Sonic Fighter contemporaries have stayed relatively cheap while this Viper has seen an increase in value. Complete figures often run between $17 and $30, while the seldom incomplete example may go for $5 to $8. Oddly enough, that’s a pretty large disparity in value between the complete and incomplete example, especially for a figure who’s parts aren’t that hard to find. At the moment, it remains a figure you’ll have to hunt for to get one at a fair price.

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2004 Cobra Viper, Valor vs Venom

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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.

Gi Joe VVV Viper Cobra 2004 Valor vs VenomValor vs Venom Viper (Version 12) Links:

Yo Joe!

Joe A Day

1994 Cobra Viper

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Battle Corps Viper 1994 GI Joe Cobra vintage ARAHFor these troops there’s no place too dirty, or too dangerous. When the leaky suit brigade fails to accomplish the job, Cobra can send these Hazard Vipers into any environment and expect results. With their superior equipment, training, and a real desire to do Cobra’s dirty work, these soldiers pose a serious threat to GI Joe…

More or less how I use the Battle Corps Viper. To me, they’re Hazard Vipers, and they’re more competent than Toxo-Vipers. The colors are perfect for the role, and the sculpt adds to that as well. As normal Vipers I don’t like this figure so well, but like this they’re far more usable in my collection.