Alley Viper (2004 Urban Division)
The Cobra Strike Team Urban Division was one of the more problematic of the Toys R Us multipacks. The illustrations of the characters on the front of the package did not match the contents, at least in terms of their uniform’s coloring. All were colorful and resembled some previous version of their figures. Alley Viper looked to be based on the yellow Battle Corps iteration.
That’s not to say I don’t care for the color scheme here. I like the Alley Viper done up in a more subdued set of tones. In fact, I went a little nuts with this pack, and bought several copies to build a nice squad of figures. The Alleys had to be refitted with weapons, as the pack contained the tiresome Tomax/Xamot laser pistols. On a positive note, the cool Cobra shield made the transition.
I think this is the best of the ’00’s Alley Viper repaints. He works well with the ’89 Snake Eyes uzi that was included with the Stormshadow figure. This is my favorite of the TRU 6 packs. Great army builders, an awesome Firefly (even if he was played out by ’04) the first American Scrap Iron in two decades and a decently colored Storm Shadow, but using a bad mold. It was far from perfect, but all the packs had issues.
I, too, went nuts on these and bought a bunch. They’ve gotten pricier these days and I wish I had picked up a few more when the local store clearanced them for $15 about three weeks after they were released.
They never clearanced any of the 6 packs in the store here. Like some fans I waited for the mostly lame Heavy Weapons 6-pack to go on clearance…instead it went up in price to $25. I gave up and bought one as the stock dwindled, and that was the right call because they never went on clearance that I ever saw..
I like this Alley-Viper, but I think the 2002 wave 1.5 whatever blue with urban camo was probably the best, even if it is the most common post-1997 Alley-Viper repaint. All black look is usually neat, but gets a bit overused. However, the dramatic difference in coloration made this one welcome, because this was the 4th one (not counting the unreleased wal-mart one) in the “new sculpt” era. They didn’t just color swap the 2002 release again, but actually changed some paint masks.
Until now, I had never seen these and I must say this is the best looking Alley Viper. The coloring is reminiscent of the Head Hunters and I don’t know about anyone else, but the helmet’s always reminded me of Cecil from Final Fantasy II/IV.
Always a great mold, even with the Duke legs, this is a solid figure. Kindofa “Night Ops” version of the typically bright character. It’s almost a little too dull in all-black, but the brown highlights help. What if they’d left the body armor black but did the legs & arms in the blue camo like Firefly got? Like an inverse color scheme of the ’97 figure. Then again, there are so many camo versions of the Alley Viper, plain is a nice change up.
”Original or Repaint.Everyone has their own opinion about love/hate for Cobra’s Alley Viper.”