Captivating Cover: Operation Sink or Swim
Yes! The Cobra Tele-Viper gets some serious play with a novel cover. The communications specialists wouldn’t be one’s first thought to grace the front of an action-packed media tie-in, but I’m not complaining. They made a fair number of appearances in the Sunbow ‘toon, and even showed up (in both original and Python guises) in the debut DIC mini-series. In keeping with the theme of our cover feature, the story inside is of little concern. However, if I had to guess, I would say that Cobra has hatched some nefarious plot to flood New York (or a similar large American city) and Cobra Commander and Destro now control the waters around said city using only a solitary swamp boat. Hey, it could happen.
All this and for $2.50 to boot! Everything was cooler in the 80’s.
That’s probably the most action the Tele-Viper ever saw during his heyday. Whoever designed the cover altered the artwork thinking that he’s carrying some deadly anti-air weapon. Too bad it looks more like Low-Light’s night scope.
It is good to see a third tier character/trooper like the Tele-viper geting to do something. The artist probably chose to alter the figures acessory for the illustration as a man armed with an oversized check-out scanner isnt really that scary.
Tele-Vipers, always underrated!
Ah, the legions of Cobra Bell, some of the most overlooked of the ’80s Vipers (heck, they were the *first* -Viper). Never really paid attention to their purple boots before. Well, their appearance does lend them to looking cool on whatever they’re put on. From rewatching the cartoon, while they weren’t rare, they didn’t commonly appear either, especially in standalone episodes. I guess the writers’ imaginations were limited even though Tele-Vipers would cover more than running Cobra’s communications systems, like tapping phone lines, handling ’80s computers, programming various automated weapons, whatnot (it is more of an unsung support role though).
The Tele-Vipers: Cobra’s IT department. They may not deployed in the field, but they wield a lot of power. 🙂
That’s almost the cover art for the Water Moccasin. I wonder how that worked before digital graphics – how you’d cut & paste an image, then airbrush over the Cobra Officer? Please read this one and let us know how a TeleViper could possibly have a pivotal role in a mission titled “Sink or Swim”.
Oddly enough, I own this book and just pulled it out. While Tele-Vipers are not specifically mentioned, Mainframe plays a major role in this book , so there’s your IT angle.
For those wondering about the story, the back cover of the book’s text From yojoe.com
“The G.I. Joe Team has seconds left to defuse COBRA’s plans for disaster in OPERATION: SINK OR SWIM.
Finally, a little rest and relaxation for you, Low-Light, Roadblock, and Mainframe. It’s a perfect day for you and the guys to see the big city from the top of the Empire State Building.
But you never make it. When the beautiful woman you bump into turns out to be COBRA female menace Zarana, you know your vacation is over. Now New York City’s eight million inhabitants are going to need you – Brainstorm, lightning quick strategist – to outguess Zarana and her psycho brother Zandar’s fiendish plot to demolish the financial and communications capital of the world.
From the dark subway tunnels filled with COBRA assassins, to the nighttime raid on a COBRA tanker, this mission gives you no time to rest. You must act swiftly, Brainstorm, to keep New York on the map as you FIND YOUR FATE.”
They should totally make the reader characters from these books as part of the line.
Nothing hurt a teenaged kid’s ego quite like getting three Joes and himself killed because you made the wrong choice on page twenty-seven.