Cobra Commander (2004)
We action figure geeks can be a cowardly, superstitious lot. We’re sometimes afraid of changes to the beloved properties of our youth. Clinging to established visions of characters only as we have known them, we often cheat ourselves of enjoying new interpretations of our time-tested favorites. Maybe we hold some sort of irrational fear that the changing of our childhood heroes and villains will tarnish our memories of childhood. Deep stuff for a toy blog, eh? I’m kidding, of course, you can love what you want, how you want. I just wanted to work that Batman line into a post.
Cobra Commander has to have a place in every iteration of the modern GI Joe mythos. If Cobra is around, you know the main snake will show up in some way. In the Spy Troops series, this mold debuted in a nice Cobra blue. For the first Valor vs. Venom offering of the sibilant snakeface, things were toned down color-wise, though I’ve never understood the lighter hued contrasting belt and gloves. While the look was odd, it wasn’t quite as striking as the crossing guard-like powder blue and white gloved version to come later.
Back to my point about sticking to established looks for characters; I agree with it sometimes, but things can get stale after a while. Repainted named characters seem to get old much quicker than army builders. This mold wore out it’s welcome with me by 2005. The Valor vs. Venom line at times seemed to take its cue from the 1993 Battle Corps series, offering up figures in variant paint schemes, and the Commander was followed up with yet another repaint in 2004, in a pack that replaced Action Attack Duke with a traditional o-ring version.
You know whats funny. Transformer fans are always terrified of change. Ironic as “Transform” means “to change”.
I like the purlplish colour contrasted with the black. Reminds me of my 40,000 point Noise marine army.
The figure has nice colors!
Nice colors, nice working holster, nice half-cape.
I think the CC from this era that had this body sculpt but had the beautifully sculpted removable hood and battle helmet was the figure that got me buying Joes again, albeit very selectively…unfortunately that one was powder blue. He would have been perfect in this black or Cobra blue colors.
Ahh, action figure geeks–not only do we fear change; nothing but the original is ever going to be good enough! 😉
We’re all chasing after that ultimate figure, aren’t we?
I dig that half cape, too. Especially the fact that it still leaves the back peg hole accessible, which is a nice touch. Very slick looking figure overall; I do enjoy these tweaks to CC, when they play around with putting in him different styles of military dress uniforms.
Never thought about the backpack hole. I miss the storable laser pistol back piece from the 80s.
A pretty good figure for its time, this version looks a little more “dictator” than his v1 predecessor (which kinda had his own double-breasted style). Choosing black for the head bad guy is a little cliché, but it’s just going to happen.
I really wanted to see a hooded version with this one came out. The final hooded Commander of the era left a lot to be desired. The hood looked more like a Pac Man ghost