Strato-Viper (25th Anniversary)

Hasbro mail-aways were kind of a funny thing. Neither my brother nor I had the Night Raven, yet thanks to Hasbro’s mail-in offers, I have fond memories of the Strato-Viper from my brother’s collection. He saw a lot of use in my brother’s Cobra air force, manning the second seat of the Hurricane just about every time it was used. The design just really screamed Cobra while at the same time looking very realistic and appropriate for combat situations. I was a little bummed to learn that the Strato-Viper wasn’t going to see release during the 25th Anniversary line when the FLAK vs. CLAW vehicle pack was initially cancelled. However, when it rains it pours, because not only did that get put back on the market through online retailers (though I didn’t jump on it since I didn’t really have an affinity for either of those vehicles) but he also got shifted over to the Defense of Cobra Island pack that was available at Joe Con in 2009, as well as through online outlets. While his name may have been changed to Air-Viper, the Strato-Viper is alive and well and works surprisingly well in the new style of construction.

The Strato-Viper is a great example of how well the new more modular construction of figures can work. There are a lot of reused parts here, but by adding a new piece of character specific webgear over top of them, the reuse is very well hidden. From his knees to his neck, Strato-Viper uses the 25th Anniversary Ace parts. Those pieces make for a nice flight suit and I like that underneath his extra gear, the Strato-Viper is just wearing a simple flight suit. His upper arms come from 25th Anniversary Snow Job and while they’re a bit bulky, they do pair well with the flight suit pieces from Ace. To replicate his fancier look, both his lower arms and lower legs are new pieces. They mesh very well with the old pieces but they still recreate the fancier look the original Strato-Viper had quite nicely. Over his chest, he’s wearing a new piece of webgear that looks like the fancy chestpiece and holster that he wore back in the day. While he’s lost the button detailing, it still looks very good here and helps hide how much he shares with Ace. My only real complaint is that the holster on his chest is non-functional. They made it large enough to accommodate a pistol, but the pistol is permanently molded in there. Much like 25th Anniversary Chuckles, I find it a little maddening that they’ve stepped back to a nonfunctional holster here. They clearly could have made it functional, but for whatever reason, they decided not to. His head sculpt is all new and it does a great job replicating the original Strato-Viper’s helmet. It’s a bit more angular than his classic counterpart’s but that’s fine. I think the angular helmet works very well and the details are much sharper and well-defined compared to the 1985 version. Everything comes together well here and while there are a couple little miscues, the design works very well and does a great job recreating Cobra’s classic pilot.

The paintjob echoes original Strato-Viper’s look extremely well. The red, black, and dark gray looked good back in 1985 and it still looks wonderful here. The main body is a nice charcoal gray. It’s a good color and it works well for the base of the figure. Over the charcoal gray, Strato-Viper’s got black straps and chaps. The detailing is actually better than the 1985 figure since the strap for his chest holster is painted rather than just colored over. The red on the chest panel and his spats is nice and vibrant and really hearkens back to the original Strato-Viper’s. From what I can tell from side-by-side pictures online, the red used for the CLAW set Strato-Viper is just a little darker and while it’s a nice color, I like how much better the red pops on the Defense of Cobra Island Strato-Viper. My only real complaint is that the red is applied a bit too heavily on the chest piece. It’s a bit gloppy and it feels like it kind of obscures the details on the chest piece where it’s painted on. Though the paint work on the chest isn’t as good as it could be, they really did a great job on his helmet. The black, red and silver all work well together and the linework is done perfectly. There’s no bleed or slop and there are some small detailed areas that could have been done poorly, but Hasbro’s paint team really did a good job here. The final paint detail that wasn’t present on the original but is here is that he actually has a flesh colored neck. I like seeing the skin here and I’m glad to see it’s skin rather than black like back in the day. That was the one little thing that bothered me about the original Strato-Viper (and it was a problem that affected a lot of old school Joes). It’s clear he’s a person wearing a helmet so why is his neck black? Pilots usually have just a little bit of skin exposed there, and it looks more natural with his exposed skin rather than the black of the helmet just getting extended down through it.

Strato-Viper only has one accessory, but considering he started as a vehicle driver and didn’t get any when he was released back in 1985, picking up one is a pretty big improvement. Strato-Viper has silver pistol, and while it’s not my favorite piece since we saw it a lot during the early days of the 25th Anniversary line, it seems appropriate and the pistol permanently molded into his chest holster looks to be the same size and shares a similar grip. It’s nice that they went to the trouble of making those pistols look the same, though I do wish that the chest holster was functional.

While there may not be a whole lot of groundbreaking material here with the Strato-Viper, Hasbro did create a very faithful modern recreation of one of the best Cobra vehicle drivers from the original line. Hasbro did get a lot of mileage out of this tooling, releasing it three other times, but it’s a great design. I’m glad it got two separate releases in the Rise of Cobra line. I’ve got my own little Cobra Strato-Viper corps thanks to that. It would have been nice had he come with something a little more impressive for an accessory when he was released in his classic colors, but I’m just glad they got him out a few times. The Strato-Viper is a classic Cobra vehicle driver for a reason. The look is good on its own and he looks at home behind the control stick of just about any Cobra plane you can think of.