Battle Armor (S.N.A.K.E.)
One of the great elements of the relaunched Joes of the 80s were the options in lower price points. For a little more dough than what you’d spend on a figure, you could pick up a nice accessory like the SNAKE armor. If Mom and Dad wouldn’t plunk down a tenner for a VAMP, they might just go for an item like this at half the price. Hey, as a kid with no money of your own, you learn how to work the system. My own kids are quite adept at it. I ain’t mad at ’em.
The SNAKE is a great little toy. Not only does it provide a new battlefield wrinkle for Cobra, but it also functions in a role-play capacity. The SNAKE has built-in mood changers that strengthen Cobras and mind-control Joes! Yowza! That’s kinda dark when you think about it–trapping Joes inside a suit of armor and forcing them to gun down their own troops! Dang!
Now I can’t leave this post without mentioning the elephant in the room. I’m talking about the acronym. Often in the line, the acronyms were a bit of a stretch. Okay more than a bit. The SNAKE acronym is stretched farther than Spanx on a Hutt. System: Neutralizer – Armed Kloaking Equipment? Really? I’ve got a few alternate ideas of my own. I think they’re all winners.
System: Neural Altering Kit Eliminator
Slithering Natty Ambling Kickback Exigency
Something Nutty And Kinda Exciting!
odd, the daily notification email linked to a previous snake article not this one!
Got the blck version of this from the Movies a few years ago. As well as the US blue version there’s also a lovely red Action Force version
I’ve always been a fan of this and the little flying pod in the same color. I thought the armor was fun…mine just seemed to crumble around the figure and not stay snapped together too often…but maybe that was me!
Another great write up team!
nah, everyones was like that. Rose colored glasses make this thing cooler than it is lol. IT was a great idea but it didnt hold up to any rigorous play, the parts would just fall off. But it was cool that it could be its own robot or have a guy inside.
Yeah, it could have been designed better, but to me the biggest problem with the design was that the legs should have been made longer to make the robot look as big as it was in the cartoons. It was a very disappointing Cobra robot.
My first Cobra “vehicle” and my only one until the Chameleon. Have so few enemy figures, I used it as a robot or pretended there was some inside, thankfully it had that stand.
The missile attachment has one shot…I never used it much. I used the machine gun and flame thrower usually.
Could’ve used a real modern update, but they just reused the old mold for better or worse. Too bad they didn’t reissue the original colors, too. OR THE BLUE. To heck with rarity.
Ah. sounds like you had the same issue i had as a kid. Too few bad guys!