Cobra Commander (2003 JoeCon)

I’ve always been a sucker for Cobra Commander variants. I think the fascination goes back to his hooded mail-in version as well as his battle armored suit. Both were favorites of mine as a kid. As a later adult collector, I picked up the Talking Battle Commanders release, immediately removing the huge backpack, and also quickly snapped up the Battle Corps version. The latter impressed me not only for its color scheme, but the retooled back torso piece, which corrected the flattened back, a result of said ginormous talking backpack. By 2003, the relaunched GI Joe line had already presented several new iterations of the Commander, including a nicely intimidating black and red number. I bought them all. Consequently, I was excited about the JoeCon 2003 set’s inclusion of him.

I’m also generally a fan of bright paint schemes, particularly when they don’t make a heck of a lot of sense. Color for the sake of color just pushes my toy fan buttons, what can I say? There’s no real reason for Cobra Commander to replace the normal gold trim on his uniform with vibrant red, other than to complement the highlights of his Swamp Viper and Air Viper troops, conveniently available at the same convention.

The accessories were another fun element for me. What could have been a fairly boring release is made more interesting with a couple of choice pieces of gear. First off, the cape from the then-recent Dr. Mindbender redesign, fits pretty well, both from a design and function standpoint. Here the inclusion of the original flat backed mold helps out, as the cape fits just a bit more flush than it would have otherwise. The Commander hasn’t usually been known for his choice of weapon, beyond the original hair dryer blaster. This version gets a wonderful black remold of the Battle Corps Firefly weapon, one of my favorite rifles of the later RAH period.