Cobra Viper (2004)
I went totally ape feces for the new sculpt viper mold. From the first funky red number, to this one and the subsequent classic inspired repaints, I’ve got a veritable army. Can I explain why? The only thing I can think of these days is that I wanted to make up for the fact that I didn’t have much of a Cobra army as a kid. Other than that, I’ve always seen something in this design that pushed my buttons. A lot of it has to do with that wicked helmet. Here, it looks even cooler painted with a gold faceplate. And yes, I see the inordinate number of pouches, but I keep telling myself they’re not Liefeldian.
Though there’s no indication that this guy belongs to the Python Patrol sub-team, it’s only obvious based on some of the color elements in the uniform. The dead giveaway is the crosshatch pattern, While there’s no yellow, gold is a nicely regal substitute. Maybe this is the modern Python Patrol away uniform. Cobra Commander was probably just reacting to the sports merchandising industry’s early 2000s adoption of non-traditional team colors. I imagine t-shirts and ballcaps based on this color scheme selling a lot better in the Cobra PX than yellow, green and battleship grey.
Rob, I agree–this new sculpt helmet is wicked awesome.
Don’t see any proportion problems here.
Thats a nifty colour scheme
Nice action figure! I have tons of ’em…
Better than the first release, but still needed two things, a bigger head (there is a human under there, right?) and swivel wrists to make up for the bulky arms and improve their “aim”.
“The only thing I can think of these days is that I wanted to make up for the fact that I didn’t have much of a Cobra army as a kid. … ”
It was about 2004 into 2005 when I started thinking the same thing. I focused my budget on the classic oring based based figures, however. The new style like this Viper did have much better manufacturing quality than my preferred “modern” classic oring figures, though.
I did not like mixing these “newsculpt” or “vs.” style figures in with my old mold classics, but the farther along in the years we are now, I have much stronger appreciation for the fun of the figures and vehicles as a somewhat original line in itself. (2002-2006/7 or so…. ?)