Night Adder (2009)
While I didn’t care much for most of the Rise of Cobra movie based GI Joe and Cobra figure designs, the off-screen extras of non-movie figures had a share of very exciting new characters and troops.
Night Adder showed up a little later in the movie run. A lot of those later wave toys were difficult for me to track down. I can also only recall seeing this guy on shelves once. I’m glad I did, since he emerged as one of my favorites of the first movie line.
Cobra has had animal handlers or characters with animal sidekicks in the past, but they’ve never presented a dog handler. I’m honestly a bit surprised at that, considering that Cobra needs to maintain security at its facilities just as much as the GI Joe team. Since this is Cobra, instead of an official security team like an MP and K9 unit, we basically have a big bruiser of a guy with a vicious looking dog.
The Resolute Roadblock body was a perfect choice for this imposing character. It sports some of the best range of motion of the modern construction style, particularly in the arms. The modern style also lends itself to differing builds for figures, and this one naturally is quite a bit larger than standard size. To add to Night Adder’s personality, he’s covered in tattoos, some of which are pretty inventive nods to Joe lore. My favorite is the “Cobra LA” across his stomach, a play on everyone’s favorite ancient underground society.
Whether intentional or not, the helmet has the appearance of a muzzle. It took me a while to realize that the head comes from the Rise of Cobra Ice Viper. The holes in the sides of the head are telltale signs of the previous figure’s visor.
This was probably one of my favorite Rise of Cobra figures. It was just so well done and a nice specialty that Cobra never really had. I had the same problem tracking this guy down. I actually wound up asking a Joe-fan friend of mine who had a kid who wasn’t quite old enough for Joes to help me out by keeping an eye out for them in Topeka since I’d only get there maybe once a month if I was lucky. Then right after I found one in Manhattan, he snagged me one from Topeka as well. I’m not normally one for duplicates, but I was happy to have the pair since I could display him both with and without vest (and then give the vest to the Roadblock from the Outpost Defender Wal-Mart set I lucked into so he could have his real vest). He’s a big mean looking dude and even though I’m almost positive that his dog is the same mold as Junkyard, it looks meaner somehow and I like that. My only real beef was the Ice-Viper head. I didn’t have an Ice-Viper in my collection, but leaving the holes there was kind of lame in my opinion since I don’t think it would have broken the tooling bank to retool the head without the holes there.
This is good re-use of solid parts to make a cool new character. Cool tats, perfect for someone who would be doing security for Cobra. ROC wasn’t all bad! Just mostly the movie itself…
This is the first I’ve seen of this guy. He’s not on my list of must have characters, but it’s cool to know that Cobra’s recruited their own counterparts to Mutt and Junkyard.
I would’ve liked to see this character appear on G.I. Joe: Renegades. Keith David or Gary Sturgis would’ve been great voices for him.
That’s a cool figure I have never seen before.
I might cop flak for this but i find myself watching r.o.c more than i ever did with the ’87 movie
Most of the later r.o.c stuff never made it down here. A pity because i would have liked to have some of it like this nifty guy.
A pity not so many Joe toys have fan service jokes on them.
I made a custom voyager class Flak [out of CDF Scattershot] and wrote “Kreiger” near the cab.
My custom Stealer has “Anna” on the side of his helmet oh and one of my 1/35th Shermans is labeled “Ike”
He’s a giant!
The real enemy of Roadblock!
Not a bad looking figure. My favorite part of this one is the dog. I could just as easily see that dog as Junkyard.
I didn’t see many of this figure back at retail, but I was interested in it. I think I passed, gambling on the chance of a lower price, at the time. I may have had the let-down of Wrath still on my brain, too; that was a new-character figure that I really was excited about, only to really become disappointed with it quickly when I finally found that particularly elusive figure (to say nothing about the “clear” Wrath).
Looking back, Adder seems like a great addition for a modern-ish 4″ line Cobra crew.
I love this guy. He’s ones of the few ROC figures that I really enjoy. He’s the type of character i could see In the vintage comic run if it had been created in the late 2000s. Maybe a former street gang enforcer type who found his calling as part of Cobra.
Unfortunately, mine has one wonky knee joint that pops out with not-very-aggressive positioning.
A great figure but isn’t he also an aircraft? He’s named Death-Adder in my Joeverse to avoid confusion!
What’s weird is that I found a bunch of these guys on a trip to Boston in 2011. A lot of the late-wave ROC stuff apparently got dumped into TJ Maxx and Marshall’s in that area, which filled a bunch of the holes in my ROC collection.
Still never found that elusive ROC Kamakura, however….