Range Viper (25th Anniversary)

By KansasBrawler

I don’t know why, but I’ve always had more of an affinity for the Cobra figures than the Joes. Don’t get me wrong, the Joe characters were great, but I thought the Cobra figures looked more striking. I always liked the more fantastical elements of the Joe line and, generally speaking, the Cobra figures were allowed to be a little more offbeat than the Joes. One that really sticks out in my mind was the Range Viper. That freaky helmet really spoke to my kid brain. I missed out on the DTC update, but I’m really glad Hasbro gave Cobra’s wilderness survival specialist some attention in the Defense of Cobra Island set.

The 25th Anniversary Range Viper is another one of those “spiritual” updates that populated the 25th Anniversary line. The parts used aren’t an exact translation of the original Range Viper’s look, but I think this design works a lot better than the original Range Viper, with his short, flared gloves and tight blue undershirt. Range Viper’s upper body is shared with the really great 25th Anniversary Resolute Cobra Trooper. I’m glad they used this as opposed to the Beachhead commando sweater look; it was getting pretty stale by this point in the line. I also like the added armor on the figure’s arms. A wilderness trooper would want to travel light, but at the same time, they’d want some added protection. When you’re out in the field and everything is based around on-site procurement, you’re going to want to make sure you don’t accidentally injure yourself while you’re out of range from the base for weeks at a time. I think it really added a bit to the Range Viper’s realism…well, as much realism as you can get from a trooper that wears a scary skull helmet into battle. Since he’s a Cobra trooper with a removable helmet, Range Viper reuses Beachhead’s head. It’s something we’ve seen quite a few times already, but it at least works well with the helmet. Of course, I’m never taking my Range Viper’s skull helmet off, so I don’t have to acknowledge that, once again, Cobra hit up Balaclavas’R’Us and bought out all the blue ones now, too. The helmet is recycled from the DTC version of the Range Viper made towards the end of the Joe Vs. Cobra era. For a piece borrowed from an earlier era of the Joe line’s history, it fits surprisingly well on a modern style figure. I do, however, miss the covered eye holes. I think part of the original Range Viper’s intimidation factor came from his glowing red eyes. That aspect is lost now that you can see the soldier’s human eyes behind the skull mask. Rounding out the figure, Range Viper gets semi-new legs. The lower legs are shared with his fellow defender of Cobra Island, the Alley Viper, and were tooled up for both these figures at the same time, so they’re not quite new but the guy reusing them was released at the same time, so it’s hard to say that either figure reused the parts. The upper legs are all Range Viper’s, though and I do like the look here as well. There are references to the original Range Viper’s shin armor, but I think it looks better here because of all the added detailing they were able to do. The Range Viper definitely looks like he’s ready to spend a long time out in the wilderness, causing trouble for the Joes wherever he can and relying on hit and run tactics to sow confusion.

For a wilderness specialist, Range Viper’s colors were pretty strange even back in the day, but so what. The Range Viper has always been blue, yellow, and gray and I’m glad that’s how we got him this time around. Yeah, I know, those colors really don’t blend into any wilderness environment, but I don’t care. This is the Range Viper I remember, and it’s the Range Viper I want. The pants look good in black with gray for the armor plating while the upper body is primarily blue with some yellow trim and gray for the armor. The helmet also uses the blue and gray color scheme and I know that the original Range Viper had a blue skull face, but I did really like the bone color they used on it for the DTC version and I kind of miss it here.

For a guy who has to rely on procuring weapons he finds on site to do most of his damage, Range Viper comes pretty well-equipped. He must have raided a pretty impressive armory while he was on a mission. Even back in the day, the Range Viper came with some pretty heavy firepower and I do like that they threw a reference or two back to his original gear in his modern gear. Starting off small, he has the same webgear that Tunnel Rat did. It’s a nice nod to the ammo bandolier the Range Viper originally wore, but has the added benefit of giving him a holster and a pistol. The pistol is your standard, generic 25th Anniversary line figure pistol and it’s somewhat surprising at how well it fits in the holster since it was designed to hold a totally different, much smaller pistol. To carry some of his field gear, Range Viper also gets a backpack, which was getting to be a pretty unusual accessory by the end of the 25th Anniversary line. While I wish they would have had the tooling for Pursuit of Cobra Jungle Assault Duke’s backpack in their library when this figure was made, the backpack he has is okay, if somewhat generic. I think it’s the same piece that came with 25th Anniversary General Hawk, but I’m not sure on that. The design is quite similar, though. I just wish it was bigger since I see these guys carrying a lot of supplies with them. For weapons, the Range Viper carries some pretty heavy firepower. One accessory is something he carried back in the day and the other is something new but makes a bit more sense than his other old school weapon. Starting off with his vintage inspired accessory, the Range Viper is carrying the same grenade launcher with removable drum he had back in the day. I can see a Range Viper using it to create some chaos at his target before he sneaks in to cause even more damage. Back in the day, the Range Viper also came with a rocket tube. However, I never really liked that as a kid. Having a grenade launcher and a rocket tube seemed somewhat redundant. Yes, I know that a rocket tube can shoot further and with more accuracy, but it seems strange to bring two weapons with similar functions along at the expense of a more traditional firearm. To remedy that, this time around, the Ranger Viper is packing the same machine gun that 25th Anniversary Tunnel Rat had. Again, I like it because it fits the Range Viper’s modus operandi. It’s going to be a useful weapon to harass convoys with but at the same time, it’s not an exceedingly heavy weapon, so it’s not going to slow him up in the field. I do wish they would have given us Bazooka’s rocket launcher just to complete the set, but given the choice, I’d rather have a Range Viper with a grenade launcher and a machine gun than one with fully accurate representations of his old gear.

The Range Viper is a great figure and I wish Hasbro would have gotten him out to a little wider market. Defense of Cobra Island wasn’t that hard to get but was still a semi-exclusive. A green Range Viper (interestingly with African-American skintone, something not that common for Cobra troopers) was supposed to get released with a Cobra version of the Whirlwind Twin Battle Gun during the shift from Rise of Cobra to Pursuit of Cobra, but that set never materialized. I think Range Viper would have been another good candidate for Pursuit of Cobra treatment. Let’s be fair, the Pursuit of Cobra Alley Viper isn’t any different than the Cobra Island version (save a toned down paint scheme) and it still saw release. I’m a little surprised the Range Viper never got tapped for “cost saving” duty in a wave. The mold would look pretty good in a jungle camouflage color scheme Hasbro used on the Jungle B.A.T. and I think if you gave him a little more gear (Jungle Assault Duke’s backpack and Bazooka’s rocket launcher and a missile), he would have been just as popular as the Pursuit of Cobra Alley Viper. I’m relatively certain that anyone who really wanted a Range Viper (like me), found a way to get him, but I really do think that this figure was solid enough to warrant a second mass market release with Pursuit of Cobra. Can you imagine how cool Shadow Tracker would look leading a group of similarly colored, skull-faced troopers? It would have been great, and I do wish they’d gone this route as opposed to, say, re-releasing Croc Master in Pursuit of Cobra.