The Power of Packaging: 1985 Tele-Viper
The Tele-Viper figure wasn’t one of my faves as a kid, but I sure liked the card art. It’s definitely one of the coolest looking Cobra cards. The figure to package coolness ratio however tilts toward the latter. The figure may not be at Zartan level on the awesome meter, but then again this is one of the most pure support level Cobras in the line. It wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense for these guys to be flashy.
Tele-viper was one of my first figures. You are correct, his card art is amazing. Still has a special place in my heart.
Cobra Commander needed someone to boss around at the rear of the battle field. The tele-vipers were usually it in my Joe universe.
And, his card art was the model for the spectacular Funskool Grunt’s cardback, too.
I like that his file card was technobabble that the average kid would scratch his head at. Like his weapon isn’t a weapon, it’s a hand scanner. For kid me scanner meant like Star Trek detector or something. So I was confused by it at first.
The first of the Vipers ( I don’t count the Viper Gilder Pilot as one as it’s really just a bog standard Cobra Trooper). The first of the specialized Vipers…
Great figure, great card art.