 Oh, hi. I was just practicing creeping at night. This week we're kicking off Ninja Month and I'm reviewing The Night Creeper. I'm brushing up on my night creeping. I always try to be prepared. Why don't you join me and we can night creep together? Come on. The Hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. Before I get started with this review, it's my privilege to give a codename to a new patron. Alex Mborski has added his support on Patreon. It's well known to his friends that Alex is a mighty Klingon warrior. So Alex shall be known by his Klingon name Pushchok. Thank you Pushchok for your support. Ninjas! They've been part of G.I. Joe since 1984. Some G.I. Joe fans love them. Some Joe fans hate them. Other Joe fans, like me, can tolerate them as long as they're not excessive. This month is all about excessive ninjas. Yes, G.I. Joe went overboard with the ninjas, especially in the 90s. But since 2020 is the year of the 90s on this channel, this is the perfect time to dive into those 90s ninjas for an entire month. Yikes! Look, you know how 2020 has been. It's just that kind of game. I wanted to start the month off on a good note, so we're going to look at a ninja figure that's not too bad. Don your mask and strap on your swords, true believers. HCC 788 presents Night Creeper. This is Night Creeper, the Cobra Ninja from 1990. This figure was introduced in 1990 and was available in 1990 only. It was discontinued for 1991. It's the first of three versions of Night Creeper in the vintage line. Night Creeper may be the second Cobra Ninja in the vintage line, depending on how you look at it. How many Cobra Ninjas were there? That's a little fuzzy. This will require some explanation. These type names for this figure included Ghost Tigers, Brotherhood of the Were Tigers, and Ghost Dragons. Night Creeper is kind of a silly name. I can't think of anyone who would want to be called a creeper, but it's still probably better than the alternatives, especially Brotherhood of the Were Tigers. That reminds me of Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit. In 1984 Storm Shadow was introduced as Cobra's first Ninja. He was dressed all in white, he looked awesome, he was awesome, and everything was awesome. Over time, though, Storm Shadow's allegiance changed and by 1988 he had joined his friends Stalker and Snake Eyes on the G.I. Joe team. G.I. Joe had all the Ninjas. Cobra had a Ninja Gap. They needed replacement Ninjas ASAP. In 1990 the Night Creeper appeared and Cobra evened things up. The Night Creeper wasn't just a single Ninja either, it was an army builder. Only one problem, according to the file card, the Night Creepers are independent operators who contracted with Cobra. They don't have the Cobra symbol anywhere on them and they are not internal Cobra agents. Should they even count as Cobra Ninjas? That's why Cobra needed another Cobra Ninja army builder in 1992, the Ninja Viper. This figure was a male away exclusive and is a rare figure now, but at least they were loyal Cobra troops. Cobra's Ninja problems were at last solved. The Night Creepers weren't forgotten though. In 1993, the Night Creeper leader was introduced. The Night Creeper leader wore a blindfold which is probably why he is wearing a Tigger costume instead of a Ninja costume. The prototype name Ghost Tigers may be the source for the Tiger themed costume on the leader. There was a second version of the Night Creeper introduced in 1993 as part of the Ninja Force subset. The look of the Night Creeper version 2 was radically different from the first version. He had this weird wedge shaped helmet and of course the colors are wildly different. The 1993 Night Creeper was in Ninja Force, but the Night Creeper leader from the same year was in the Battle Core series, not Ninja Force. I am purposely leaving out a couple Cobra Ninja Force Ninjas because I plan to show them to you in an upcoming video. The Force and final version of Night Creeper in the Vintage Era was issued in 1994 as part of the Shadow Ninjas set. The Shadow Ninjas reused the molds from Ninja Force and added a color change gimmick. Let's look at the Night Creeper's accessories and let's start with his crossbow. The crossbow is in black plastic. It has extra bolts molded onto the top of the crossbow. It has some detail, but it's actually a little bit lacking in detail. It looks a little bit generic and could definitely use some additional sculpted detail on it. For his next accessory, I'm going to pull it out of his backpack. He has a wavy bladed sword. This is in black plastic. It has a short handle. It will fit in the action figure's hand. Fits just fine. It has a waved blade and this is called a Chris. This is a traditional weapon of Indonesia. The Chris is usually more of a knife than a sword. And as you saw, it will fit in the figure's backpack and that is always a nice bonus. The next accessory is this barbed sword. It is in black plastic. It has these jagged edges on both sides of the blade. It has a short grip like the Chris, but it does fit in the action figure's hand. These short handles look more like they should be for knives than swords, but they're much too long to be knives. These are swords. Because of these barbs, it does not fit on the backpack and that's too bad. I'd really like both of these swords to attach to the backpack. That would be great. The final accessory is the backpack and I will remove the Chris so we can just look at the backpack. And that backpack has three teeth on one side that's for the sword. Those are often broken off, so be careful about those. The backpack is in this burgundy color, which matches the color on the chest and back of the action figure. That's an unusual color choice, but we'll talk about the colors a bit more later. The details on the backpack are exceptional. It has what looks like a tarp or a bedroll on the top. Looks like these are claws, I think. These may be grenades, although they're undersized. These look like darts here and there is a rope on the bottom. That backpack has teeth on one side but nothing on the other side. So something could have been put there so he could store both swords. As nice as this backpack is, this is not an original accessory. This backpack was originally issued with 1989 Snake Eyes Version 3. Snake Eyes' backpack is in black. I will also point out since this backpack was designed to hold an entirely different shaped sword, the wavy sword for the Night Creeper will cause the Night Creeper's backpack to break. These teeth will often break off and you will find a lot of Night Creeper's backpacks broken. Let's take a look at the articulation for Night Creeper. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures well before 1990, so he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm out the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. This was an O-ring figure meaning the figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Night Creeper starting with his head and there's a lot going on with his head. On the top of his head he has a silver skull cap or this could just be a silver helmet with cloth wrapped around it. He has silver slit goggles and that looks pretty cool. He has a purple cloth wrapped around his head and draped down the back of his head. He has a burgundy colored mask over his mouth and nose and those are separate colors. There's a paint application for the purple on the cloth around the back of his head. The color difference is subtle and I'm surprised they used a paint application for it. That color difference is more pronounced on a couple of my other Night Creepers. I don't know that that's a variation or it may just be a matter of paint wear. Also, the paint application is on the face mask not on the wrapping around the head so slight correction on that. This looks like something that would be worn in a desert. It reminds me of Khan's appearance on Seti Alpha 5 in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. If this wasn't a ninja he would make a good desert trooper. On his chest he has armor plate on his upper chest and on his abdomen and on his shoulders. Those are all connected with black cord. The black cord continues around to the back. There's also a belt that goes around his lower torso. That's a silver belt with some additional black cord on that. Under all that armor he is wearing a burgundy colored shirt. I am calling this burgundy. It's not quite purple. It's not quite red. It's sort of in between so to my eye it looks like burgundy. There are no paint applications on his arms. His upper arms are that burgundy color matching the chest and his lower arms from the swivels down are purple including purple gloves. So no paint applications there. According to the artwork on the card that burgundy part of the uniform is some kind of a tunic and there are purple sleeves under that. And that's fine but it doesn't come across well on the figure. Instead it looks like there's a color mismatch between the upper and lower arms. As we move on to the lower half of the figure this is a good time to point out the entire lower half of the figure was reused for the 1993 Night Creeper Leader. Same parts but radically different colors. The waist piece is a base light gray plastic. On each side there is a silver strap that connects to the belt on the torso with black cord. And on that light gray plastic there is a two tone camouflage pattern with a dark gray and red. The legs are also in that light gray plastic with the two tone camouflage pattern and two tone camouflage was very rare in vintage GI Joe. This is exceptional although I'm not sure what this is supposed to be camouflaged for. What environment exactly is light gray, dark gray and red? I think that red is supposed to match the burgundy color on the upper body but to me it looks more like a deeper red and not quite the same color. And of course we finish up with a pair of purple boots. Looks like there is a cloth wrapping around those boots. The colors on the Night Creeper are great. It's an interesting and harmonious scheme for the figure. Even so the colors don't make a lot of sense for a ninja. I mean he's supposed to creep at night, right? So how do the light colors like the light gray help him with that? I'm hesitant to complain though because when Ninja Force came around all sense and good taste went out the window and the ninjas had all the colors of fruit loops. I look at Night Creeper's file card and I have a special thanks to give to Kevin from SEO Toy Review for sending me the full card back for Night Creeper. And that gives us an opportunity to see the whole card and not just the cut out file card. So we can appreciate some of this great artwork on the front. In 1990 the card artwork and the file card on the back were still in the 80s style. They hadn't updated it yet to the 90s style. The file card has his faction as Cobra and a portrait of the Night Creeper here. His codename is Night Creeper and that is hyphenated. The hyphen doesn't look right to me but if you want to spell it correctly it is hyphenated. He is the Cobra Ninja. This paragraph says, captured Cobra documents reveal the existence of a contract between Cobra Commander and a syndicate of high tech ninjas. It's believed that these so-called Night Creepers have been given the task of conducting all field intelligence and covert operations for Cobra. All investigations into the structure and origin of the Night Creepers have run into dead ends or resulted in the mysterious disappearance of the investigators. The Night Creepers are contractors, they are not Cobra Vipers and they're so secretive they take out anyone who's investigating them. That is creepy. The paragraph says, all evidence seems to indicate that the Night Creepers have the drive and scruples of a Wall Street stock manipulator, the lethal skills of a master martial artist, and the stealthy talents of a cat burglar. To make things worse they are backed by the latest and most sophisticated anti-detection and weapons technology in the world. It's as if Attila the Hun had a black belt, an MBA, and was armed with lasers. Many Boethans died to bring G.I. Joe this information. The writer of the G.I. Joe comic book by Marvel Comics also wrote most of these file cards and he really did not like white collar criminals. He never missed an opportunity to put a swipe at them in these file cards. These guys are mercenary martial artists with technology. They are non-traditional, yet they are armed with swords and a crossbow. The file card says they are armed with lasers, but the figures didn't come with lasers. Some kind of laser weapon would have helped sell this idea that they are high-tech ninjas. Now, I'm not a fan of lasers, but if you're going to go with that concept, just go all the way. Looking at how the Night Creeper was used in G.I. Joe media, he was in the animated series, but not in the Sunbow produced series that most of us remember. He was in the later, lower quality series produced by Deke Animation. He first appeared in the episode Revenge of the Pharaohs. One of the Night Creepers is referred to as the Night Creeper leader, even though he looks like the other Night Creepers and is not the orange-colored leader from the toy line. Night Creepers had minimal appearances in the animated series. They had some screen time in the episode titled Night of the Creepers. The Night Creepers are revealed to be connected to ancient mummies. Mummies, Pharaohs, I'm detecting an Egyptian theme with these guys. In the G.I. Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics, the Night Creepers were introduced in issue number 117. They had a corporate structure and voted to take a job hunting down Destro for Cobra Commander. They weren't formidable fighters, though. They were thoroughly defeated by Destro, Zartan, and G.I. Joe's Ninja Force. Looking at Night Creeper overall, this is a good-looking figure, despite the fact that some of it doesn't make a lot of sense. The color combination works well. It works so well, it's hard for me to imagine the figure in any other colors. There's some color variety there, but the colors are all harmonious and well-balanced. From an aesthetic perspective, he looks great. From a practical perspective, why exactly is he burgundy and purple? How does that help him creep in the night? Why does he have light gray camouflage? Wouldn't a light color work against him creeping in the night? The name Night Creeper seems kind of funny now. I don't know if it had the same context back in 1990, but nowadays, nobody would want to be called a creeper. The accessories are mostly not bad. I appreciate that he can hold all of his accessories at the same time, but I'd still like a way to attach that second sword to the backpack. The crossbow is fine, but it's lacking in detail and seems kind of generic. The backpack is the best accessory. It's well detailed and it can hold the crisp sword. The armor on the figure is well done. The head sculpt looks good, though he looks like a desert fighter to me. The icing on the cake is this figure is an army builder. He looks great on a shelf with a half dozen or so of his teammates. If you're unsure about ninjas in G.I. Joe, this is a good gateway ninja. Try out the Night Creeper. See what you think. Just remember it's only a short leap from a cool looking ninja to the Crayola colored ninjas of Ninja Force. That was my review of the Night Creeper. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel and share this with your friends. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. I do have a Patreon. I'm not taking new patrons right now, but I am deeply grateful to those who have supported the channel on Patreon, including the names you see scrolling by the screen right now. Their support has meant a lot to me over the years. I have ninja reviews coming for you every Sunday in October, and the next one is a ninja who is colorblind, apparently. I'll see you then, and until then remember only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe.