 Ladies and gentlemen, it's my privilege to announce that I won the Superbowl bet with Timmer, so he has to appear on my show, and here he is. Here I am! We always collaborate to review really ugly toys, so I found something special. Oh no, not the septic tank, we already did that one. No, but it is from the 90s. Please, no neon orange. Don't worry, I know how badly you react to orange, so this doesn't have a single spot of orange on it. It's a rare figure and one you've already reviewed. So what, create a cobra or... It's Cyber Viper. No! Hello everybody, hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. And I mean everyone, including the really ugly ones. Last month, the Chiefs beat the Eagles in the Superbowl. It was sweet revenge after the Eagles beat my team a few years ago. I had a bet with Timmer from the YouTube show Half the Battle, and the loser would have to appear on the winner's show, and I won. This week we're reviewing one of the strangest figures in the entire vintage G.I. Joe era. It's a mish-mash of parts and wild colors, and it came with a tub of Play-Doh. It embodies the extreme 90s. HCC and friends present the Cyber Viper. This is the Cyber Viper's Cobra's Cybernetic Officers from 1993. This figure was only available in 1993, it was discontinued for 1994. This is the only version of the Cyber Viper in the vintage line. The figure was revisited only one time in the history of the brand in the Pursuit of Cobra series. That figure looked totally different from this one. The Cyber Viper's was from the Mega Marines series. The Mega Marines was a sub-team of G.I. Joe that fought against Cobra's mutant monsters. The G.I. Joe side of this subset was led by Gung Ho. The Cobra side had two oversized mutants, the Bio Viper and the Monstro Viper, and two army builders, the Mega Viper's and the Cyber Viper's. Mega Marines figures included Bio Armor, which was really just Play-Doh. They had molds for shaping the Play-Doh into armored vests. G.I. Joe had a lot of these sub-teams, and they only became more numerous in the 1990s. 1993 included the Mega Marines, Dino Hunters, Ninja Force, and Star Brigade. There were so many subsets that the main series had to be given its own name, Battlecore. By this time, G.I. Joe had adopted many science fiction, fantasy, and horror tropes, and even a few comic tropes. Oh, hi! You got me drinking heavily and trying to understand the Cyber Viper. It's Chris from the YouTube show Comic Tropes. Thanks for having me on this review of the Cyber Viper I've been waiting forever for this one. I'm sorry, I said Comic Tropes, but I didn't mean that as a cue for you to join the show. You don't need me on the show. No, I think Timmer and I have this well in hand. Oh. I haven't been able to find out who designed this figure for Hasbro. No one seems to want to take credit for it. As we will see later, the Cyber Vipers were created by Dr. Meinbender for Cobra. There was a new version of Dr. Meinbender in 1993, but it was not in the Mega Marines set, even though Dr. Meinbender is mentioned on the file card. And here is the file card. I will read this file card later, but for now I wanted to point out that it has a list of some of the features, and I will be using this to describe some of the accessories and details. Cyber Vipers are cyborgs. Yes, there were cyborgs in G.I. Joe. In the 90s, anything could be in G.I. Joe. Cyborgs, aliens, mutants, robots, zombies. There is some debate about whether the 1986 Cobra battle android trooper was going to be cybernetic. The final product was fully mechanical, but eventually we got cybernetic cobras. Let's take a look at Cyber Vipers accessories. None of these accessories are original. Like many other 90s accessories, they came on a plastic frame. The purchaser would cut the accessories off the plastic tree. This means there is no color variation among the accessories that were attached to the tree. In this case, they are gray, which sort of makes them unique. Most of these accessories were not cast in gray for other figures. Nonetheless, absolutely nothing was designed new for the cyber viper. These are all reused accessories. Some of the accessories were not on the plastic tree, such as the mold and the missile launcher. We will get to all of them. Let's start by looking at this large rifle. It is in gray plastic. It has a drum magazine and a scope. It is very large. It's oversized for the figure. This rifle was originally issued for the 1990 Rock Viper in a cream color. The Rock Viper's rifle had a peg on the side, so it could be pegged into the figure's backpack. Like so. The Cyber Viper rifle does not have the peg. The grip on this rifle is a bit too thick to fit in my Cyber Viper's hand, so I do not put this in the figure's hand because I don't want to risk breaking the thumb. In fact, I don't put any of these accessories in the figure's hand. The next accessory is this flamethrower. It is in gray plastic. It has two grips. It has the pistol grip and the foregrip. It has a molded on hose and a peg on the back, and it also has a vintage shroud over part of the barrel. This flamethrower was originally issued with 1991 Incinerator in silver plastic. The details are good, but the Incinerator flamethrower connected to the backpack with this plastic hose that attached on the peg at the back of the flamethrower. The Cyber Viper flamethrower does not connect to anything, but it still has the peg on the back. The next accessory is this submachine gun. It is also in that gray plastic. This is a retro-futuristic design. It has a magazine and some technical detail. It has a shrouded vent over the barrel, and this fin at the back looks like something out of Buck Rogers. This accessory was originally issued with 1988 Voltar in gold plastic. I don't have the Voltar accessory. I lost it. Next we have what sources call another rifle. It is also in that gray plastic. It's a very odd shape. It has two grips. It has the back and then this foregrip here. This was originally issued with 1988 Toxoviper in black plastic. The Toxoviper card contents call it a pistol. It is neither a pistol nor a rifle. It's not clear exactly what it's supposed to be. As with the flamethrower, the Toxoviper accessory has this peg to connect to the backpack. The Cyber Viper accessory does not connect to anything, but it still has the peg. Another gray accessory is the figure stand. The figure stand is a nice innovation from the 1990s, although figure stands did exist in the 80s. In the 90s, they actually came with the figures, so that's nice. Also, the gray kind of matches the gray on the figure, so that's something. Finally, we get to an accessory that is not gray. It is not gray, but it is not an improvement. It's this missile launcher, and it is bright yellow. This is one of the infamous spring-loaded missile launchers from the 1990s. It looks really good. It has a ton of technical detail all over it. It has what may be a multi-barrel machine gun underneath, and it has this guard that's supposed to go over the arm, and this grip that's on the top. The grip is supposed to go in the figure's hand like this. It doesn't go the other way. It goes this way. Of course, I won't put that in this figure's hand because I don't want to break the thumb. As nice as this missile launcher looks, it is not original. It was issued in red plastic for 1993 Cobra Commander Version 6, and for the 1993 Crimson Guard Commander, again in yellow plastic, but with a black trigger instead of a yellow trigger. It was also issued with Eels Version 3 and the Mega Viper. The Cyber Viper launcher is the only one that came with a yellow body and a yellow trigger. The file card calls this a forearm firing cyber gun missile launcher. Since this is a spring-loaded missile launcher, it will really fire missiles. It included two gray missiles. To operate this missile launcher, just place the gray missile into the barrel with the notch side down. Press it all the way in until it clicks. To fire, you just press this trigger back. Let's test it using our old Nemesis Doctor Mindbender. Let's set him up there and then take aim and fire. At last, we get to what everyone really came here for. The moldable bio armor and the mold that works with it. It comes in a black plastic container with a pink lid. It has G.I. Joe on the top. It has a silver label that says G.I. Joe Mega Marines moldable bio armor. It says G.I. Joe Mega Marines even though this comes with the bad guy. This particular example still has the vintage Play-Doh inside. It looks like it was a red color. It's also solid as a rock now and partially crystallized. There's no way to reconstitute this. So how are we going to test the mold to see if that works? With Play-Doh, of course, regardless of what the label says, this stuff was this stuff. This Play-Doh is in a hideous pink color, which is fitting. We're going to test it with the bio armor mold, which is a neon green color. It has details on the outside, but you're not meant to attach this to the figure. It has molded detail on the inside so you can shape the Play-Doh. Let's just put a couple blobs of Play-Doh in the mold. We got to put some in the front and put some in the back. And when we press it together, it should make a bio armor vest. Now, this isn't very good armor. You wouldn't expect Play-Doh to make very good armor, but you can simulate battle damage with it, and that's kind of cool. I think that's the general idea that they were going with. The figure's arms will have to be out to make this work. This looks like the front, so let's just close that over the figure and press to shape the Play-Doh. Now, let's pop it back open and see if it worked. And it didn't work too well. It did shape the Play-Doh, but the back and the front are coming apart, so we'll need to try that again. I added some more Play-Doh to the mold, so hopefully that will help the front and the back to mesh together. So let's press it together really good. And then now, let's try to open it up and see if it works. That worked a little bit better. You can remove some of this excess, and there you go, the bio armor. We have looked at this before, and it's just as silly now as it was when we looked at it on the gung-ho figure. Like I said, you can simulate battle damage. This is cute if not very functional. It's an innovative idea to integrate another Hasbro property with G.I. Joe, even if it does look a little silly. They weren't fooling anybody by calling it bio armor, though. Everybody knows exactly what it is. You may be wondering what these other parts are for. Well, those are so you can mold warheads for the missiles. This works the same way as the bio armor you just put Play-Doh on each side and then press the missiles in. Then you can close the mold and press. And then you can remove the excess. It's a little easier to remove the excess on these missiles. So remove the excess, and then when you open it, you should have nice pink Play-Doh warheads for your missile. And there it is. It looks all right. What is the purpose of this? I have no idea. How well do these missiles work with the warheads? I'll bet Dr. Meinbender would like to find out. Let's test it. Let's place it back in the missile launcher and press all the way in. It's a little difficult to do without squishing the warhead. Yes, I have squished the warhead by pressing it in. There just isn't a way to get it in far enough. But anyway, let's test it anyway. Goodbye, Dr. Meinbender. Let's take a look at the articulation. Blah, blah, blah. The knees bend 90 degrees. Blah, blah, blah. Why do you do this every time? Dude, articulation on GI Joe figures is like always the same. At least when I talk about articulation on my brand new Saturday Shorty show, and I talk about Transformers, it's relevant because all their articulation is different. You're seriously plugging your stuff in the middle of my review? You betcha. Catch the show on Saturdays on my channel. Well, that's fine. But the articulation part is important. I know I say the same thing in almost every review, but any video could be somebody's first video, so it's their first time hearing it. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures well before 1993, 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 so he could bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep so he could 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 looked around the inside, not 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 Cyber Viper. This is one of the most bizarre figures in the entire line. It looks like a Frankenstein figure, but it's not. It's made of entirely new body parts for some reason. The extreme mismatch between parts is intentional. They're supposed to be cyborgs, so the mismatched colors are supposed to represent mechanical and biological parts. Looking at his head, he has a yellow non-removable helmet. The card calls this a biomechanical brain-integrated computer helmet. He has yellow tubes that connect to the side and the back of his neck. The helmet has ridges that go across the top and goggles over the eyes. The file card calls this a full-spectrum sighting lens. The Cyber Viper has a Caucasian skin tone and this really strange extension under the visor that goes vertically over the mouth and connects to a brace on the chin. Why would they have this? They were definitely thinking outside the box here, but why would you want a vertical piece over the mouth that's braced on the chin? It doesn't look any better on the card art. It looks like it's right up against his lips, so it would be difficult to speak. Maybe that's how Dr. Meinbender wanted it. On his chest he has a gray vest with some buckles on the left side and some straps that go under the left arm. He also has this circular detail at the abdomen. He has red shoulder pads and on each shoulder he has a tall fin. He looks like a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. What purpose do these serve? Are they supposed to look cool? If so, they fail. They're too small to be wings and too big to be purely decorative. He has some red straps connected to the shoulder pad that go to some very bright green grenades on the right side and a very bright green pouch on the left side. The final card calls these grenades radioactive blast grenades. There is a red strap that connects to the green pocket on the left side and goes under the right arm. That detail continues to the back. Even without looking at the other parts, this chest is just a mish-mash of different ideas and different details that don't quite go together. Looking at his arms, yikes, the upper part of the left arm is in a bright neon green color with yellow corn on the cob attached to it. I'm sure this is supposed to be some kind of cybernetic muscle, but it looks like corn to me. His elbow is a Caucasian flesh tone. Then he has a detailed technical green band around his forearm and then a very detailed yellow glove. They did nice on the details there. I will give them credit for that. The final card calls the arm and the leg on this side a biomechanical arm and leg. Technically any human arm or leg would be biomechanical. I assume they mean it's a combination of human body parts and artificial implants. The right arm is mostly bare, just the Caucasian flesh tone down to the bright neon green forearm band with some technical detail and a green hose connected to the elbow. The right hand is bare. This hose detail on the forearm actually reminds me of the hose detail on the 1987 Techno Viper. And that's probably the best thing this figure can do is remind me of a better action figure. The waist piece has a bright neon green belt with a small buckle and two small pouches, one on each hip. He has red trousers and otherwise not much detail. Looking at his legs, double yikes. He has two totally different colored legs. The right leg is the same red color as the waist piece and there is a seam down the outside leg. Otherwise no real detail on the right leg. The left leg is a bright neon green and it has all these ridged muscle details on it. This is supposed to be a mechanical leg. I assume the ridge detail is supposed to match what's on the upper left arm, but it's done much better on the leg. There is a ridged gray band around the left leg that goes down to the left boot. The boots are gray and the boots are almost symmetrical. At least they're the same color of gray. There's a lip on the right boot that is not on the left boot. So even the almost symmetrical boots are not quite the same. When I reviewed Darklawn, I noted the figure looked like a collection of mismatched parts. Cyber Viper makes Darklawn look tasteful in comparison. Cyber Viper looks like a three-year-old who dressed himself. I understand that they were trying to make this guy look like he was assembled from different mechanical parts, but there are better ways to do that. In fact, there aren't many worse ways to do that. You didn't point out that this figure doesn't have any indication that he is cobra. I mean, he doesn't have any insignias on him, so there's nothing to say that he's a bad guy. Well, apart from the fact that you're blinded by his garishness. Thank you, Timmer. That was both pertinent and apt. Can I go now? No way. You've reviewed this thing and I need your knowledge and experience. Next year, if I win, I'm making you review RoboJo. Let's look at the file card. The file card is in a disgusting green color. Of course it is. It has some artwork of Cyber Viper here in this lower panel and then a close-up in the upper panel. And there is a color mismatch in the art. The left leg is red. On the figure, the left leg is green. His code name is Cyber Viper's hyphenated and plural. They are the cybernetic officers. Primary military specialty is cybernetic operations. Secondary military specialty, biointelligence warfare. This is a collection of smart sounding words that have no context or meaning. Here we have a quote presumably from a cyber viper. It says, This paragraph tells us all we need to know about the cyber vipers. It says, With evil brains enhanced by Dr. Mindbender himself. Abbey normal brains. They are half-man and half-robot, and both have formed one tough enemy for the mega-marines to fight. These cybernetic troopers help control the top-level command operations of the mega-monsters and are responsible for initiating their destructive attacks. They are the guardians of monsters, the overseers of doom. I doubt this file card was written by Larry Hama. The last sentence has a bit of poetry, but the rest is just a cross-promotion for other toys. Looking at how the cyber viper was used in GI Joe Media, to my knowledge he was never animated, not for the television show and not for commercials. Even the extreme 90s looked at these guys and said, That's a bit much, don't you think? The cyber viper did appear in the comic book published by Marvel Comics in issue number 149. They were shown helping Dr. Mindbender operate the brainwave scanner. This is similar to their function as described on the file card, assisting Dr. Mindbender, but there are no mutant monsters. I can't say if the comic book uniform is worse than the figure, it's bad in different ways. I have to give credit to Chris Pierce from Comic Tropes for finding these appearances of the cyber viper in the comic book. I did not find these pages until he pointed them out, so I would like to invite Chris to say something about them. Oh hi, you caught me doing literally anything else, so now you do want me on the show? Yes, you are the comics expert and I would love to have your take on these comics with the cyber viper. Oh gosh, I'd love to, but I'm doing literally anything else. Oh, well, maybe next time. Yes, and until next time, keep reading comics and then stick them up your a- Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. The cyber viper had one other appearance in a live action TV commercial. It was a very brief appearance. He was also on a trading card with the live action costume, which looked totally different. The commercial version would have been a cool action figure. Looking at the cyber viper overall, this is one of the strangest figures in the series. It looks like a bunch of parts from different action figures that were kit bashed together, but all of these parts were new and have not been used since. That's a lot of money to spend on tooling that was never used again. There are some critics who really like this figure, but I just can't see what they were going for here. There are other cyborg figures in G.I. Joe. Robo Joe looks tasteful and understated in comparison. I will never understand the vertical bar on the helmet. I get that the designer was trying to think outside of the box, but there's a reason helmets aren't designed this way. It doesn't work, and it looks stupid. For his views on the cyber viper, I go to Timmer. Over to you, Timmer. Thoughts about the cyber viper? Back to you, Steve. Oh, wait, you actually want me to tell you my thoughts on the thing. Yeah, it's pretty horrendous looking. It's not a good figure. I'm not a fan. No, sir, I don't like it. The accessories look good in gray, and there are some gems here. The incinerator flamethrower looks cool, but there is nothing new here. This is another low effort from the 90s. What do you think of the accessories, Timmer? Same. Back to you, Steve. The file card has some good points. Dr. Meinbender could use some lab assistants, but it's mostly just cross promotion for other toys. What does Timmer think of cyber viper's place in G.I. Joe lore? Back to you, Steve. Back to you, Timmer. Back to you, Steve. Back to you, Timmer. Back to you, Steve. Let's hear what Chris from Comic Tropes thinks about the cyber viper. My thoughts on the cyber viper. I don't love it. First of all, the color scheme is gaudy. I don't love the asymmetrical look. It can work, but I don't think it does in this case. And the mask is confusing. That bar that goes across the mouth. I mean, what purpose does that serve other than to force him to only take meals through a straw at lunchtime? I really don't know what that protects or what that does. And in terms of functionality for playtime, what role does the cyber viper really take on that the techno viper didn't already fill? So I don't think it was necessary. In the comics, I could find literally two examples of it being used. I don't think writer Larry Hama had a good idea for how to use them either. They show up as assistants for Dr. Mindbender, a role typically fulfilled by techno vipers. And then there's also a scene where one is driving a tank, and hoodie Coco, you're the expert here. I think this was called the Devastator. I'm not fully sure there. And honestly, in between the two issues, the costume changes a bit. So there's no real consistency. The cyber viper really shows the extremes that Hasbro had gone to with giving somebody a role and adding viper to the end of it. I don't know exactly whose idea that was to push the viper thing so strongly, but I do know that writer Larry Hama had fun with it in the comics, including scenes like this where kitchen vipers are referred to. I think that that's a pretty good gag that there are things as obscure as a kitchen chef and that they are given a title with viper at the end. That's pretty funny. Anyway, I would ultimately have more fun, even as a kid, with a kitchen viper as compared to the cyber viper. So not my favorite. That was our review of the cyber viper. I hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks to Timmer from Half the Battle and Chris from Comic Tropes. These guys have been friends and collaborators for several years. I enjoy working with them. They have their own shows that I also really love. They are worth a look and a subscription. I apologize for missing two weeks of videos. This video took extra long to make. A lot of things went wrong with it. It seemed like a cursed review. Apparently, the action figure gods did not want us to review cyber viper. If you did like this video, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Share this video with your friends. You can find me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. As always, thank you to my supporters on Patreon. Without whom these videos would not be possible, they really have sustained me through difficult times, and I am extremely grateful to them. If you'd like to support the channel, Patreon is a great way to do it. You can get some special perks and get your name in videos like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now. I'll be back soon with another vintage GI Joe toy review, and until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe. To you, Steve. Back to you, Timmer. Back to you. Back to you. Back to you. Back to you.