 You're doing all right. This is a tough guy to review, but you got to do it for the fans. It's for Cobra Convergence You can't let them down Just remember Even though this guy is big boa you are a Big reviewer. You're gonna eat plastic and crap action things Are you ready? I'm gonna play the theme song here. It's week two of Cobra Convergence 3 and it's time for another vintage Cobra toy review special. Thanks to Master Chinese for the title card image He's done some fantastic art for the channel lately And I'm very grateful for his work and as you may have noticed from that title card image We're really looking at two characters this week this week We are looking at a Cobra Boxer that was one of the weirdest figures released in a very weird year 1987 whoa, but that's not all I want to talk about there's a myth around this figure Big Boa was Cobra's counterpart to a GI Joe figure that never existed Big Boas enemy was supposed to be rocky Yes, that rocky before you Google it. I'll tell you there was no rocky figure There was supposed to be but it was canceled It's common to cancel figures before they get released Usually the public would never know about them But in 1987 the plans for the rocky figure leaked out in a bizarre way We'll cover all of that in this review Which will give me an opportunity to talk about one of my favorite movies, but that also means we do need to talk about big Boa Hello everyone I'm form BXU 5 7 and there's a little something interesting that I discovered in the rocky entry in the second issue of GI Joe order of battle But I'll let Hooded Cobra Commander get on with his review first My prediction for this review Pain For Cobra Convergence 3, HCC 788 presents Big Boa and Rocky This is the 1987 Cobra trainer Big Boa This figure was first introduced in 1987 and was also available in 1988 And it was discontinued for the year 1989 There were no other versions of Big Boa in the vintage era Big Boa most likely gets his name from the Boa Constrictor Snake A type of large snake that crushes its prey to death before eating it whole At least I hope that's where he gets his name from Because otherwise his name is a joke that's inappropriate for a family show Big Boa was Cobra's first trainer His counterpart on GI Joe would be Sergeant Slaughter Sergeant Slaughter was GI Joe's drill instructor Introduced as a mail away offer in 1986 And available as a vehicle driver later that same year He was still available in 1987 So he could have gone head to head against Big Boa An alternative nemesis to Big Boa would be The Fridge from 1987 Another mail away figure This one based on a football player That served as a GI Joe trainer Even though Big Boa would most logically fight Sergeant Slaughter He's more associated with someone else A Joe that never really existed In 1987 something unexpected and confusing happened In the GI Joe mini series Order of Battle There was a profile for a Joe that we had never seen before In issue 2 page 10 there was an entry for Rocky Balboa The famous fictional boxer played by Sylvester Stallone I remember seeing it when it was first published And honestly I thought it was a joke I thought someone had slipped it by the editors I couldn't imagine a Rocky action figure would be released And I didn't think he would be a good fit with GI Joe The Joe's already had Sergeant Slaughter and The Fridge Rocky would be redundant Not to mention the fact that there was another Sylvester Stallone character That would be a good fit with GI Joe Rambo Even more surprising in issues number 3 and 4 of Order of Battle A retraction was printed on the last page It says Rocky is not and has never been a member of GI Joe This solidified in my mind that the inclusion of Rocky was a gag Someone had played a joke and got busted Much to my surprise years later it came out That there was a planned Rocky figure The figure had even been fully sculpted before it was cancelled The sculpting was done by Bill Merkline One of the best and most prolific Hasbro sculptors at the time Ironically the Rocky GI Joe figure was killed by Rambo Stallone licensed his likeness to Coleco for the Rambo toy line So the Rocky figure was scrapped There are rumors surrounding that Rocky figure One rumor is that it was reworked to become Big Boa That's what Mr. Merkline believes happened Images of that sculpt were published in the magazine Action Figure Collector That magazine is not in business anymore Based on those images I don't think any part of Rocky was used in Big Boa The interesting thing I noticed about Rocky's entry in GI Joe Order of Battle Issue 2 relates to his bio The only real bio there is of Rocky Balboa The actual person in the GI Joe universe But it's actually split into two portions here And the first portion relates to pugilism Or the art or sport of boxing Which is of course natural as Rocky Balboa Is probably the most famous boxer on earth But the second portion actually mentions pugilistics While pugilism and pugilistics they sound related They're actually not They're two different martial art disciplines Boxing is of course an unarmed martial art Whereas pugilistics is not Pugilistics actually derives from using a staff with two padded ends One pad on the front is supposed to pretend to be a bayonet And the other side is supposed to pretend to be a rifle butt And that's how soldiers train to use their rifles as basically a melee weapon So I'm kind of wondering whether the toy designers Actually wanted to sort of shoehorn in The odd accessory that the Rocky Balboa toy was supposed to come with Basically that staff with the two boxing gloves at the end Or whether they got confused and thought pugilism And pugilistics were related somehow Another rumor is that Big Boa's name is a nod to the unreleased figure Big Boa kind of sounds like Balboa Prototype names for this figure included Snake Charmer and Big Bad Although Big Boa is a silly name It's better than those other two The consensus among collectors is that Big Boa was created as a nemesis for Rocky And survived that figure's cancellation His name is a vestige of that Rocky figure Ron Rudat, the toy designer for Hasbro, has said Big Boa was inspired by a character in the movie Beastmaster In that movie a guy gets his brain melted by a green thing And becomes a rage zombie They slap a big helmet on him before he goes berserk The character does have a passing resemblance to Big Boa He has a helmet, a bare chest and spikes He has a skull on his crotch I guess we should be happy we were spared that on the figure If that was the inspiration it explains why Big Boa has a helmet But it still doesn't make sense for a boxer Now that we've shown the image for the sake of illustration We can take it down now This is a family show I don't want to be indecent I said we can take the image down now We've all seen enough of it Hello? Where's my graphics department who fell asleep on the job? Oh Oh I see I see So that's how we're going to play it Well guess what? I'm not going to play that game If the graphics department's not going to do its job I'm not going to finish the review I'm out of here Still there? Not funny guys Not funny Well now Let's take a look at Big Boa's accessories And let's start with his punching bag This punching bag is two pieces It's a base in black plastic It also has a brown punching bag on a black pole The pole connects to the base just by pegging it into the hole And it has this brown punching bag It is painted on black plastic Brown paint And then we have the word Joe in black letters It has a couple black stitch marks Or maybe those are X's for kisses There is a fair amount of detail on it There's some stitching Big Boa would use this to practice punching And think about Joe while he's doing it It's assumed that Joe means G.I. Joe But really it's just a guy named Joe that he doesn't like He has two boxing gloves A left and a right They are red They have white cobra emblems on them This one's a little worn They're made of a soft rubbery plastic And they can be removed You can pull them off of his hands They have a slit on the inside wrist To make that a little bit easier But they can still be a pretty tight fit These boxing gloves have just enough detail The white cobra emblems do help Without them they might be a little too plain These gloves mean Big Boa is specifically a boxer He's a trainer But his accessories make it clear He focuses on hand to hand combat He's not spending a lot of time on the rifle range With these boxing gloves He really needs an opponent The Rocky figure is missed The Rocky figure would have come with boxing gloves Just like this Without Rocky Big Boa doesn't have a Joe boxer to challenge He could fight Sergeant Slaughter In Rocky III there was a boxer versus wrestler match His final accessory is the one that makes the least sense He has a hose that connects to his non-removable helmet This hose can be taken off It is silver And it's made of a soft plastic that is flexible The hose connects to the front of the helmet On the left side of the face mask And then it wraps around and connects to a hole on the back of his head This is easily the most frequently lost piece As these removable hoses usually are The hose has a straight tip on one end And a shorter curved tip on the other end It looks like the straight tip goes in the front But you could put it the other way around It will fit The purpose of this hose is not clear at all It doesn't connect to an air tank It connects one part of his helmet to another A hose on a helmet on a boxer If you're going to add something this weird I'd like for there to be some stated purpose for it Let's take a look at the articulation on Big Boa He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1987 Meaning 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 The articulation on the shoulder somewhat hindered By the extra muscled sculpting on the arm He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed his arm to bend at the elbow About 90 degrees He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around 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 Big Boa starting with his head And on his head he has a helmet and a light tan color It covers his entire head He has a red eye slit and another couple red lines on the top of the helmet He has a row of silver spikes that go right down the middle All the way down to the back He has a silver circular detail on the right side of his helmet That kind of looks like a dial And in the front he has a silver mouthpiece that connects to his hose accessory This looks like a robot head The neck is a flesh tone And that's the only indication this is a human head We expect cobra operatives to conceal their identities Non-removable helmets are expected In this case he's supposed to be training cobra troopers While wearing a helmet with limited field of vision And a hose that doesn't go anywhere This seems to work against his purpose He has a bare chest that is muscular With crossed red straps over the chest and back And silver spikes that run along those straps Those spikes are pointed They're not rounded off as you would expect for a toy They are sharp They leave impressions on your fingers His arms are totally bare without the gloves They are very muscular A lot like Sergeant Slaughter But these arms do not copy Sergeant Slaughter They are unique A little more detail on the arms would help Maybe a cobra tattoo or something On his waist piece he has a red belt And a silver belt buckle He has red padding in front This looks a little like the protective padding boxers wear A little, not much On his legs he's wearing blue tights He has muscular thighs Lots of muscle detail sculpted onto this figure He's wearing boots with black trim and shin guards And he has a red ridged detail that run around the sides and back The black shoe may be a separate piece I don't know if these are boots or their shin guards with shoes The intent of the sculptor is not very clear Let's take a look at Big Boa's file card On his file card it has his faction as Cobra A portrait of Big Boa It says his codename is Big Boa He's the Cobra trainer File name unknown There isn't really a need to have an entry for the file name If all they're going to say is unknown And there's no other biographical information This top paragraph says Cobra troopers can be an unruly bunch at times They aren't motivated by patriotism Unit loyalty, honor, or a sense of duty It takes a brutal, unfeeling taskmaster to whip them into fighting trim And Big Boa fits that bill to a T A Mr. T He has a voice like a bullhorn Fists the size of frozen turkeys And the disposition of a rabid grizzly bear This bottom paragraph has a quote It says Big Boa kicks open the Cobra barracks door at 0500 And makes everyone do the low crawl up the mountain While pushing a bowling ball with their noses Then it's a 20 mile run through the bramble thickets More push-ups than you want to know about And a two mile swim upstream with flak jacket and helmet After breakfast, he starts on the hard stuff This file card reads a lot like Sergeant Slaughter's file card Big Boa is a big strong guy who is brutal to his trainees He is Cobra's Sergeant Slaughter What's missing from this card, and what I really wanted to see Is a reason for the helmet The helmet is so prominent It seems like it must serve some specific purpose But there's no description or explanation for it Looking at how Big Boa was used in G.I. Joe Media He was only animated for commercials So no cartoon episode appearances to show you He also had no appearances in the comic book during the vintage era I know he got some use after the vintage era But that is outside the scope of this review I don't really have any media appearances of Big Boa to show you But that's okay because it gives me an opportunity to talk about Rocky That's why I think this figure deserves a look Big Boa is indelibly linked to Balboa Rocky was released in 1976 It was written by and starred Sylvester Stallone It won a ton of Oscars Even though it was released when I was one year old It was popular enough to be played on television often And of course we rented it when the VHS was released I saw it many times As a child, I thought the movie was mostly a bunch of boring stuff With some great boxing at the end I liked the later Rocky movies more because they had more boxing It wasn't until I watched it again as an adult That I noticed the movie wasn't about boxing Rocky was a second-rate boxer and lifelong loser in Philadelphia Who wanted nothing more than to be noticed by Adrian The woman who worked in the neighborhood pet store Rocky was a nobody and he knew he was a nobody Apollo Creed, the world heavyweight champion Plucked Rocky from obscurity and gave him a shot at the title The scene that reveals the most about Rocky Is when he's offered the fight with Apollo Rocky's first reaction is to turn it down Would you be interested in fighting Apollo Creed For the world heavyweight championship? Rocky knows he's outclassed and he knows he has no chance And he doesn't have the courage to try I always thought it was strange that Rocky didn't win in the end He was clearly the protagonist But now I understand Rocky did win He went the distance with the champ He proved he wasn't a nobody In the end, his victory was his embrace with Adrian It was their story Boxing was just the backdrop Rocky is one of my most inspirational movies of all time I rewatch it sometimes When I need to remember to keep fighting And when I need to remember what's really important in life The biggest victories in life don't involve defeating an enemy Another thing I appreciate about Rocky as an adult Is Burgess Meredith Burgess Meredith played Ernie Pyle in the movie The Story of G.I. Joe That movie was the inspiration for the first G.I. Joe action figure in 1964 Including Rocky and G.I. Joe would have brought the toys back To their roots in a more profound way than casting Burgess Meredith As Galobulus in the 1987 animated movie The Rocky action figure would have been a 1987 release So Hasbro would have been planning it in 1986 That was the year after Rocky IV was released That movie had an overt Cold War theme With Rocky fighting the Soviet boxer who killed Apollo Creed I like Rocky IV, but for different reasons than the first movie If you get past the East versus West theme There is a message of peace and unity Rocky's speech at the end of the movie is easy to write off as Hollywood fluff But I believe it was heartfelt As Larry Hama tried to portray the October guard as G.I. Joe's equal Rocky says the same thing about the people most Americans considered their greatest enemy Would a Rocky action figure have carried that message to G.I. Joe? We'll never know Looking at Big Boa overall, is this a good figure? No, he's a half naked boxer with a bucket on his head And a vacuum cleaner hose attached to it The figure is bonkers But Cobra would have use for a trainer So a character with that specialty would have a place in the G.I. Joe universe Not a big place A small place For a small Boa Why is it underrated then? I think this figure deserves attention because it is our only tangible link in G.I. Joe to Rocky That's what I really think of when I see Big Boa That matters more than the plastic The toy itself is less important than the inspiration behind it Rocky is the story of a guy that proved he was not a nobody Because nobody is a nobody I watched that movie when I need to be reminded that I'm not a nobody And if you're watching this and you need the reminder You're not a nobody Even if there's no one else in this world that you can think of That you matter to You matter to me Sometimes we need that reminder And that's what Rocky does for me And by extension, that's what Big Boa does It's a weird figure I don't love the figure But I don't discard the figure either Because of its hidden meaning That was my review of Big Boa I hope you enjoyed it Thank you again, Master Chinese for the title card artwork This week we have more Cobra Convergence videos coming your way Comic Tropes has a video going up today Thank you, Chris, from Comic Tropes A long time friend of the channel With a great channel himself Make sure you check out his contribution to Cobra Convergence Later this week you will get Cobra Convergence videos From The Skull Reviews The Human Mechanism And My Side of the Laundry Room Wow I really hope you're enjoying Cobra Convergence this year We worked really hard to bring you more content than ever I invited everyone to create Cobra content for this month And if you send it to me at this email address I will put all of those contributions together In a montage at the end of my videos If you want your stuff included in my videos Get started creating and send it to me I'll be back next week with another vintage Cobra review And until then remember Only Cobra is Cobra