 This episode of HCC 788 brought to you in part by The Dicast Enterprise. Join us each week as we discuss the sexual proclivities of Commander William T. Reicher. The bravado comedy of Lieutenant War. And the adorable monkey shines up one Wesley the Sweater Crusher. Or maybe we'll just talk about the golden girls. Or hairstyles. Or cartoons. That's equally likely. We also like G.I. Joe. There. We tied that in nicely. Well done everyone on that. By all our play sets and toys. You're a so great cop here. Love G.I. Joe. A SWATER RIZE IT! Sarge Sarge! Raid! Ready? Ready! Ready. Silence kill. For commander 788 here, it's time for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. And this one is special. Because it was chosen by supporters on Patreon. Like with the Dung Ho review, patrons were able to vote on what they wanted to see this week. And they got to vote on a vehicle this time. And the vehicle they chose was the 1988 Cobra Stellar Stiletto. I'm glad they chose this vehicle because this was the last G.I. Joe vehicle that I got as a child. So this was my last impression of the G.I. Joe toy line before I moved on. At least for the toy line. I did read the comic books for a little bit longer after I stopped getting the toys. The Stellar Stiletto came with a pilot, the Star Viper. And the Star Viper played a small but important role in the G.I. Joe comic book. So I'm happy to talk about that. I'd like to say a special thanks to my patrons. You guys blow me away. I'm so happy to have you guys around. I hope we can stick together and move forward and do something special for the G.I. Joe community. Without further ado, HCC 788 presents the 1988 Cobra Stellar Stiletto and the Star Viper. This is the 1988 Cobra Stellar Stiletto and the pilot, the Star Viper. This figure and vehicle set were first available in 1988 and were also on the shelves in 1989. They were discontinued for the year 1990. They were released the year following the introduction of G.I. Joe's Giant Space Shuttle Complex, The Defiant. Whether there were other Cobra vehicles in the Stellar Stiletto family depends on whether you consider it to be a jet or a spacecraft. Cobra didn't have many space vehicles. They had the Invader in 1993, which was recolored and modified from the Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball from 1987. If you consider it a jet, it followed the Night Raven, which was on the shelves from 1986 to 1987. Cobra's next jet was the Condor Z25 in 1989 and the Python Patrol Conquest. The mold for the Stellar Stiletto was reused and the vehicle was recast as a Joe vehicle in 1993, the Star Fighter for the Star Brigade Subline. As you can see, the main difference is the color, but some new features were added like a real firing missile launcher. Now, the Star Fire will get its own review in the future, but for now I just wanted to show it to you so you could see what this vehicle looked like when it was fighting for G.I. Joe. I'm showing you the Stellar Stiletto lying flat, but that's not really how it's supposed to rest. It has no landing gear, and we will talk about that later. Really, it's supposed to set up vertically like this, but I chose not to look at it that way in this review because it just doesn't work as well on camera. The Star Viper was only available with the Stellar Stiletto, and there were no other versions of the Star Viper in the Vintage line. He wasn't the only Cobra astronaut, though. Also in 1988, we got the Cobra Knot, the Astro Viper. This is the last G.I. Joe vehicle that I bought as a child. This was the final straw, and there really wasn't a problem with this vehicle. It wasn't really so bad. It just wasn't what I was looking for. I was looking for a Cobra jet to add to my dwindling Cobra Air Force, and this was as close as I could get at the time. Let's set the Star Viper aside for now and look at the Stellar Stiletto. The Stellar Stiletto was in a bright red color, and I can accept this as a color for a Cobra aircraft or spacecraft. It was much more Cobra-like than the white Condor Z25. The Stiletto's long, spear-like shape and short wings harkens back to the rocket plane, the North American X-15. The X-15 broke the airspeed record in 1967 at Mach 6.72, and it still holds that record. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Stellar Stiletto starting with the nose cone. We have a soft, rubbery nose cone. It's long and pointy. It continues the taper of the spacecraft down to a point. Behind the nose cone we have some engine detail and some piping. I think this looks like a hot rod engine. This looks like parts that you would not want to have exposed outside of a spacecraft. You would think that you would want all of this hidden behind some heat shielding. We have the fuselage with a ridged pattern, and we have these shoulders that flatten out into a more traditional aircraft shape. We have kill marks on this side. We have the canopy in clear plastic, and it opens by popping up. The canopy has some molded-in detail. It looks like a radar screen there with some cross hairs. On the inside there is a sticker. It looks like a radar screen sticker. That's a nice sticker, but you can't see it very well from the outside. That's a detail that's kind of lost as long as the canopy is closed. Opening up the canopy we can look at the cockpit. It's pretty nice, a nice pilot seat. We have a small instrument panel. Everything is red. It's all molded in that same red plastic that the whole body is made out of. There's no sticker instrument panel or anything like that. I think that's too bad because some other color in there other than just the red, perhaps with a sticker, I think would have helped. With all of that red some of the details kind of get lost. There is a divider between the pilot's knees and there's no control stick or anything like that. That's normal for GI Joe aircraft. I think it would have been nice if right there at that divider they had put a little joystick there for the pilot to grasp. Just to show you how the Star Viper fits in the Stellar Stiletto, he mostly reclines and there's plenty of room in there. He's not cramped at all. He mainly just sort of lays back in the pilot seat and you can close the canopy easily. There's plenty of room for him in there. There's no seat belt. There's no back peg and I think this may have benefited from a back peg because he is a little bit loose and does flop around in there. So if he's in a dog fight and he's flying upside down if this canopy pops open the figure is going to fall out. Alongside the cockpit we have some more engine detail and mechanics and it's not the same on both sides. It is asymmetrical and we have these silver hoses that run between the midsection to the rear engine cones. We have very short wings and on the wings we have a cobra symbol with a black background and I think this black is good that really helps break up the red. This vehicle is very red and so every bit of other color that you can add helps break it up and keeps the red from being overpowering. Flipping the Stiletto to the underside for a moment we have what the Blueprints call a Stiletto Pinpoint Engine Diverted Laser. It's a pivoting laser gun in silver plastic. We have what the Blueprints call external liquid cooled heat resistant fuel tanks and this looks appropriate for a rocket plane like this. Of course the Stiletto is meant to go in space so all of this should be covered with a heat shield but as a toy it does look nice to have these molded in details. There is no landing gear the Stiletto launches and lands vertically. It's the same as the Firebat in that respect. We have four missiles and two different types and this longer missile the Blueprints call a Slice Supersonic Laser Firing Interceptor Dual Purpose Missile. And I think what they're trying to say is this missile doubles as a laser gun. We have this shorter missile which the Blueprints call a Strike DK87 Long Range Data Link Missile. Both missiles are futuristic looking with lots of extra gadgetry in silver plastic. They fit on the vehicle with the usual GI Joe Dumbbell shaped peg. Missiles may not be the best choice of armament for a spacecraft that will re-enter the atmosphere under extreme heat. Moving to the back of the vehicle we have what the Blueprints call the swept back vertical stabilizing rudder. And this pivots up for landing mode. This long sharply pointed fin mirrors the sharp point at the other end of the plane. And this is the closest thing the Stiletto has to landing gear. It pivots up like this so the Stiletto can stand vertically. Finally we have Rocket Thrust Nozzles. These look powerful as they should. These are meant to push this ship into orbit. They each have three knobs on them and these serve as the feet on which the stellar Stiletto stands. What you can't see but you can feel when you hold the toy is the hollow feel. With the fuel tanks on the bottom and the hollow fuselage the vehicle feels lighter than it looks. Can it float? Because this vehicle is hollow it got me curious as to whether this would float like a boat. So let's just test it just for the heck of it. Does the cobra stellar Stiletto float? Yeah kind of. There's a bit of a seam there and so water might seep in there but it actually floats okay at least for a little while. This is actually not bad. You can kind of imagine recovering this space vehicle at sea. Now let's take a look at the Star Viper and he didn't come with any accessories so let's jump right into looking at his articulation. He had the articulation that was standard by 1988 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. He could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. He 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 the Star Viper starting with his head and on his head he has a black helmet with a red visor. He has a tiny cobra symbol right there in the middle. This helmet is non-removable but we expect that for cobra figures. The red visor is very large. It looks like a giant single eye in the middle of his head. On his chest he has a black flight suit with gold crisscross straps or hoses. And the black is an excellent color choice for a cobra pilot and the gold works well with it. As with all gold paint you do have to worry about paint wear. His arms are pretty simple. They just continue that black flight suit. He has some elbow pads and I like those. Those are well done. And he has gold gloves. On his waist piece he has a zipper for the flight suit and that continues from the chest. It's pretty plain in the back but on the sides on his hip he has some gold detailing that goes to his holsters. His legs are mostly black and I think it was a smart choice to keep the color scheme on this guy simple. On his right thigh he has a gold holstered pistol and this pistol has a guard around the grip. I think this looks a little like a laser tag gun. On his left thigh he has a gold stiletto. Very clever. We finish up with some tall black boots. These look like goth boots to me. He's going to go clubbing later. The black color of the star viper works well with the red vehicle. In fact I think the black figure enhances the look of the stiletto by breaking up some of that red and giving it a little more color depth. As nice as the black is for this figure I think it could have used something more. Maybe a unit insignia on the arm would have been a nice final touch. Let's take a look at star viper's file card. This file card has his faction as cobra and as a portrait of the star viper here. This would have come from the artwork on the front of the box for the stellar stiletto. It has his codename as star viper and he is the cobra stellar stiletto pilot. This top paragraph says a star viper is a qualified cobra strato viper with an electromagnetic shunt surgically implanted into the right side of his brain. During high speed upper atmospheric dogfights, electronic impulses are introduced through the shunt, stimulating the reflexes while heightening awareness for split second decisions. So a star viper must first be a strato viper. The strato viper was the pilot of the cobra night raven. Surgical enhancements are not unusual for cobra troopers. Strato viper's are surgically altered to withstand the rigors of high G flight. Star viper's go under the knife a second time for the brain shunt. Hydro viper's are also surgically altered for deep sea diving. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says star viper's are exceedingly dangerous in action. They routinely execute fast maneuvers with insect like efficiency. However, they are referred to as jolt heads by their fellow cobras and are known to be distracted and generally disoriented between missions. Having a shunt implanted in your brain requires extreme dedication. I would assume such a device would be permanent. That means the star viper would have a hole in his head long after he has retired from being a cobra pilot. That is if he survives, which most cobra pilots don't. Watching TV. You're watching TV, but how are you doing that? Oh, I have a brain implant. I got it when I worked at Computer Shack. We used to use them to interface with all the computers and run the cash registers. We used to play Wolfenstein with our brains. You worked at Computer Shack more than 20 years ago. Can you do anything with it now? Not really. Ever since Windows 95 came out, it's not really compatible with anything. All I can do is this. So you have a permanent brain implant from more than 20 years ago and all you can do with it is change the channel? Yep. Then can you switch it to Johnny Carson? Yep. Oh, and you old lush. Looking at the star viper's GI Joe media appearances, he had no appearances in the cartoon TV series. He was only animated for a commercial. In the GI Joe comic book series, the stellar stiletto and the star viper had only a few appearances, but those appearances were significant. They appeared in the main comic book series in issues number 72 and 73. In the comic book, the star viper was an individual character, not a nondescript trooper. The brain shunt was the work of cobra's resident mad scientist Dr. Meinbender. In issue number 72, the star viper infiltrated GI Joe headquarters and stole a sensitive piece of electronic equipment. He escaped in the stellar stiletto and his return to cobra island in issue number 73 indirectly kicked off the cobra civil war. He also appeared in special missions issue number 16, where his stellar stiletto was treated more like a fighter jet. And that's how I would use it. Looking at the stellar stiletto and the star viper overall, I'd say both vehicle and figure are middle tier. The stellar stiletto really isn't bad. The red color is good. My main complaints are it could have used some black to add some depth to the color scheme, and it has kind of a hollow, empty, lightweight, kind of almost a cheap feel to it. Oh, one more thing. This would have been a great opportunity to use the cobra air core symbol somewhere on this vehicle. Why does this not get any love? This is really cool. My strongest memory of this toy is that I got it because I wanted a cobra fighter jet. At the time I was spending less money on GI Joe and I was getting close to the time when I would be out of it completely. A lot of my old toys had been lost or broken and I needed some cobra air power. And I got the stellar stiletto to fit that role. It was barely adequate for that role. It was no cobra rattler or night raven, that's for sure. It's not really a fighter jet, it's a spaceship. And I wasn't playing with Joe's in space, so I didn't need it as a spaceship. Maybe if I had picked up a vehicle that made a better impression on me, I would have stayed in GI Joe longer. Probably not, but maybe. I like the Star Viper for his simplicity. It's hard to screw up a basic black uniform. I think the gold highlights are just enough to catch the eye without being too much. I'm less a fan of the helmet design. I like the idea of the red visor and I can see what they were going for. But I think the shape of the visor and the helmet are just wrong. Despite that, it is a solid middle tier figure. That was my review of the 1988 Cobra Stiletto and the Star Viper. I hope you enjoyed it. And to everyone who watches these videos and subscribes and shares the videos, thank you. We are all on the same team and we're going to go forward on this journey together. Thank you everyone for watching. I'll see you next week for another vintage GI Joe toy review. And until then, remember only GI Joe is GI Joe.