 G.I. Joe has had ninjas for a very long time. They have a deep and rich history that is intertwined with the biographies of many G.I. Joe characters. Cobra, G.I. Joe's main enemy had to get in on that game. They can't have a ninja gap. They had to have ninjas of their own. I'm not referring to the Cobra Ninja Storm Shadow from 1984. Cobra had to have its own ninja troopers and I'm not referring to the Cobra Ninjas, the Night Creepers from 1990. By 1992 the Night Creepers were off the pegs. In 1992 Cobra needed its own ninjas and I am not referring to the Ninja Force Cobra Ninjas Slice and Dice. Despite all the Cobra Ninjas that came before and despite the Cobra Ninjas that were on the pegs in 1992 Cobra still needed the indispensable male away ninja. The Hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. It's time for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. We've looked at G.I. Joe toys from the 1990s for almost a month now and we're still in the 90s. If we're sticking in the 90s let's look at something rare. 2019 is the year of the rarity and we have something for you this week. Thank you to Thomas Hogan for donating this figure to me. This review would not be possible without your help. A lot of G.I. Joe male away figures from the 90s could be looked at as a cash grab that wasn't very much new. It was a lot of recolored reissued older product made with very little effort and expense but they still asked for your money. Some of them were not very popular at the time so they end up being rare figures today. But hush your mouth Mr. Sinek. Some of those male away figures were indispensable. They were vital to the G.I. Joe mythos. Without them could you even play G.I. Joe? That must have been the case for Ninja Viper because despite having cobra ninjas on the pegs at retail at that very time Hasbro took them old from an old figure that everybody loved, reissued it in ugly colors and asked kids to give them their money. Let's look at this figure and see if we can discover why kids absolutely needed it in 1992. HCC 788 presents the Teal Ninja the Ninja Viper. This is the 1992 Cobra Ninja Viper. This figure was introduced in 1992 and was available in 1992 only. It was discontinued for 1993. This figure was a male away exclusive. It was not available at retail. It is a rare figure and tends to be expensive on the resale market. This is the only version of Ninja Viper in the vintage era. There was a modern figure produced in 2008. The Cobra Ninja Viper could be ordered from a catalog. This catalog which was included with some G.I. Joe toys, menace in the wilderness and there he is standing next to the male away Cobra Wolf. This figure was three dollars and ninety five cents plus one flag point. The catalog advertised several male away figures on this page and it says each figure comes with a weapon and battle stand but for Ninja Viper that was not true. The figure did not include a battle stand and only sometimes included a weapon. I talk about flag points and I assume everyone knows what they are but for the uninitiated flag points were special redeemable coupons printed on G.I. Joe toy packaging. I have for example this storm shadow card and on the back of it we can see it has one flag point. Usually the higher the price of the item the more flag points you would get for it. Now this is a 1992 flag point but this is not what we were accustomed to flag points looking like in the 80s. Using this 1984 roadblock card as an example you can see on the back the flag point was in the form of a simplified American flag with the point value printed on it. The Cobra Ninja Viper is a direct copy of the 1984 storm shadow figure. Obviously the colors are different. Ninja Viper is the teal storm shadow. Storm shadow was Cobra's first ninja and technically the second ninja released in the vintage G.I. Joe toy line. In 1982 Snake Eyes was introduced as a commando but it was later revealed that he was also a ninja. There are a couple of very minor differences between the storm shadow and Ninja Viper mold which I will show later. The Appalachian Viper was first introduced in 1985 with the Tele Viper. The basic Cobra Viper was introduced a year later in 1986. A Viper is a Cobra trooper. Specialized troops have their specialty tagged onto the Viper name. It is not unreasonable for Cobra to employ ninjas. They had storm shadow in 1984 after all. Why wouldn't they want to have a lot of ninjas? The only problem with the Ninja Viper is Cobra already had ninja troopers. The Night Creeper, the Cobra Ninja was introduced in 1990. The Night Creeper doesn't necessarily make the Ninja Viper obsolete. The file card for the Night Creeper says they are a syndicate of ninja mercenaries. The Ninja Viper are homegrown Cobra Vipers with special training. However, in 1992, the same year the Cobra Ninja Viper was released, Hasbro introduced Ninja Force, a subset for GI Joe and that included two Cobra Ninjas. That tears it. The Ninja Viper is redundant. You hear that Ninja Viper? You're redundant. You're fired. Get out of here. Hit the bricks. That's it. Get a move on. Let's take a look at the Cobra Ninja Viper's accessories. He sometimes came with two and sometimes came with none. Some Ninja Vipers came with two identical swords. They are short swords and some of them were in this dark gray color. Both swords are identical. So if you only have one, it might be slightly easier to find a match. There is an accessories variation. These are the dark gray swords, but some of them were in light gray plastic. If these swords look familiar, it's because they are a reissue of the silver swords that came with Jinx. Do not get these mixed up with the light gray swords for the Ninja Viper. The Jinx swords are in silver. We lose a lot of accessories from Storm Shadow to Ninja Viper. Storm Shadow had a backpack with nunchucks and a bow. It could carry all of his other accessories and two different swords, a long one and a short one. Jinx even had a backpack that would store her two swords. Unfortunately, Ninja Viper doesn't have anything like this. So that is a downgrade. One option is to give the Ninja Viper Jinx's backpack and that works fine. The dark gray swords even look pretty good in the backpack. There is an additional accessories variation with Ninja Vipers. As mentioned before, some came with these dark gray swords. Others came with light gray swords and others still came with no swords at all. This is frustrating to collectors, especially those collecting loose complete figures. If you received a no swords variant back in 1992 and opened it up and then tried to resell it today, most collectors will not consider it complete without the swords, even though he has all the accessories he ever came with, which is none. This isn't the only time this happened with male away figures. The male away version of Serpentor sometimes didn't come with his cape. Some male away keel haul figures didn't include the pistol. That means there are fewer accessories floating around than figures that can make completing the figures a challenge. Let's take a look at the articulation on the Ninja Viper. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures in 1984, not 1992, because they used that 84 storm shadow mold. He could turn his head from left to right, not 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 at 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. So the figure was held together with an 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 look at the sculpt design and color of the Cobra Ninja Viper. It is a copy of the Storm Shadow figure except for two things. The colors are obviously quite different. The teal color is rather obnoxious. You can't miss it. The country of origin stamp is different. On his butt, Storm Shadow says copyright 1984 Hasbro made in Hong Kong. On the Ninja Viper's butt, it says made in China H1. It does not have the copyright information that is actually printed on the file card. The head features a teal colored balaclava mask which reveals only his eyes. It looks like it's some kind of a wrapping. You can see the sculpting has a wrap that goes around one side and around the neck. The chest features a teal shirt with a white strap that goes across his chest and back and over his right shoulder. The strap has a silver jagged buckle. He has a red Cobra emblem on the left side of his chest. On Storm Shadow's white uniform that red symbol stood out really well. It doesn't stand out quite as well on the teal background. Sculpted onto the chest and the back piece. There is a white belt. According to the file card, the Ninja Viper is supposed to be a 10th level black belt. But this Ninja Viper is just a beginner. He still has his white belt. He just took his first Taekwondo class at the Y. So give him some time to catch up. Tucked in that belt he has a silver knife and a couple silver throwing stars. His arms feature short teal sleeves with bare elbows and bare hands and white wrapping on his forearms. The waist is entirely in that teal color. There is no paint at all. This is a change from the Storm Shadow figure who had the ends of his black belt painted in. So we lose an application in the translation to the Ninja Viper. The legs are all in that teal color with no paint at all. This wasn't a problem on Storm Shadow and it's not really a problem here. There aren't any details on the legs that demand paint. He has leg wrappings around his lower legs and on his feet he has Japanese Tobi. This is a ninja style costume popularized in movies. Ninjas were very popular in the 1980s. Movies like Enter the Ninja cemented the image of the Ninja in pop culture. Ninjas weren't always in black. Sometimes they were in red or white. Teal was a less common color though. Let's take a look at the Cobra Ninja Viper's file card. This is a red back file card as many mail away cards were. It has the rectangular shape with rounded corners like other 1992 file cards. Earlier file cards were file folder shaped. This one includes the copyright and country of origin information printed on the card. It says copyright 1991 not 1992. They were probably planning the figure in 91 but it was released in 92. We have his faction as Cobra and we have a portrait of the Ninja Viper here. There was never any full card art for the Ninja Viper. This portrait is very similar to the artwork on the 1989 Snake Eyes version 3 file card. It's not exactly the same but they may have used this as the model. Up at the top in big letters it says Cobra Ninja Viper. No subtitle or anything like that. We have a quote. It says he who masters the art of self-discipline can crush any adversary even G.I. Joe. We have a single paragraph which reads recruited from the highest ranks of Cobra's Viper Corps. The Cobra Ninja Vipers are the elite representation of Cobra's new elevated level of ruthlessness. Only the most sinister and cunning Cobra's are selected for duty as Ninja Vipers. Cobra Ninja Vipers are no less than 10th level black belts in karate jujitsu and kung fu. These villains are extremely obedient and always carry out their orders to the letter. They function as covert subversives who can persuade any foe to do their bidding by entrapping the individual in one of their patented martial arts maneuvers. I'll have to check with the U.S. Patent Office to see if the maneuvers are in fact patented. You may think this refers to a vicious headlock or something like that but in fact their patent and maneuver is tickle torture. If given the opportunity Cobra Ninja Vipers could wreak enough havoc worldwide to seriously damage G.I. Joe's global operations. This file card is not the worst but it's not too great. I do not believe this file card was written by Larry Hama. This seems like it was written by someone in marketing at Hasbro. Looking at how the Ninja Viper was used in G.I. Joe media, well he wasn't used at all. As far as I can tell I can't find any appearances. He was never animated and I can't find any comic book appearances in the vintage era. Maybe he had some post-vintage appearances but as usual that is outside the scope of my reviews. Looking at the Ninja Viper overall, what have they done to storm shadow? This is a very lazy figure. It required no effort at all. It's just storm shadow in a different color. Sometimes these recolored reissues were good for kids. It gave kids a chance to get figures that they missed the first time around. This is how a lot of kids looked at Tiger Force. So if you didn't get the first storm shadow figure when it was on the pegs, this mail away gave you a chance to have a storm shadow figure. You could get this guy, pretend it's storm shadow and oh I'm sorry it's ugly. Why did they choose this color that could have chosen almost any other color and it would have been better? I think it's ugly. If you just want to reissue storm shadow then just reissue storm shadow. I can't complain at all about the sculpting on the Ninja Viper. I thought it was good on storm shadow. I think it's good here. I really want those extra accessories though. But it is a mail away figure so it is a rare figure. It's not the rarest figure by any stretch but collectors love to get it. I was thrilled to get it. Thank you Thomas. The reason it's such a thrill to get this figure is because it is rare. It wasn't around long enough for a lot of kids to build fond memories of it and it made no impact on the mythos. So how do I rank this figure? I love having it but the colors drag it down. I'm gonna say it squeezes into the middle tier by that much because it brings some positive things from that original storm shadow mold. But that's about all it has going for it. That was my review of the Ninja Viper. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did please consider giving this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribing to the YouTube channel, hitting the notification bell, and sharing this video with your friends. I am on social media on Facebook and Twitter and I have a website, hcc788.com. Thanks as always to my patrons. Their support makes these videos possible. If you like G.I. Joe and you like these videos and you'd like to help me make more of these videos, please consider supporting the channel on Patreon. You can get some special perks, you can vote in polls, you can get early access to the reviews, and at certain levels you can even get a secret codebook so you can decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Next week we are staying in the 90s. Yes I know we've looked at a lot of 90s stuff lately but we spent a lot of time in the 80s for Cobra Convergence. So we have to pay for that by doing a lot of 90s stuff. And the toy we're going to look at next week is a little weird on multiple levels. I'll see you then. And until then, no matter how ugly the ninja is, only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe.