 Hello everybody, HoodedCoverCommander788 here and I'm back with another vintage GI Joe Toy review and this week we are going to look at another figure from 1982. I did not intend for September to be a theme month but we've been rolling with these 1982 figures so we might as well finish up the month with another one. Why is it important that we look at these 1982 figures? It's important because you have got to know your roots whether it be music or art or literature you've got to understand where you came from to make any sense of where you're going and these 1982 figures were the foundation of 80s and 90s GI Joe so with these reviews we are building our foundation so when we look at figures that came later we will understand them better because we took the time to build the foundation so let's build a little more this week we're gonna look at a bad guy this time let's look at the 1982 and the 1983 versions of the Cobra officer this is the Cobra officer the enemy of GI Joe he was first introduced in 1982 in this so-called straight arm version it was called straight arm because it had only one point of articulation here at the elbow he could not swivel his arm in 1983 he was reissued with swivel arm battle grip which added this swivel at the bicep so he could hold his weapon with a two-handed grip the straight arm version was available only in 1982 the swivel arm version was available in 1983 and 1984 it was discontinued in 1985 and in 1985 the closest to her replacement for this figure was the crimson guard but the crimson guard wasn't really a replacement for the Cobra officer the crimson guard was a new separate unit within Cobra the Cobra officer was available in a lot of ways other than carded for retail he was available with the 1982 Cobra missile command headquarters he was also in a JC penny exclusive three-pack in which he came with the mortar that originally came with short fuse in 1986 through 1987 he was available from hasbro direct as part of their original adventure team set in 1989 he was available as an individual bagged figure so this guy was available for a long time and in a lot of different ways in 1984 the entire mold of the swivel arm Cobra officer was reused for the stinger driver and came with the 1984 stinger Jeep in 1989 the entire mold for the swivel arm Cobra officer was reused for the python patrol python trooper let's take a look at the Cobra officer's accessory and he came with only one this AK-47 assault rifle the AK-47 was also known as the Kalashnikov AK so what I'm saying is the AK-47 is aka the Kalashnikov AK the AK-47 is a Russian weapon that first saw service in 1949 and is still widely used around the world it's used a lot because of its generally low production cost and its overall reliability the Cobra officer's original accessory is a very dark gray in 1984 in battle gear accessory pack number two they reissued the same weapon but in a blue color and you often see Cobra officers coming with this blue rifle but that blue even though it does closely match the color of the uniform that is not the original the original is this dark gray I don't know if the Cobra officer rifle would be considered a rare accessory but I did have a heck of a time finding a loose one there is some controversy as to whether the Cobra officer was originally intended to come with this AK-47 the 1982 Cobra soldier came with a dragon of sniper rifle which is a more specialized weapon and the officer came with the more generalized assault rifle you would expect that to be reversed to add to the confusion when python patrol came out the mold for the Cobra soldier was reused for the python patrol officer and the mold for the Cobra officer was reused for the python patrol trooper and so the officer then had the sniper rifle and the trooper had the assault rifle there are some fan theories out there and some have speculated that somewhere in the design process the Cobra officer got the accessory that was intended for the Cobra soldier well if that's the case then there was also a mix-up on the card art because the packaging for the Cobra officer clearly depicts him with this AK-47 let's take a look at the articulation on the Cobra officer the 1982 version of the Cobra officer had the typical articulation for figures of that year meaning he could turn his head from left to right he could also lift his arm up at the shoulder about so far and he could swivel at the shoulder all the way around he did have that hinge at the elbow so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees he was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside so he could move at the torso a little bit he could move his legs apart about so far he could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees the swivel arm Cobra officer had the same articulation as the straight arm Cobra officer but he did have that new point of articulation at the bicep he could now swivel his arm all the way around at the bicep let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of the Cobra officer and let's make a quick note here you can see my Cobra officers are different colors this straight arm version is darker than the swivel arm version however this is probably attributable to sun damage this has been exposed to a lot of sunlight the color on it has darkened but the original color for the Cobra officer should pretty closely match the color for the Cobra soldier that would be the original color and this one appears to be discolored the head features a blue non-removable helmet and a black mask that goes over his nose on G.I. Joe team members I prefer to have the helmets be removable but I don't really mind the non-removable helmets on Cobra figures the head for the Cobra officer is almost identical to the Cobra soldier but as you can see the Cobra officer has this chevron molded onto his helmet and the Cobra soldier does not the chest features that classic Cobra blue uniform and he has webgear more elaborate webgear than the Cobra soldier and some additional paint apps we have gray on the shoulders and we have this gray device here on the belt his straps carry on to the back again with a different profile than what you see on the Cobra soldier and then on his chest is this very troublesome silver Cobra sigil this silver paint is notorious for being very easy to rub off it's nowadays it's hard to find a Cobra officer with his Cobra sigil completely perfect in mint condition a lot of them are scratched away like this and some of them the Cobra sigil is completely gone this is actually the best one out of all of the Cobra officers I have here are all of the Cobra officers I have with their Cobra sigils in various states this one looks like he's got some road rash there this one is just barely visible and this one here is completely worn away his arms are blue long sleeves he features these rings here at the cuff and black gloves there was a change between 1982 and 1983 the 1982 version had this single ring at his cuff and the 1983 version had a double ring at the cuff there's a very minor variant on the straight arm version some of the straight arm Cobra officers featured thick thumbs and some featured thin thumbs and this I believe is the thin thumb version but my straight arm Cobra officer also has the ultra rare no thumbs variant the 1983 Cobra officers arms were reused for the swivel arm Cobra commander version 1.5 however the straight arm version of Cobra commander did not reuse the straight arms Cobra officers arms the straight arm Cobra commander had unique arms another good way to tell the Cobra officer apart from the Cobra soldier is the gloves Cobra officer had black gloves and the Cobra soldier had blue gloves this waste piece features a black belt it's got some pouches pretty plain on the back we've got some pockets there the trousers are the same color as the shirt the waste pieces on the 1982 and 1983 Cobra officers are the same however they do have different date stamps on the butt on 1982 Cobra officer it says in copyright 1982 Hasbro on the 1983 Cobra officer it says copyright 82 83 Hasbro this waste piece was reused on a lot of other figures it was used on the 1982 Cobra soldier that is the only part that the Cobra officer and the Cobra soldier share even though the figures look a lot alike other than the waste piece they share no other parts it was used on the 1983 his tank driver in 1988 it was used on Tiger Force Duke and it was used on some versions of steel brigade it was used on version 1d and version 1e of steel brigade his legs are blue his right leg is pretty plain nothing there his left leg features a black dagger and then he has some pretty plain black boots the Cobra soldier also features a black dagger on his left leg but it is not the same dagger the one on the Cobra officer is more ornate the Cobra soldier features these really cool knee pads and the Cobra officer does not have knee pads and I got to admit I really like the knee pads and the Cobra soldiers boots are more detailed so with these added details I may prefer the Cobra soldier figure over the Cobra officer let's take a look at the file card and I have two file cards here because I wanted to point out something most of your Cobra officer file cards would have been printed on the back of the card on which the action figure was packaged so on the flip side you'll see some of the artwork from the front of the card like this this would have been from the 1983 swivel arm version because you can see a little bit of the advertisement for the new swivel arm battle grip the Cobra officers that came as a mail away or that came with the 1982 missile command headquarters featured a plain red back like this no artwork on the back this is probably from the missile command headquarters because those figures were actually sealed on the back of the card on a bubble and this has that ripped off whereas the mail away Cobra officers were in bags and the file card was just an insert in the bag so this is probably from the missile command headquarters I do not normally seek out those red back file cards because they're usually a bit more expensive but since I had one I thought I'd show you an example the file card has this faction as Cobra naturally it has a portrait of a Cobra officer it says his specialty is Cobra officer and his codename is the enemy okay this is kind of a weird thing they did on the 1982 Cobra file cards it just said codename the enemy and that's not really a codename they did the same thing on the Cobra soldier who they didn't really call a Cobra soldier they just called Cobra again codename the enemy even Cobra commander his codename was enemy leader in 1983 even the his tank driver still had codename the enemy that was the year after this in 1983 they were still doing that and then in 1984 the Cobra stinger driver carried over this codename the enemy this file card is textually almost identical to the Cobra officer with just some minor changes it says file name unknown and that's not really true Cobra would have had many officers so this file card really does not feature an individual this really should say file name various there would have been a lot of Cobra officers within the Cobra organization his primary military specialty is infantry secondary military specialty is artillery and intelligence and his birthplace is various countries which is correct they should have essentially done the same thing for the file name it has his grade as 04 or equivalent and 04 is a major and I don't think that's correct that would give him the same rank as major blood and I don't think a Cobra officer should have the same rank as a major no pun intended character like major blood in my view a Cobra officer should have any officer rank second lieutenant and up but would be below any of the command officers like major blood the Baroness Destro and Cobra commander this section says Cobra officers are frontline fighters who lead Cobra attack units into battle many are also believed to be operating as spies at defense plants nuclear power facilities etc all are martial arts experts masters of disguise deceit and demolitions what they're describing here is a fifth column which is a group that is intended to undermine an enemy from within and that really pretty well describes what the crimson guard was intended to do qualified expert AK 47 assault rifle PM 63 machine pistol m16 ingram m11 submachine gun there's a quote here down at the bottom that says Cobra officers are dedicated to destroying GI Joe and the American way of life beware they are extremely dangerous enemies exclamation point end quote this file card doesn't tell you anything about the personality of a Cobra officer but it isn't intended to as I said earlier there would have been many Cobra officers within Cobra so this file card is describing all Cobra officers now this may seem kind of plain but for kids in 1982 this probably would have been enough to get them excited about this new enemy of GI Joe let's talk about rank within Cobra when the Cobra officer came out the main difference between him and the Cobra soldier is the Cobra soldier had a red Cobra symbol and the Cobra officer had a silver Cobra symbol so that silver symbol seemed to be some kind of officer designation in 1983 the his tank driver also an officer had the silver Cobra symbol but in 1984 the Baroness definitely an officer had the red Cobra symbol and Cobra commander the highest ranking Cobra officer of them all had the red Cobra symbol in 1983 the Cobra Viper pilot who reused the Cobra soldiers mold and who was not an officer had the silver Cobra symbol both the Cobra officer and Cobra commander had these little emblems here on their collars and that probably means something but the rank insignia within Cobra was never very clearly defined looking at the Cobra officer overall the first obvious thing about them is he looks almost identical to the Cobra soldier in fact if that silver Cobra symbol is worn off at a distance it's almost impossible to tell them apart these blue uniforms would work pretty well at night they would be pretty stealthy at night but they're not very good camouflage at all for daytime operations Cobra seems to have a different philosophy though they want to be seen they want their enemy to see a huge wave of Cobra officers and Cobra soldiers coming over the hill and they want that to inspire fear in their enemy the Cobra officer was depicted in various GI Joe media but he often got folded in with the Cobra soldier I guess when you're drawing throngs of Cobra troopers there's not much point in differentiating between soldier and officer the GI Joe comic book tended to focus on one particular Cobra officer called Scarface and he was a part of a story arc in the early comic books featuring snake eyes Quinn and Dr. Venom the Scarface character started a bit of an urban legend among my friends since the character was featured in the comic book naturally we expected to get an action figure but there was no action figure for Scarface but the legend went that some Cobra officers were sculpted with scars under the eyes like the Scarface character but there was no designation on the package you just had to look at the action figure and see if you could find the ones with the scar so when we went to the toy department we would look at all the Cobra officers we would stare very closely at each one to see if we could find the one with the scar but of course we never found one because there never was one here's an interesting little bit of history about Cobra originally Hasbro did not design any bad guys for GI Joe in fact if you look at the earliest carded example of GI Joe figures from 1982 it does not feature any Cobra figures on the cross-sell on the back of the cards the idea for Cobra came from Marvel comics editor Archie Goodwin who suggested an organization similar to Hydra in the Marvel comics universe when we did finally get Cobra action figures the only figures that were available at retail were the Cobra soldier and the Cobra officer Cobra commander wasn't available until later as an exclusive mail away offer what a fortuitous suggestion on the part of Archie Goodwin would GI Joe have been as popular as it became without its nemesis Cobra the Cobra officer was a good figure for its time but he was overshadowed by the more detailed and more specialized Cobra troopers that came later like the snow serpent like the Cobra viper but one thing I like about the Cobra officer is he is still an officer and that means he's a leader so a Cobra officer could lead a squad of any of these more specialized Cobra's except for the Crimson Guard I kind of see the Crimson Guard as a totally separate unit within Cobra with its own unique command structure I really like seeing the Cobra officer in a command position over these other Cobra troopers because amidst all of these more specialized troops I really enjoy seeing that classic Cobra blue that was my review of the 1982 and 1983 Cobra officer I hope you enjoyed it and if you're thinking of getting a Cobra officer I hope you found it informative if you liked it make sure you give it a big fat thumbs up on YouTube and don't forget to hit the subscribe button I've got a lot of great new GI Joe toy reviews coming up you don't want to miss them don't forget to like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter you get a lot of updates there you don't get anywhere else and don't forget for my 500 subscriber giveaway I am giving away a GI Joe vamp and swivel arm clutch action figure make sure you check out my video for that for the rules and don't forget to enter you don't want to miss out on that thanks everyone for watching I'll see you next week with another vintage GI Joe toy review see you then