 Hello friends, and welcome to the last HCC788 review of 2017. This one is special. I did a poll to decide what would be reviewed this week, and the winner was the 1984 Stinger and Stinger Driver. I've reviewed this vehicle and figure before, but that was a long time ago. A lot has changed on this channel since then. You wanted an updated review and you're gonna get it. I guess it's fitting to have a repeat of the Stinger review because the Stinger itself was a repeat of an earlier toy. Let's learn more about the Stinger after the theme song. Hooded Cobra Commander 788 here, back at the heart of the earth, gave you a so great talk here to love GI Joe. Swatter rising, charge, charge, wait a minute, ready, ready, ready, silence killed. Hello everybody, Hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. It's time for the last GI Joe review of 2017. It has been a heck of a year. We have seen a lot of growth on this channel, we've made some new friends, we've had a lot of fun. What better way to end the year than by reviewing one of my favorite Cobra vehicles? The 1984 Stinger was based on the 1982 Vamp and the Stinger Driver was based on the 1983 Swivel Arm Cobra Officer. Even though they are mostly copies, there were some updates. We're in the holiday spirit here at the HCC Household, so in the spirit of peace on earth and goodwill toward men, let's review a toy that was under a lot of Christmas trees in 1984. HCC 788 presents the Cobra Stinger. This is the Stinger, Cobra's night attack four wheel drive from 1984 and the Stinger Driver. The Stinger and the Driver were available in 1984 and 1985. They were discontinued for 1986. However, in 1987 and 1988, the Stinger was available for mail order without the driver. The Stinger Driver action figure was available with the Stinger in 1984 and 1985. It was available by mail order with other vehicle drivers as a set in 1987. The Stinger was replaced in 1986 by the Cobra Stun, which was a slightly larger vehicle, but it fulfilled the same role as a wheeled general purpose vehicle. The Stinger is built on the chassis for the 1982 VAMP. The VAMP, of course, was a GI Joe vehicle and obviously the color was changed, but there were some changes to the mold as well. The VAMP was reissued many times in the vintage run. In 1984, it was reissued as the VAMP Mark II and the Stinger. In 1984, it was also available in a two pack with the HAL heavy artillery laser. In 1986, it was used for the Dreadnock ground assault set. In 1988, the VAMP Mark II was reissued as a mail-in offer, but the coloring and some of the details were different. In 1989, it was used for the Tiger Force Tiger Sting. It's not surprising the VAMP was reissued so many times. It's a versatile vehicle. Every army needs a Jeep. I'm going to set the Stinger Driver aside for now. I'll take a closer look at the figure later, but for now let's look at the Stinger. The first thing to point out is the color. The Stinger is black. That makes it fit perfectly with previously issued Cobra vehicles. The His Tank and the Fang Helicopter from 1983 were both black and the Stinger looks great with them. I generally like black for Cobra vehicles. Surprisingly, the other prominent color for Cobra vehicles of that era went the opposite direction. They used this really light, almost white color. I will point out for the sake of full disclosure, this Stinger has reproduction stickers from Cobra stickers. The vehicle was naked when I got it. The stickers that I got for it are as close to the original as I could get. However, I did get some replacement missiles so the stickers on the missiles are genuine. The body is based roughly on the Lamborghini Cheetah, a prototype off-road vehicle that was designed to be the next generation military all-terrain vehicle. It didn't win the contract with the US military so it never went into full production. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Stinger starting in the front where we have this RAM bar and this has a couple curved blades on it. It looks angry, it looks aggressive and these kind of look like fangs. This RAM bar is more substantial than the smaller brush bar on the original vamps. So even though this is a re-release vehicle, we are making it look more beefed up. Behind the bar we have this winch. It's not a working winch, it's just molded in. But a working winch would have been a great feature. We have sticker headlights and that is pretty standard for re-issues of the vamp. The original vamp also had stickers for headlights. On the hood we have a molded in shovel and that is a change from the original vamp mold. As you can see that detail is not on the original. However, that detail was carried forward to most but not all later issues of the vamp. We have what the blueprints call a refueling tank and a vent here and these are both changes from the original. We have four plastic wheels with silver plastic hubcaps, that's the same on both sides. These wheels are connected on the underside of the vehicle by a metal dowel. And as a result these are very sturdy, they're very hard to break. You will sometimes run across broken wheels on vamps but not very often. These things are almost indestructible. Unfortunately it also develops a squeak when it rolls. Coming back we have the roll cage and attached to the roll cage we have doors and a roof. The addition of the roof and the doors is another upgrade from the original vamp. The vamp mark 2 also had them. But the doors and the roof on the vamp mark 2 are different, they are not the same as the stinger. These doors are hinged on the side horizontal bars by C-clips and they are gullwing doors so they swing up on those hinges. You can get the driver in the stinger through the door, it's not very easy, you kind of have to squeeze him in there. Once you get him in though it's very difficult to get him out through the door. The doors and the roof are removable so you can pop those off and once you have the roof off it's much easier to get the figure in and out. With those extra bits off the roll cage is very much the same as the original vamp. Now when putting those pieces on or taking them off do be careful there are weak points at the points where the roll cage connects to the main body of the vehicle. Looking inside the cab you can see the dashboard has some pretty good detail. There's a center console there with the shifter. Really looks pretty good in there, it's much better than the 1982 vehicle. On the driver's side there is a steering wheel and it is removable. This is the most frequently missing part. Here's a quick steering wheel comparison. This is the one from the original vamp, this is the one from the stinger and this is the one from the vamp mark 2. Now as you can see the one from the stinger and the vamp mark 2 are similar but slightly different. You can really tell the difference from the other side. These steering wheels are keyed. They only go in one way and they do not turn. And as you can see the key and the hole are slightly different on each one so they're not really interchangeable. And keep in mind there are variants for the steering wheel and the dashboard so it can be difficult to find the specific steering wheel for your vehicle. It's a two seater cockpit and riding shop done I like to have another stinger driver since I have two of them. And yeah it looks fine with two of those guys in there. There's some technical detail behind the driver that seems unchanged from the original vamp mold. And then behind that is the main weapon really the only weapon on this vehicle. We have the missile launcher turret which can turn 360 degrees and it can elevate. And attached to that we have four red missiles which the blueprints call ground to air rockets. So these would be used against aircraft. They have very thin fins front and back and these are easily broken off. Even though these missiles are supposed to be used against aircraft I could see them as anti-armor missiles as well. Each missile has a small thin slot and that goes on one of the tabs on one of the four posts on the missile launcher. These missiles reuse the mold from a previous toy the 1983 pack rat missile launcher. The pack rat missiles are slightly different. They are two stage so they pop apart. They are red and gray. These pack rat missiles are interchangeable with the stinger missiles. You can fit the pack rat missile on that tab. And it actually looks pretty good. It sets a bit farther back than the stinger missiles but that's not bad at all. Since the pack rat came with four missiles you can completely swap out the stinger missiles for the pack rat missiles. And honestly that looks pretty good. I don't mind that at all. Here's the missile rack with no missiles on it at all just so you can see some of the detail on the turret. On either side of the missile rack there's some molded in detail in gray. And that gray is good. It adds a bit of color interest without having too much contrast. It compliments the black very well. Here in the back we have sticker taillights and we have a grab bar. And we have another great feature on the stinger. This personnel platform with two foot pegs. I like this upgrade from the vamp. The original vamp had fuel cans. The vamp mark 2 came with water cans. But that platform on the stinger allows it to carry two additional figures. And I think that's a better use of that space. Under that platform is a universal GI Joe tow hook. And in 1984 they gave Cobra something to tow. The ASP, the assault system pod from that same year. And if you hook it on it looks just fine being hauled by the stinger. The stinger rounds out Cobra's ground forces. In 1983 they got the HIST tank. And it was a pretty decent challenge to GI Joe's tank, the MOBAT. But GI Joe had a variety of ground vehicles by 1984 and Cobra didn't. Both the HIST and the stinger were army building vehicles. You were meant to purchase multiples so Cobra could attack with a whole army of them. But most kids didn't have the luxury of buying multiples of the same vehicle. Even if you didn't have an army of HIST tanks or stingers, they were still a pretty good force individually. If you paired one HIST and one stinger loaded each with figures and towed an ASP, you would have a pretty tough squad to take on GI Joe. Now let's talk about the Stinger driver. The Stinger driver is a straight remold of the 1983 swivel arm version of the Cobra officer. It is exactly the same. Even the date stamp on the butt where it says copyright 1982-83 is the same. Obviously the colors are different and the Stinger driver did not include the Cobra officer's AK-47 accessory. This lighter color for the Stinger driver is probably meant to contrast against the darker color of his vehicle. This entire body mold was reused for the 1989 Python Patrol Trooper. Oddly, the Cobra Trooper's mold was reused for the Python Patrol officer. This swap has caused some confusion, but I'll wait to address it until I do another Python Patrol review. Let's take a look at the articulation on the Stinger driver. He had this standard articulation really for 1983 figures since that's when this mold was first issued. So he could turn his head from left to right. 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 at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep so he could 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 the Stinger driver and this one has some discoloration. This figure tends to turn a bit green over time. It is a lot better than the Stinger driver I had when I first reviewed this toy, but it does have some discoloration in certain spots. Looking at the Stinger driver's head, he has a very light gray helmet with a chevron that indicates his officer's rank. He has a black mask that covers his nose and mouth and that goes all the way around his neck. On his chest he has a shirt in that same light gray color. He has a color with a couple triangular pips probably to indicate rank, but we don't know exactly what Cobra's rank insignia is. He has a red Cobra symbol right there in the center. He has black webgear with some respectable detail, red pads on the shoulders. And then he has this red device kind of at his waist on his left side. Looks a little bit like a bomb maybe. On his arms he has long sleeves in that light gray color. He has black gloves and he has around his cuffs rings sculpted on there again probably for rank. Besides originally being used for the Cobra officer, those arms were also used for the swivel arm retail Cobra commander. The waist piece has a black belt. It's pretty plain. It has a couple small pouches and a circular belt buckle. We've seen this waist piece before. It's been used on many different figures. Besides the Cobra officer and the Stinger driver, it was used for the Cobra trooper, the Hiss driver, some but not all variants of Steel Brigade and Tiger Force Duke. On his legs he has trousers in that same light gray color. His right leg is pretty plain. There's really nothing there. On his left leg he has a black dagger or bayonet with a couple black straps that go around his thigh. On his feet he has plain black boots with really no detailing at all. Let's take a look at the Cobra Stinger driver's file card. And this file card like the figure itself is a virtual copy of the Cobra officer. They changed almost nothing. They did change the portrait to use the Stinger box art and they added Stinger driver in a few places. But other than that the text is the same. It says he's the Cobra Stinger driver codenamed The Enemy. And this is something that was done on a lot of early Cobra file cards. They didn't really give them codenames. They just called them The Enemy. It says file name unknown and of course this is an army builder figure. This is not meant to be an individual character. There would be a lot of Stinger drivers. Primary military specialty Stinger driver infantry. Secondary military specialty artillery intelligence. Birthplace various countries of course. Again it's an army builder figure. Grade is 04 or equivalent. In this top paragraph it doesn't even refer to them as Stinger drivers. It refers to them as Cobra officers which is what they are. It says Cobra officers are frontline fighters who lead Cobra attack units into battle. Many are believed to be operating as spies at defense plants nuclear power facilities etc. All are martial arts experts, masters of disguise, deceit and demolitions. Now this kind of made sense for the Cobra officer but it makes less sense for the Stinger driver. It's not likely that a bunch of Stinger drivers are out there working as spies in defense plants and so forth. Graduated Cobra Stinger driver school. Qualified expert AK-47 assault rifle PM-63 machine pistol M16 Ingram M11 submachine gun. All of these are real-world weapons and I do appreciate the realism but this Cobra Stinger driver school is the only real reference to his specialty. Down here we have a quote. It says Cobra officers are dedicated to destroying GI Joe and the American way of life. Beware they are extremely dangerous enemies. I don't doubt that they are but this is a Stinger driver. What exactly do they do in Stinger driver school? What makes this guy an expert Stinger driver? I know this is a reissue toy and it enabled Hasbro to give us a new vehicle and driver on the cheap but a rewritten file card would have helped with the illusion that we were getting something new. So how is it that Cobra has a vehicle that's almost exactly the same as a GI Joe vehicle? Normally I wouldn't like this cross-pollination of technology unless there's an in-universe reason for it. The real reason it was done is because it's cheap to produce a vehicle when you can just reuse the molds from a previous vehicle. I have less of a problem with the Stinger though. The vamp is such a basic, near-universal design it's easy to see why the enemy would copy it. In the real world this is actually what China does a lot. Copy other countries military vehicles. Saves you a lot of money on R&D. I can see the Stinger existing in-universe as a cheap way for Cobra to produce a needed asset. They could have captured a vamp in any number of different ways and reverse engineered it. That couldn't have been too difficult. We're not talking about a stealth bomber here. It would have been easy enough for Destro to just stamp out a bunch of them. Taking a look at how the Stinger and the Stinger driver were used in GI Joe media. In the cartoon series the Stinger first appeared in Revenge of Cobra part one. There were several Stingers visible in that episode. Scrap Iron drove a Stinger in the opening scene. The Stinger driver wasn't depicted in animated form. Anybody could drive a Stinger. Flint and Mutt disguised as Cobra Troopers stole a Stinger in Revenge of Cobra part two. Looking at the GI Joe comic book series by Marvel Comics is hard to tell for sure exactly where the Stinger first appeared. But in Cobra's attack on Maguire Air Force Base in issue number 30, it did not include Stingers. Only his tanks and fang helicopters. In issue number 34 page 2 there's a small vehicle on the ground that could be a Stinger. By that time most of the 1984 lineup had already been introduced. The Stinger appeared in yearbook number two. They were part of Cobra's ambush on the October guard. They shot down a Soviet hind helicopter to steal an experimental laser weapon. They were deployed from the freighter on Cobra Island in issue number 41. In issue number 44 the Stinger was driven by a bat or battle android trooper. In issue number 45 you can see the Stinger in the background. I can't identify any appearance of the Stinger driver in the comic book. And the Stinger wasn't very important in the comic series. Looking at the Stinger and the Stinger driver overall, I have to admit they were produced with minimal effort. Even the file card was not altered significantly from the original. Despite that the changes do feel like upgrades from the vamp. Changing the color to black gives it a distinctively Cobra feel. When I look at it I don't think of the vamp. The Stinger is its own animal. It's difficult for a reissued toy to make it to the top tier. But the Stinger is a rare exception. The black color is really what sells it. I would be happy if all Cobra vehicles were black. In fact a lot of Cobra vehicles were black. And in those early years it gave the Cobra army a coherent theme. The Stinger driver on the other hand has to go in the bottom tier. I don't hate the figure but it is a reissue and the color change doesn't add anything to the original. It's a very forgettable figure. I can't even sneak it into the middle tier. I liked the Cobra officer but the Stinger driver takes that Cobra officer mold and makes it bland and boring. Really any Cobra personnel could drive the Stinger. I'm glad the vehicle came with the figure but the figure does not live up to the vehicle. That was my review of the Stinger and the Stinger driver. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this channel and everyone who has joined recently. I hope you enjoyed this video. This project and interacting with you has made my life immeasurably better. I've come to call many of you friends. 2017 has not been a great year for everyone but if you had a hard time this year I hope you were able to find some respite here. There will not be a new review next week but there will be a Q&A video at the end of the year. The announcement video for that will be going up soon so don't miss that so you can ask your question. After the Q&A as always I will be taking the first week of the year off so I can do extra work on the first review of 2018. As far as G.I. Joe reviews go, 2017 is in the books. We're done. This year was so great. How are we going to make 2018 even better? I'm not sure but we're going to try. From all of us, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and remember only G.I. Joe I'm saying it anyway. Only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe. Friends and welcome to the final HCC 788 review of 2017. And this one is special. I did a poll to decide what would be reviewed this week and the winner was the 1984 Stinger and Stinger Driver. I've done a review of this vehicle and figure before but that was a long time ago. A lot has changed on this channel since then. You wanted an updated review for the Stinger so you're going to get it. Hello everybody, Hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. It's time for the last G.I. Joe review of 2017. It's been a heck of a year. We've seen a lot of growth on the channel. We've made some new friends. We've had a lot of fun. What better way to end the year than by reviewing one of my favorite Cobra vehicles?