 It's time for another Cobra Toy Review, rolling into week 3 of Cobra Month. I have here the secret envelope containing the figure to be reviewed for week 3. It has been sealed in a vault underwater guarded by battle android troopers that are on fire somehow even though they're underwater and I'm going to open it to reveal this week's review. FIBERS! Yay! One of these mediocre figures for Cobra Month, we've got a good one this time! This is like a dream come true! HTC788 proudly presents Let's Vipe the Vendos with the Viper! This is the Viper, the Cobra Infantry Trooper from 1986. He was first introduced in 1986 and was also available in 1987 and was discontinued for the year 1988. There was no new Cobra Infantry Trooper introduced in 1988, however we did get the Iron Grenadiers, a new faction of trooper under the command of Destro. In 1989 we got a new version of the Viper in the Python Patrol subteam, using the same mold as version 1 of the Viper, but with a new Python Patrol color scheme. There were two other versions of the Viper in the vintage line. The last version of the Viper is the worst thing you've ever seen, it looks nothing like the original. This is the basic Cobra Trooper introduced in 1982. So is the 1986 Viper an update and replacement for the Cobra Trooper or is the Viper a separate unit coexisting with the Cobra Trooper and serving different purpose? Larry Hama, the writer of the GI Joe comic book and about the best authority on GI Joe you can get, considers these to be the same. In public appearances that I have attended, Mr. Hama has referred to these blue shirt Cobra soldiers as Viper's. However, I imagine these working better as separate units, with these blue shirted Cobra soldiers being the lowest ranked combat troop for Cobra, with the Viper's being one step above them. The basic Viper figure was released after a specialized Viper, the Televiper. Televiper was introduced in 1985 and the Viper came a year later. But why would they be released like this? You would expect them to start with the more generalized trooper and then introduce more specialized troopers later on, not so with the Viper. What about an equivalent for the Viper on the GI Joe team? I think the figure that best fits that is Steel Brigade. Steel Brigade was a male-away exclusive. Kids could send away for this action figure and get it with a personalized file card. He was never available carded at retail the way the Viper was. But I always imagine Steel Brigade as the first real army builder for the GI Joe team. Let's take a look at the Viper's accessories starting with his weapon and what an awesome weapon this is. The contents of the Viper's card call this an RTD-7 assault rifle. It has a foregrip here and I guess in theory you could fit this in the action figure's hand but I usually don't do that. I don't want to stretch and break the figure's thumbs. So I usually just leave the figure's hand rested on it rather than try to fit this in the figure's hand. This part down here is supposed to be a grenade launcher and it has a scope. I have not found a real world equivalent for this so I don't think it's supposed to be based on a real weapon. It does look like a very formidable weapon though and it makes the old Draganov SVD rifle that came with the old Cobra soldier look pretty puny in comparison. I think the rifle was done in this very light gray almost white color to offset the darker blue and red and black on the action figure and I think it does that well but some collectors may not like that. I mean you have a pretty decent looking Cobra infantry trooper here but his rifle looks like it's more suited for an Arctic trooper. In Battle Gear accessory pack number five released in 1987 there is another version of that rifle in dark gray and I think that also looks pretty good with this figure's color scheme. The Viper's other accessory is his backpack and the original Cobra trooper did not come with the backpack so I consider that to be an improvement. The backpack is fairly large and pretty well done. It has a couple grenades, a pouch, a canteen, a couple buckles and then it has a sculpted Cobra head on it. With the largest old rifle and the backpack the Cobra Viper looks like a well equipped infantryman. In comparison the original Cobra trooper looks like he's not quite ready for prime time. Let's look at the articulation on the Viper. He had the standard articulation for 1986 G.I. Joe action figures that means he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He had to swing his arm up at the shoulder about so far and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He could 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 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 he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of the Viper starting with his head and on his head he has a silver face plate with a blue helmet, black goggles with a strap and in the back we have some technical detail here that's probably related to the RTO gear mentioned on his file card. With that silver face plate who looks very similar to the original Cobra Commander action figure, maybe too similar, that silver face plate was Cobra Commander's most distinctive feature. It could be argued that Cobra Commander's soldiers should look like him. After all, they are really just extensions of his will. They are the agents that carry out his commands. I prefer to have Cobra Commander visually distinct and separate from his minions. Those goggles are a bit of a problem too. Why does he have a face plate and goggles? Is he supposed to wear the goggles over the face plate? Is he supposed to wear them instead of the face plate? Some fans have made up reasons why he has the goggles but I'm not really satisfied by those. I just don't see a good reason for him to have goggles and a face plate. I would prefer a good in-universe reason for them but I think this is just a design mistake. They needed some kind of detail for the helmet. They decided that detail would be goggles and it looks fine. It just doesn't make any sense. On his chest he has a black flak jacket with some pretty good detail. He has red shoulder pads with some ribbing down the sides, red grenades, some red buckles and a red Cobra sigil on the right side. The Cobra emblem on the Viper's chest is smaller than the one that was on the original Cobra Trooper's chest but I think that's probably more realistic. The large centered emblem on the chest is more super villain-like whereas the smaller emblem has more of a paramilitary look to it. Under his black flak jacket he has a blue shirt which continues to his arms. He has rolled up blue sleeves. Those rolled up sleeves are pretty unusual for a Cobra action figure. The Televiper also had them. GI Joe figures had rolled up sleeves pretty often but most Cobra Troopers had a more formal uniform dress style. On his forearms he has red wrist guards which are ridged and to me these look like martial arts sparring gloves. In the GI Joe comic book order of battle which reprinted the file cards with some new artwork. In issue number three it depicts the Viper as having a skull patch on his right arm and that is not reflected on the action figure. That skull patch also shows up on some images from the animated series. On his waist piece he has a black belt with a red Cobra belt buckle and some pretty large pockets. On his legs he has blue trousers which are reminiscent of the original Cobra soldier. He has red padding on the inside and outside of the legs. He has pockets on each side. He has very tall black jack boots with buckles and he has small knee pads. They're not as nice as the Cobra soldiers knee pads but they're still okay. With the Viper I think you have an updated Cobra soldier that looks quite a bit different but it keeps some of the visual cues from the original. He does have that classic Cobra blue. He is still faceless but he has a lot more detail just much more visually going on with it. Let's take a look at the file card and we have a couple file cards here which means we have a variant. The early file cards had his codename as Viper, singular. Later file cards had the codename as Viper's plural. Other than that the text appears to be the same. It has his faction as Cobra obviously. It has a pretty good portrait of the Viper. It has his codename and it says he is the Cobra infantry. This top section says Viper's are the backbone of the Cobra legions. They are highly motivated, superbly trained and formidably equipped. All Viper's are issued a combination of assault rifle grenade launcher. The rifle part of which can function as a short burst assault weapon, a sustained fire cover support weapon or a long range sniper rifle with an advanced light intensification night vision telescopic sight with a built in range finder. Multi layer body armor and wrap around acrylic composite helmets with built in RTO gear are standard issue. Asterisk RTO means radio telecommunications. My complaint about this top section is the same as with the Televiper. It says very little about the Viper and talks mostly about his equipment. This bottom section says more about what the Viper really is. It says if you wanna get anywhere in Cobra you have to start out as a Viper. That's the bottom of the pyramid and serving in the Cobra infantry is a small price to pay to gain access to the glittering prizes at the top. Cobra doesn't reward success with parades and medals. They offer material wealth, power and an outlet for the terrible urges that drives the greedy, the envious and the cruel. If that doesn't make a Viper a dangerous opponent nothing does. From a narrative standpoint, this makes sense. It paints the Viper's as base and petty only motivated by their own interests and this places them opposite G.I. Joe's nobility and self-sacrifice. However, it clashes with a couple other aspects of Cobra. First of all, their uniformity. Visually they appear to have erased any individuality and replaced it with a collective Cobra identity. In contrast G.I. Joe team members are more individualized for the motivations of G.I. Joe and Cobra. Their imagery and iconography are flip-flopped. It also conflicts with their extreme loyalty and self-sacrifice as depicted in the G.I. Joe comic book. Assuming Viper's really are just Cobra soldiers we have seen them in the comic book sacrifice themselves for the greater cause. This doesn't suggest a wealth and power motivation. Wealth and power are things that greedy people live for but they're not really motivations to die for. When you're dead you don't get to enjoy your material rewards so they must be motivated by something else. The motivation on this file card is more fitting of mercenaries such as Firefly and Major Blood. Hey Bill, how are you liking this Cobra gig? Aren't you glad I suggested you become a Viper? It's a pretty sweet hookup Ted. This morning they experimented on me with performance enhancing drugs. Bogus, what do they do to you? They make me see everything really clearly. Whoa. I can see your face in the reflection of my face in the reflection of your face. Whoa. It goes on for infinity. What are you two buffoons doing? Uh-oh. Wait. Whoa. Do you see what I see? Triple infinity. In the G.I. Joe animated series the Viper first appeared in Arise Serpentor Arise part two and they continued the Cobra soldiers tradition of shooting a lot and not hitting anything. The introduction of the Viper in the animated series was somewhat overshadowed by the appearance of the bats or battle android troopers which first appeared in Arise Serpentor Arise part one. So why was this the case? Why introduce the bats before the vipers? Well one reason is probably because in the cartoon show androids could be shot and blown up but people couldn't. So bats provided a target for G.I. Joe that they could actually hit. Introduced in 1987 was a character called Mercer who was a Cobra Viper but he defected and became one of Sergeant Slaughter's renegades. The Viper appeared plenty in the G.I. Joe comic book as he should after all he was the basic infantry trooper after he was introduced. However, as I flip through the pages of the comic book the Viper appears a lot less frequently than I expect him to. For one thing the old blue shirts continued to appear after the introduction of the Viper. In fact sometimes they appeared in the same comic book issue as the Viper's. The Viper's could easily have been used in their place but they weren't. Also as more and more specialized Cobra Troopers were introduced space had to be made in the comic book stories for them which probably edged out the Viper a little bit. Unlike the cartoon series the comic book was not shy about showing the death of bad guys so there were a lot of Viper's that bought the farm. Looking at this figure overall this is an excellent update of that old blue shirt Cobra Trooper. He has more detail, more equipment. These guys look formidable. They look like a good enemy for G.I. Joe. I consider this to be a top tier figure with excellent detail and accessories and the colors look right for a basic Cobra Trooper. My main criticism is that the head looks too much like Cobra Commander and the goggles are unnecessary. This figure permanently associated the term Viper with Cobra Troops. The Tele Viper in 1985 was the first figure to use the Viper suffix but it became the norm after 1986. You had the Techno Viper and the Ice Viper and the Motor Viper and the Hydro Viper and so on. This always seemed kind of lazy to me. You just tack the word Viper on the end of a specialty and you have a new Cobra Trooper. I always preferred the Cobra's that were more creatively named like the Snow Serpents and the Eels and Crimson Guard. Sometimes those creative names didn't work out quite as well. For example, Worms. Are the Viper's a separate unit from the blue shirted Cobra Troopers from 1982? Well, I would like for them to be, I've made my case for why I think they should be but the fact is, I'm wrong. Larry Hama, who is Mr. G.I. Joe, says they are the same, he calls them both Viper's. The file card says they are the bottom of the pyramid, the most basic Cobra soldier, exactly as the blue shirts were. So as much as I would like for them to be different and distinct, the Viper's and the blue shirts are the same guys. They just wear different uniforms for different occasions. I hate being wrong but I can live with it. Because this week we got to look at a really good figure, one that I've been looking forward to reviewing for a long time. This is one that deserves the spotlight of Cobra Mons. That was my review of the 1986 Cobra Viper. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel. Even if you see this video elsewhere on the internet, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel because every time someone subscribes to my YouTube channel an angel gets his wings. And then like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and share this video so none of your friends miss out on Cobra Mons. I am so excited we looked at a good figure for week three. I'm just gonna take a little peek at what we're gonna look at next week.