 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here I'm back with another vintage GI Joe toy review this time we are going to look at a Cobra vehicle I've been kind of wanting to get back to doing the vehicles and I wanted to give Cobra a shot so we're going to look at the 1984 Cobra water moccasin this was of course a watercraft and it had a driver copperhead and copperhead had a variant and we're going to look at the variant of the copperhead figure as well this is the Cobra water moccasin it was first sold in 1984 it was also sold in 1985 it was discontinued in 1986 as for a replacement in 1986 the closest equivalent Cobra watercraft was the hydro sled but it wasn't really similar to the water moccasin it was much smaller in 1985 we got the Cobra moire hydrofoil but that was quite a bit bigger than the water moccasin so for a while the water moccasin was Cobra's primary attack boat and it was really the only medium-sized watercraft we had for Cobra for quite some time the Cobra water moccasin was worth three flag points and it came with the driver copperhead and there was a variant of copperhead I'm going to look at the action figures a little bit later so I'm going to set both of them aside for now the box for the water moccasin describes it as a swamp cruiser and for some reason in 1984 there was kind of a swamp theme because in that same year we got Zartan and his swamp skier the water moccasin is what's known as an airboat or a fan boat meaning it's a flat bottom boat that is powered by an aircraft style propeller and it's good for marshes and shallow water let's look at the parts and the features of the water moccasin and right up front you see it has this double bow which I think is supposed to look like a drag boat it definitely kind of evokes that theme I'm not sure really if that would be useful in a swamp boat but it kind of gives it a unique look on the side instead of having the typical cobra sigil we have this water moccasin emblem which I think looks really cool it's kind of a snake with a machine gun and we have that on both sides I kind of think this would make a pretty cool tattoo we have two 44 millimeter lateral destructor cannons to bring a little forward facing firepower to this vehicle it has this windshield with an asymmetrical design which I kind of like and it has this removable roof panel inside the cockpit we have some very nice sculpted detail a nicely sculpted seat with some control panels it looks really good on the inside the main weapon on this vehicle is this turret with these 20 millimeter twin machine guns and the turret does rotate it doesn't go all the way around the machine gun does elevate a little bit and it has this kind of joystick style controller and that part is frequently broken off even on mine you can see it's bent it should be straight up and down you see a lot of these with that totally gone so if you're looking for a water moccasin keep an eye out for that make sure that's not broken there is no seat inside the turret there's just this bar that goes between the action figures legs to hold the figure in place and of course that works fine for a toy but in real life that would be pretty uncomfortable on both sides we have these storage bins and they have covers that pop off and it's just an empty space you can store accessories or weapons in there it's not very big so you couldn't store very much but it's nice to have a little storage space I do have a little bit of a problem with these bins they the covers don't exactly seem to want to stay on when you put them on in the way that seems the most natural it kind of leaves a gap here at the top I found that the best way to keep these on is to put them in like this the bottom tabs first and then kind of pull up and push in at the same time and it sort of wedges it in better and it holds it on better but for some reason I don't know if it's just mine but these hatches just don't want to fit in like I think they should I don't know if I'm the only one who has that problem with the bin covers but I do have two water moccasins and they both seem to have that problem so if you have one of these and you also have that problem let me know or if you don't of course let me know as well maybe it's just my copies on either side it has these platforms these troop carrying platforms and they have foot pegs and that's so a couple extra figures could ride along on the side we have a removable engine cover um has some detail on the cover and we remove that we can see some engine detail and the blueprints for this vehicle call this engine a twin supercharged Destro v12 uh Destro was Cobra's weapons supplier so I'm guessing this engine is named after Destro if I ever build an engine I'll name it after Destro it's a pretty cool name here we have a drive wheel for the fan you just spin that and it causes the fan to spin this isn't battery powered or anything if you want the fan to spin you have to do it manually around the fan we have this black cowling and steering vanes and the steering vanes move left to right for directional control and they're connected by this bar and this is a frequently broken part often you'll find either the bar is broken or the tab on the steering vane uh where the bar goes on is totally broken off so watch out for that on my other water moccasin one of the tabs is broken off so I did a little do-it-yourself fix-it job and it works just fine on the bottom of the water moccasin I have two things to show you the first thing is this name label it has the name lane on it lane is probably the original owner of this vehicle so lane wherever you are out there thank you for sending this vehicle into the marketplace so I could get it I promise I will take good care of it the other thing is what the blueprints call a gator surface torpedo and it pegs here on the back here and uh it's it's a surface torpedo this is kind of a weird little thing it has a clear plastic shell and skis uh it pegs on right there and uh I don't know honestly I never really used this when I had a water moccasin as a kid it is rear facing so I guess you're intended to shoot it out the back and hit you know some vehicle that's following behind you but uh I don't know not a great accessory I think not a great weapon just sort of an extra and I you know it's nice that Hasbro put these little extras on there but this one I just don't know how useful it is it does get lost frequently so there's that it pegs on the bottom but it doesn't peg all that solidly so it will fall off if you're moving this thing around very much let's look at how to put copperhead in the water moccasin because it can be a little bit tricky first you need to move the turret out of the way and then you need to take off this roof panel and then you got to slide them in and these bars here are actually too narrow for him to go in straight so you kind of have to angle him until you get his shoulders past those bars and then straighten them out and there you go and as you can see he doesn't sit all the way in that's why there's an opening on the roof panel you put that in and there you go he's ready to drive as you can see the vehicle is kind of a teal color and that's an unusual choice it's not your typical black cobra vehicle or it's not like a camouflage green or anything like that I don't know if teal is somehow associated with the swamps but it does closely match the color on the action figure driver and it's kind of similar to the color of a later gi jo swamp fighter muskrat let's look at the water moccasin driver copperhead and we have two figures to look at both of these are considered to be the same version of copperhead but we have a variant I'll take a look at the differences between these two figures in a minute but first let's focus on the most common version of copperhead copperhead came with no accessories so let's jump right into looking at his articulation he had the typical articulation for 1984 gi jo action figures meaning he could turn his head from left to right he could move his arm at the shoulder up about so far and he could swivel it all the way around he had a hinge at the elbow he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees and he had a swivel at the bicep he could swivel his arm all the way around the figure was held together with a rubber o-ring 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 let's look at the sculpt designing color of copperhead and his color is meant to match the vehicle that he drives but with some lighter green thrown in just for contrast on his head he's wearing a helmet has a ridge top up there and it's got a mask over his face on his chest he's wearing a teal tank top with a silver cobra sigil on it now this silver paint is easily rubbed off so you'll have to watch out for that if you're looking for a copperhead you could run into one where part or all of that silver cobra symbol is scraped away he has a black holster for a pistol and a strap that continues around to his back copperhead is barrel-chested he's got an extra wide chest but what i think is interesting is he's not sculpted to be particularly muscular i mean he's a big guy but he's not ripped he doesn't look like he you know just came out of the gym looking like hulk hogan he's kind of doughy looking he looks almost maybe you know slightly pudgy or overweight on his arms he has these light green bands and he has light green gloves and that is the primary difference between the most common version of copperhead and the variant you can see the variant has dark gloves and dark arm bands the variants colors more closely match the teal than the light green color and you can see that's also on his helmet essentially as far as the paint application goes on the variant anywhere where there was light green paint it's painted with just that same teal color the variant of copperhead with the dark green gloves is considered more rare than the regular copperhead and so if you're looking for one you will pay more for the variant so if you're looking for variants and you don't want to spend a lot of money this is one that you may skip especially if just a color difference like that isn't very important to you on his waist piece copperhead is wearing black studded panties at least that's what it looks like to me i mean look at it it looks like he's wearing black leather panties with studs on him he's got a belt buckle it looks like some kind of s and m gear now i guess this could be some kind of harness but honestly what kind of harness would that be i mean it doesn't like go over his shoulders or anything like that it doesn't seem to connect to anything it's got this solid black piece on his butt looks like panties to me and so that's what i'm going with on his legs he has two different colors on the outside he has the same teal color and on the inside he has the light green color that matches his gloves and on the inside of his legs are padded it looks like on his right leg he has another pistol holster on a strap there it's black and it has this little sculpted detail on the top and i really don't know what that's supposed to be on his left leg he has this light green thingy that seems to just be there for decoration it doesn't seem to have any function at all and finally he has some pretty wicked looking black leather boots with some buckles on them and that looks pretty cool let's take a look at copperhead's file card and this file card was printed on the back of the box that the water moccasin came in there's nothing on the other side it's just the back of a box over here we have a portrait of copperhead this would have been from the artwork from the front of the box and it has his faction as cobra it says he's the water moccasin pilot and his codename is copperhead his file name is classified his birthplace is unknown his military specialty is air driver swamp vehicle operator one thing i find interesting about copperhead is he is not intended to be an army builder he is intended to be an individual much like wild weasel although cobra would have had many water moccasins presumably driven by cobra troopers there's supposed to be only one copperhead this section says it is presumed that copperhead is native or otherwise intimately familiar with the florida everglades intelligence sources venture guests that he raced speedboats in high stakes races in monaco and japan his major weakness is gambling odds are that he got started by placing bets on his own races apparently he compounded his folly by selling his services to cobra in hopes of paying off his bookies in this bottom section we have a quote by gungho and gungho is a gijo character who also has his origins in the swamp gungho is a louisiana cajun gungho says sure i know the type they're all around the gulf coast trash drifters they can drive a swamp buggy like the devil himself rebuild a v8 with a coat hanger and spit fight all night and raise cane to the cock crows they got a heart full of gimme and a mouth full of much obliged that sounds like a very down home folksy saying and i have no idea what it means the cobra water moccasin hit retail stores in 1984 but gi joe also had a new watercraft that was introduced in 1984 so how does the gi joe water vehicle stack up to the water moccasin well of course the gi joe 1984 vehicle was the killer whale not exactly a fair fight let's compare the water moccasin to the gi joe counterpart from 1984 and even though they are very different vehicles they still take some design cues from each other for instance the killer whale has these huge cannons on the side and so does the water moccasin but the water moccasin's cannons are tiny by comparison the killer whale has two machine gun turrets with larger machine guns water moccasin has one turret and by comparison its machine gun looks pretty puny the water moccasin has one fan with a manual wheel to turn the fan blades the killer whale has two fans with an action feature that turns both fans at the same time the water moccasin has a cockpit that only barely has enough room to fit the driver and the killer whale has this conning tower with a room for two action figures the water moccasin has these platforms for troops to ride along whereas the killer whale has an entire troop carrying compartment the water moccasin has this surface torpedo whatever that's supposed to be whereas the killer whale has a spring loaded recon sled it's like when they designed the water moccasin they just took the killer whale cut it to about one sixth the size and put about half the features on it but if you think about it that's not too bad the water moccasin actually has quite a few features for the size of vehicle it has and standing by itself not in comparison to the enormous killer whale it really is not a bad watercraft but of course cobra wouldn't send one water moccasin against the killer whale it would send a whole fleet so what the water moccasin lacks in size it makes up for in numbers can it float why yes yes it can very well in fact i did notice however that after a couple minutes mine starts to take on some water in the back and then it starts to sink now on mine there's not a very good seal between the top half and the bottom half and that probably accounts for that if you have an example of the water moccasin that it has a good seal on those pieces then it shouldn't sink but mine does have a little bit of trouble let's look at copperhead in the water moccasin overall first of all copperhead always struck me as oddly kind of feminine i'm not sure if it's the teal tank top or the man boobs or maybe the black panties that he wears on the outside of his clothes but he does strike me as somewhat feminine and you know what that's okay there's nothing wrong with that and honestly his costume is not as weird as some fashions in the 80s in fact i wouldn't want to put up any photographs of what i looked like in the 80s the water moccasin is an excellent water vehicle it's medium size but it has a lot of features crammed into it and it's fun to play with it's a very nice addition to the cobra arsenal that was my review of the 1984 cobra water moccasin and the driver copperhead and the variant of copperhead and his file card i hope you enjoyed it and if you're thinking of getting a water moccasin and a copperhead i hope you found this video informative if you liked it make sure you give it a thumbs up on youtube and subscribe and don't forget to like the facebook page you get a lot of updates there that you don't get anywhere else thanks for watching and i'll see you with the next gi joe review video