 So everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here and I'm back with the final week of Cobra Month and we could not get out of Cobra Month without doing a vehicle. So this week I have maggots and worms. This is the Cobra maggot with its driver worms. That's right this is a vehicle that somebody at Hasbro thought would be a good idea to call maggot. They wanted kids asking their parents to go to the store and get them the maggot. The maggot was introduced in 1987. It was also sold in 1988. It was discontinued in 1989 when you might consider it to have been replaced by the HISS 2. How this is classified as a Cobra vehicle depends on whether you consider it to be a tank. Since the original HISS tank was introduced in 1983 it was also sold in 84. It was discontinued in 1985 and Cobra didn't really have a replacement tank until this Cobra maggot came out in 1987. But the Cobra maggot is not really a tank. It is self-propelled artillery. The Cobra maggot is not based on any real world self-propelled artillery but it may be slightly inspired by the Archer artillery system. And the intervening years between the discontinuance of the HISS tank and the introduction of the maggot. There was the Cobra stun in 1986 but that was not really a tank and I would consider that more to be a replacement for the Cobra Stinger attack jeep rather than a replacement for the HISS tank. In 1985 there was the Sears Exclusive Cobra Cat tank and the SMS. However those were Sears exclusives so you may not consider those to be part of the main line. So if not really there wasn't a Cobra tank between the time they discontinued the HISS tank and the time they introduced the Cobra maggot. In 1988 the Cobra maggot was recolored black for the Night Force line and it was called the Night Blaster. The Cobra maggot came with a driver codename Worms and we're going to take a closer look at him later so I'm going to set him aside for now. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Cobra maggot and this vehicle was modular. It came apart into three parts and I'm going to go ahead and take them apart now. We're going to take a closer look at each part a little bit later but as you can see you could break this thing down into three component parts. This front section is the ATV or anti-tank vehicle and it has the driver's seat. It has I don't know if you can see it too well but it has a little bit of detail down in there. A reasonable amount of detail essentially on the armrests, instruments there. And the driver, his head sticks out. He can't retreat down into the vehicle. There's no hatch or anything like that. In that sense it's a lot like the 1983 GI Joe Wolverine tank where the driver just sits in there with the head sticking out. On the front we have this weapon here. It is yellow and it does pivot from side to side. It does not elevate. On the blueprints for the Cobra Maggot I think the description for this front gun is incorrect. I think the description is actually pointing at the wrong part of the vehicle. I think the description for this front gun should be the 240 RPM 40mm cannon. The other armament on the ATV is this laser cannon and we know it's a laser cannon because it says laser right on there. The laser will rotate 360 degrees. That will spin all the way around and it will elevate pretty well. Good elevation on that. This you can imagine as an anti-aircraft weapon. Synchronized with the laser is this radar dish. This radar dish is a weak point on this vehicle. It has a post that sticks into this part of the laser gun. It's part of the same piece of plastic and that breaks very frequently. You see a lot of worms with the radar dish broken off. So that is something to watch out for. That's a frequent break. Back here there's an engine cover and you can pop that off and you have some decent engine detail and what looks like ammunition here looks like an ammunition belt with some shells in it. That's some pretty good detail. I assume these shells would go to this front cannon otherwise I don't know what else it would go to. Shells actually look too large for this front cannon and this we know is a laser gun so it wouldn't go to that. So I'm not really sure what these are supposed to be but still it's a pretty cool detail. There's this interesting little detail right here that almost looks like a refueling port for a gas tank. Some GI Joe and Cobra vehicles starting in 1985 had a little refueling port. For instance the GI Joe awe striker had a little hole right there and you could put a little gas nozzle in there and pretend to refuel your vehicle but that's not what this is. It doesn't have the hole that goes through there. It almost looks like they had intended that to be a gas tank there but they changed their minds and filled that in. It has this weird Cobra iconography. They used these kind of weird symbols on Cobra vehicles. Not really sure why but that is something that pops up on a number of Cobra vehicles. The ATV has fake treads. These are not real treads. Just a solid piece of plastic and it rolls on a couple dumbbell shaped wheels here. Roles reasonably well enough. No detail on the underside and then on the back we have the connector that connects it to the other parts of the vehicle and that does turn a little bit. Just to show you how to reconnect this, this piece has three teeth right here and this has a bar on this part of the vehicle and you essentially just line those up and press until they click in. And they're connected. This section is the ARV or Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle and it doesn't really look like it's designed for that purpose but it does have a lot of really impressive detail like some engine detail here. It has a computer screen. Looks like an 80's computer here with a keyboard. It has a couple of joysticks. It has some foot pegs here for figures to stand to operate it. This looks more like a fire control station than it does a reconnaissance vehicle but nonetheless pretty cool. Like this a lot. Like the forward section, this section has fake treads and they're very similar to the forward section kind of sort of in reverse almost like a mirror of the forward section treads. Solid pieces of plastic and like the forward section we have a couple of dumbbell shaped wheels here that it rolls along. One thing I think this section is missing though is a universal tow hook so it could tow some of the other small vehicles that Cobra had. Or a cannon like the Cobra ASP could have been towed behind this thing. For instance the original his tank had a tow hook, universal tow hook and that really there should have been one on this vehicle. Next we get to this section that has the main cannon and this is a big cannon. It has this yellow tip on it, it's very long. The blueprints call this an RAP or Rocket Assisted Projectile Long Range 155mm Cannon and it is huge. This is artillery, this is not an anti-tank cannon. This is something that would be intended to fire at very long distances. This main cannon will elevate it, elevates very well, excellent elevation on that and it does ratchet a little bit but mine is a little bit old and weak. And with these back sections connected it acts as a turret which will pivot 360 degrees. The plastic clip where the main cannon connects to the body of the vehicle can be a bit of a weak point. In fact on the first Cobra maggot that I had when I was trying to put the cannon on I broke it. I broke it. I hate breaking vintage toys, it's like somebody's stabbing me right in the heart. I must do the broken parts yell. This toy survives 28 years and then I get it and within 3 minutes out of the box I break it. Started construction for Rugged Play, my ass. How could this have happened? How well actually the first one I got was pretty badly sun damaged and the plastic was discolored. This plastic when it discolors it turns a very ugly greenish color like that and it's been my experience that this discolored plastic is also more brittle. So you know, be careful. It's a pretty fierce looking cannon and we have some really nice detail on the inside. We have a chair here that somebody would sit in to operate the cannon. We also have this sort of side facing seat here with a joystick and a computer screen and this also looks like it could be some kind of fire control system. These nice like 80's style computer screens, that's kind of amusing. There's another one here. There's just a lot of instrumentation, a lot of great detail on the instruments, very nice detail. It even looks like it has some gas cylinders here, I don't know what those would be for but that's really cool. When this section is detached it stands on four yellow legs like that but those legs can swing up, they can fold up like that. You have to be kind of careful with these, mine tend to just pop off really easily. They don't seem to secure on there too well. Once you fold the legs up, this big cup here where the gunner's seat is, fits right within this semi-circle on the ARV and you put it all together and now you have the cobra maggot complete. Looking at this vehicle overall, the modular design gives the cobra maggot a lot of play features and that is very good. It's done in this kind of light blue gray color which is not at all my favorite color. This vehicle did look very impressive in black for night force but I'm willing to accept this color for a cobra vehicle, it's fine, it's not the best, it's a little weak but I can accept it. But if you're going to do a vehicle in this color, you almost have to do the yellow highlights. Without the yellow is something to kind of brighten it up a little bit. This vehicle will be very drab and kind of boring so I think I would have preferred it if it had been black like the hiss tank, then it would have been a more proper replacement for the hiss tank. Also, the cobra maggot is fine as an artillery piece but what cobra really needed was a new tank. They needed a replacement for the hiss tank. The hiss too that eventually did come out, not my favorite vehicle but this was what we had in the meantime. This is not a vehicle that I owned as a kid, I had a friend who had it and I would play with it sometimes but I think we used it more in the role of a traditional tank rather than as self-propelled artillery which is what it really is. I can't say I really have any fond memories of this vehicle growing up. Let's look at the driver for the cobra maggot, codename worms. The names for these really are awful, they almost make me nauseous. We'll start by looking at his accessories, he came with really only one, his helmet and it does fit on there fairly snugly and this helmet is a bit of a problem, not the helmet itself but the antenna that attaches to the helmet. This antenna is very thin, it can pop off and get lost or it can break off and so it's kind of rare now to find a cobra worms with the helmet that has the antenna attached. So if you find a helmet with an antenna you're probably going to pay a premium for it. Unfortunately this antenna should be straight up and down, my antenna is bent a bit and I'm almost afraid to touch it, it's hanging on by a thread there and if I mess around with it too much it's just going to snap right off and that's very unfortunate. I really wish they did not make these antenna removable, there were some other figures that had antennae or microphones attached to their helmets or their heads that were removable, just a really bad choice, just asking for those parts to get lost. The helmet itself though is fine, I like the design, it almost reminds me of the rocket here, it has that feel, it almost has sort of an art deco design to it. Let's look at the articulation on the worms, he had the articulation that had become standard by 1987 when he came out, his head was on a ball joint so he could turn his head from left to right, he could also look up and down, his arm he could swing up at the shoulder about so far, he could swivel it all the way around, he could bend his arm 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 so he could move at the torso a little bit, he could move his legs apart about so far, he could bend at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of the cobra worm starting with his head and he has this balaclava style mask but it has some detailing here around the eyes and here over the mouth and nose, it has a bit of design there and that's not too bad, that's a nice little touch on what could have been a very simple head sculpt, other than that though there's not really a whole lot going on here, on his chest he has what looks like a leather jacket with an open collar and a mustard colored ascot which is very weird, they took a figure codenamed worms and they painted accessories on him the color of puke, he has a black strap across his chest that continues around to the back some nice detailing there and he has some metals and ribbons and even some kind of a badge here on his chest and on his epaulettes he has two different colored ribbons there, this almost looks like the chest of a general, not a lowly troop that was called a worm. Customizers must really like this chest because you could pretty easily turn this into some kind of a general with a head swap and maybe some different colors. Other than the sculpting on the folds of the cloth there's not a lot of detail going on with the arms, he does have these mustard colored gloves and that just looks really nasty, it's probably one of my least favorite colors there is some detail on the gloves he has these three notches on the back of his hand where I guess that's where his Wolverine claws come out, on his waist piece he has a black belt and a silver skull and crossbones belt buckle which is really impressive but more suited to a dreadnought than a tank driver, looks like he has a sculpted pocket here, he has a black belt that goes all the way around and then he has a strap here that goes to his holster on his leg, on the right side he has a sculpted stripe that goes all the way down his leg, on the right leg there's not a lot of detail, on the left leg there is a pistol holster and a pistol and this I find very odd, usually if there's a pistol sculpted on the left side that's an indication that the character might be left-handed but this is an army builder and I wouldn't think that they would only select cobra worms that are left-handed so on an army builder is a little bit odd to have a left-handed pistol, he has painted knees again in that disgusting mustard color and normally I like knee pads but these do not count as knee pads, when I say I like knee pads and it's one of my favorite features on an action figure I'm talking about knee pads like this where it has the plastic kind of overhangs there so it when it goes over his leg it goes over his knee like that but this this doesn't do that this is just a painted knee he has some reasonably detailed black boots with some brown straps that go over them not too bad and on the left leg he has a knife with some silver paint on it again on his left leg let's take a look at the file card and this file card was printed on the back of the box that the cobra maggot came in there's nothing on the other side it was just the back of a box it has its faction as cobra and it has a portrait of the cobra worms right here this would have been taken from the artwork on the front of the box it says his codename is worms and that's an acronym we have an asterisk here and it says worms stands for weapons ordinance rugged machine specialist I don't know why the creators of these toys were so bad with acronyms but that's really bad I mean these are almost random words thrown together also the s is part of the acronym so worms is not plural each individual worms would be called worms he's the maggot driver and this top section says worms are self-propelled artillery specialists of the cobra ground forces and are cross trained within their blanket specialty any single worms can man any position on a maggot be it driver gunner loader or diesel mechanic under optimum conditions a maggot is manned by a crew of four commander driver gunner and loader under battle conditions it is possible for a maggot to stay in action maintaining fire capability with its crew reduced to two okay I have a problem with that it says the standard crew is four but really on this toy in this mode right here it really only fits three action figures it's got a driver and you can fit two in this section here if you're gonna fit four in the vehicle unless it's taken apart into its component parts somebody's gonna have to ride in the trunk this bottom section has a quote it says a battery of maggots can receive target information from a central fire control vehicle and is capable of firing guided and brilliant munitions some of which are ECM resistant fire and forget self-targeting and proximity fused heat rounds we have some acronyms here it says ECM stands for electronic countermeasures and heat stands for high explosive anti-tank so they are saying you could use this huge cannon as an anti-tank cannon it mentions brilliant munitions and this is referenced in another cobra file card scrap irons where it says these weapons are categorized beyond the smart stage and are known by the nomenclature brilliant and it has an asterisk which says current state-of-the-art mil-tech terminology so these weapons aren't just smart they are super duper smart continuing with the file card it says a maggots crew doesn't have to think too hard which is why the only requirement for being a worms is the ability to walk while holding a bogey wheel under one arm and a 155 millimeter shell under the other so the worms had to be strong tough and versatile but not necessarily very bright contrast that to the his tank driver who not only had to be an expert driver of his vehicle but he also had to be extra evil taking a look at the worms overall the brown color is good it's a nice contrast to the bluish gray vehicle that he drives a lot of these vehicle drivers tended to have contrasting but complementary colors to the vehicles that they drove and so the brown color works well for that the mustard color however is pukey and i hate it the detail on this figure is pretty good but he looks more like a pilot than a tank driver i like the design of the helmet i like that a lot actually but this antenna is way too easily lost or broken that's a major flaw and a downside to this figure i don't think the cobra maggot and worms made any appearances in the g i joe animated series it came out in that gap between the 1987 g i joe movie which was the end of sunbow g i joe and the beginning of the deke series the cobra maggots and worms did appear in the comic book in issue number 68 in an arctic setting and they look pretty cool there on a personal level i never really liked this vehicle as a kid a friend had it and we did play with it but mainly because we just needed more cobra tanks and this is what we had as an adult collector though i do like the features on the cobra maggot and i have to say it is a good toy you really need a couple more worms though to fit a couple in the back there but you can army build the worms especially if you get them without the helmet and the antenna you can get the cobra worms fairly cheaply on the aftermarket so you could pretty easily get a couple more and have a full crew for the maggot i hate the name though i hate the name of the vehicle and the name of the driver and i hated the names all the way back in 1987 and i still hate them the names are terrible and they almost ruin what is otherwise a good toy the bad guys are supposed to be evil of course and the creators tried to associate them with everything lowly and putrid but i really don't think these cobra soldiers would have seen themselves that way i think that cobra fighters probably saw themselves as noble not as evil so i don't really see cobra troopers calling themselves worms or maggots or perhaps they took sergeant slaughter's insults just a little too seriously that was my review of the cobra maggot and its driver and the file card i hope you enjoyed it and if you're thinking of getting a cobra maggot i hope you found this video informative that was the last review of cobra month that brings cobra month 2015 to a close we're going to get back to some gi joe toy reviews next week we've got some great things to review so don't forget to subscribe and don't forget to like the facebook page you get a lot of updates there you don't get anywhere else thanks for sticking with me through cobra week and i'll see you next week with another vintage gi joe toy review i'll see you then i must do the broken parts yell