 Have you been injured in a Cobra Pogo? Have you suffered severe spinal damage due to repeated bouncing? I am RaceJudicata and I invite you to call Cobra Law. Cobra has a history of using vehicles that permanently disable the pilots. If you piloted a ballistic battle ball, you may be entitled to compensation. I was assigned to a Pogo unit. Repeated bouncing turned my spine upside down. I thought I had no recourse. Then I called Cobra Law. They got me this check for $100,000,000. Thank you, Cobra Law. Let Cobra Law fight for you. Of course, if you win, Cobra Commander will insist that you be executed. Another satisfied client. Call Cobra Law. You will get what's coming to you. Cobra... We've got a hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. It's a special time of the year. We are in the middle of Cobra Convergence 6. The GI Joe fan community comes together to celebrate GI Joe's enemy, Cobra. And it's my turn again to give you a Cobra video. This time we are looking at a much requested vehicle. It's weird. It bounces. It's a ball. It has legs. It has an antenna. It is not a bug. The Cobra Bug is a totally different vehicle. Since the Cobra Pogo was re-released as the Star Brigade Invader, we will take a look at that too. HCC 788 presents the Cobra Pogo and the Invader. This is the Cobra Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball from 1987. This vehicle was introduced in 1987 and was also available in 1988. It was discontinued for 1989. It was a single boxed vehicle with no action figure. There was one re-release of the Pogo in the vintage era, the Invader from 1993. We will take a closer look at the Invader later in this video. The Pogo gets its name from the Pogo Stick, which is a stick with a spring for jumping. The modern Pogo Stick was invented by Max Pollack and Ernst Gottschall in Germany. And Pogo is probably a combination of the first two letters of their last names. Ballistic in this sense probably refers to the vehicle moving under the force of gravity. The Pogo bounces like a Pogo Stick. In commercials and media, it is explicitly shown bouncing. That's how it's supposed to operate. You can imagine what that kind of repeated impact would do to the human body, even with some springy legs to absorb some of the force. This vehicle would not be safe to operate. That's pretty typical for Cobra. They used a lot of vehicles that could be lethal to the drivers. Let's look at the parts and the features of the Pogo starting at the top with this clamshell canopy. It latches at the top and you split it apart to open. The two pieces are made of clear plastic. It has a Cobra emblem on one side and a crosshair sticker on the other side. It's a nice idea to have this segmented clamshell canopy for this type of vehicle. It gives the Pogo a ball shape, but the execution on this doesn't work. It doesn't actually open up in segments. The panels on each half of the canopy are molded together. When the canopy is closed, there's nothing to hold it centered, so it will slide from one side to the other. Looking at the cockpit, we have a single seat in silver plastic. There are some control sticks. There is a control panel with a sticker. On the box for the Pogo and in the GI Joe comic book, the Pogo is piloted by Cobra Commander in Battle Armor. Let's place Cobra Commander in the cockpit and this is a tight fit. There's not a lot of room in there and you have to get him pretty well pressed down into the seat because there is not much clearance for that clamshell canopy to close over his head. The body of the Pogo is in red plastic. The housing for the cockpit has a serial number on both sides and the lower body has some yellow triangle stickers which add a bit of color variety. Although there isn't a lot of technical detail on the body that does have a lot of angles and protrusions and layers that give it a sense of technical complexity, there's also a ton of attachments on the body. On the side of the body there is a large silver plastic vent pipe. The blueprints call this a control computer cooling unit. Attached to the side of the body there is an antenna in dark gray plastic. The blueprints call this a live wire communications antenna. Adding an antenna to a vehicle is an easy way to add a sense of realism but antenna also often go missing. Next we have the legs in dark gray plastic. There are three of them. It's these legs that give the vehicle an insectoid or crab like look. The blueprints call these real feel ground sensitive landing pods. The leg knee joint is called the servo operated adjustable leg hinge and the molded in springy bit is called the nitrogen compression relief shocks. This is what's supposed to make the pod bounce. The springs are molded into the plastic. The spring legs do not actually operate. Real operating springs may have helped this vehicle. At least it would have been a nice bonus feature. There are these silver plastic wires that connect from the leg to the body of the vehicle. The blueprints call these hydraulic support hoses. There is one on each leg. There's also a wire that partially wraps around the body of the vehicle. This adds more depth to the Pogo and adds a little color contrast against the red. Next we get to the missiles. The Pogo came with two silver plastic missiles. They attached to the legs. They had slots on the missiles that fit into the tabs on the legs. According to the blueprints, these aren't missiles. They are bombs. They are Hobo homing bomb system KM4560 infrared guidance bombs. They look like missiles though and the package art shows them firing up like missiles. The Pogo only came with two missiles, but there are three legs. Meaning one of the legs will have an empty peg for a missile. So I've just placed one missile on the empty peg because I just think it looks better and more balanced. Why only two missiles though? Most vehicles have a missile for each peg. Next we get to the gun and turret. The gun is not named on the blueprints, but the box calls it a positionable machine gun. It is in dark gray plastic. It elevates and it lowers. And the turret, which is the whole bottom section of the vehicle, will turn so the gun and the turret have a very good range of motion. It would be most effective firing at ground targets because you would risk hitting the leg of the Pogo if you traverse while aiming up. At the bottom of the Pogo we have this dark gray cap that serves as the turret and attached to that we have two large rocket nozzles. The blueprints call these short blast 30 meter slash pound control burst rockets. They are large for this size vehicle and they look like they would provide a lot of thrust. The fuel would have to be housed where the pilot sits so the Pogo is a little undersized to really function. The whole bottom piece operates as the turret and the rocket system. So the rocket nozzles will rotate with the turret. Besides being a vehicle that bounces, the Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball has some other oddities. It has guided bombs that point upward, although you could put them on the other way around. That's not how it's shown on the instruction sheet. And there's a crosshair sticker on the canopy. It seems to me the Pogo would be most effective if it flipped upside down at the apex of its arch. That would give the pilot the widest view of ground targets through the dome canopy and he could line up those crosshairs. It would also point the bombs downward toward the target. The machine gun could also fire down at ground targets or fire up to protect the Pogo against attacks from above. Regardless of how it's used, if this thing bounces, it's going to break the spine of the pilot. The rockets could be used to slow the descent, but then it's really just landing. It's not bouncing. This looks more like it would work in space. It looks like a lunar lander. It takes some design elements from the Apollo lunar lander. Rather than a bouncing attack vehicle, the legs would be more fitted to cushioning a landing on the moon. That brings us to the other version of the Pogo, the Invader. This is the Star Brigade Cobra Invader. It was introduced in 1993 and it was only available in 1993. It was discontinued for 1994. It was part of the Star Brigade subset, which was a series of space-themed G.I. Joe and Cobra figures and vehicles. It is almost a one-for-one reuse of the Pogo mold in different colors. There are some differences and we will cover them. This specific Invader was opened and assembled by me in a video. So if you'd like to see this Invader assembled, check out that video on my channel. I have the box for the Invader, unlike the Pogo, so we can see how this vehicle was marketed back in 1993. There is a large Star Brigade logo larger than the G.I. Joe logo. I'm not a fan of that. There's the name of the Invader with a hot pink background that was standard for Star Brigade. The artwork is very similar to the Pogo, but the image is flipped. And of course the colors are changed and some additional details are added. This is a 90s vehicle, so it does have a real spring firing launcher that really shoots missiles. The description of the vehicle is not on the front of the box. It's actually on the bottom, the top, and the sides. It says Space Blasting Attack Pod. On the top, we have two flag points in the 90s style. On the back of the box, we have a photo of the Invader. And for this photo, I assume they just painted a production Pogo. As you can see, the colors are updated and it has new missiles and a new missile launcher. The description says it's Cobra's Interplanetary Attack Pod that's hoppin' mad. That does suggest it bounces like the Pogo does, but there's less emphasis on that aspect of the vehicle. Instead, it says it attacks by plummeting from the upper atmosphere and pouncing on unsuspecting victims dwelling on planet surfaces. It even refers to lunar landing legs. So this is more like a moon lander than the Pogo. I also have the instruction sheet and the blueprints for the Invader. And I will use this to describe some of the features on this vehicle. Let's look at the parts and the feature of the Invader starting with the top. It has the same clamshell canopy as the Pogo. This is in a translucent green plastic, which gives a bit of a different feel than the clear plastic. It opens up in the same way. You can pop it open like that to reveal the cockpit. It still has the same design problem as the Pogo, so it will kind of flip back and forth. Looking at that cockpit, we have a single pilot seat in very bright neon green and a control panel. If you don't like neon green, at least it's on the inside so you won't see it too much. The box art for the Invader shows it piloted by 1993 Astro Viper Version 2. It's a bit of a problem though because with the helmet on, he sits just a little too tall. And I can't close the canopy. If you take the helmet off though, that does help and you can close the canopy very easily. The cockpit housing is not the same color as the main body as it was on the Pogo. Here it is in bronze plastic. I don't know if this is a great color choice, but having it a different color than the main body does give it a little bit more color variety and it breaks up the solid black color. Notice the Cobra sticker that says Moon Strike, again indicating this is a lunar vehicle. The body is in black plastic, which is an excellent choice. There's no chance of being camouflaged in space with all that neon, but the black is a nice deep color that helps the other colors stand out and pop. You have the antenna, this time in bronze plastic. I just like the antenna, you can't go wrong with that. We have the vent pipe and the hydraulic hoses, this time in neon green. If you don't like neon, now is the time to look away. As with the Pogo, these wires give the vehicle more depth and dimension. Next we have the legs. There are three of them in bronze plastic matching the cockpit housing. Again, I'm not sure if this is a good color choice, but for a darker vehicle, it's a good idea to have something in between the black and the neon green. On each leg, on the opposite side from the missile peg, they have molded a cylinder for attaching the missile launcher. That brings us to the missile launcher. I have it attached to this leg. You can remove it and attach it to any of the three legs. This is the biggest difference between the Pogo and the Invader. The spring-loaded missile launcher is in very bright neon green, and this is a reuse of the spring-loaded missile launcher from the 1993 Star Brigade Starfighter. That missile launcher and the missiles were in orange. There are four bright neon green missiles for the Invader. One for each of the three pegs on the leg, and a fourth one to fit in the missile launcher itself. The missile launcher for the Invader and the Starfighter are interchangeable, so if you want the Invader to have orange missiles, you can put the Starfighter's missiles on it. Wow, that is ugly. The blueprints call these four air-to-ground exploding missiles. Yes, missiles often do explode. The spring-loaded missile launcher works like any other 90s GI Joe spring-loaded missile launcher. You just place the missile in the launcher, press back until it clicks. There is a trigger on the back to fire. Let's test the missile launcher with our old frenemy Dr. Meinbender. Let's just take aim at Dr. Meinbender and fire. We hit Dr. Meinbender with the first shot, but the Invader gives us three additional shots in case we miss. Next we have the machine gun. This time it is named on the blueprints. The blueprints call this a positionable laser fire machine gun. It is in bronze plastic. It has the same range of motion as on the Pogo. Next we have the turret and the rocket nozzles. These are not named on the blueprints, but they are in bronze plastic and they work exactly the same as on the Pogo. This makes more sense to me than the Pogo. As a space vehicle, this thing doesn't need to bounce. It uses spring suspension legs to cushion a landing, and the rockets are used to launch and slow the descent. Even the neon colors are better on a space vehicle than they would be on a terrestrial vehicle. Temeflage isn't as important in space. You're not likely to sneak up on anyone. It would be more important to be visible to friendly spacecraft and astronauts drifting off into space while being invisible against the black background is probably not a good idea. I don't need Joe's or Cobra's in space and I don't need neon vehicles, but if you've got to do it, there are worse ways to do it. Looking at how the Pogo and the Invader were used in GI Joe Media, the Pogo was only animated for commercials. There were no animated appearances for the Invader, but it did show up briefly in a commercial for Star Brigade. Looking at the comic book series published by Marvel Comics, the Pogo first appeared in issue number 59. Although this looks like something that would be invented by Dr. Meinbender, it was actually created by a Crimson Guardsman, Fred VII. That same Crimson Guardsman would later impersonate Cobra Commander in the battle armor. The Pogo barely survived the battle against GI Joe and the new Slam Cannon. It made another appearance in issue number 64 when the imposter Cobra Commander landed on Cobra Island. The Pogo was an odd vehicle and didn't get much use in the comic book series. There was another notable appearance of the Pogo in issue number 89, where a squad of Pogos attacked the Joes in the Mean Dog. Yes, they are shown hopping, so that feature was still emphasized in the comic. Man, these things were weird. As far as I can tell, the Invader made no appearances in the comic book series. Looking at the Pogo overall, this is one of the weirdest vehicles Cobra ever produced. It has a bizarre design and function. I could get behind this vehicle if it were some kind of flying attack pod like the Trouble Bubble. The Pogo does fly, to be sure, but it also bounces. The commercials lean in on the bouncing feature. There's no way to safely pilot a vehicle that impacts the ground the way the Pogo does, regardless of what kind of shocks you put on it. The idea is that the Pogo will hop around and change direction too fast for the enemy to hit it. The rockets could slow the descent, but then you lose the benefit of the rapid movement and direction changes. Even if it works as designed, the vehicle itself would injure the pilot, so the enemy doesn't have to hit it. What can I say positive about the Pogo? The colors are excellent. They go really well together and they work for a Cobra vehicle. The details are also good. The wires on the legs and the body add a sense of realism. What can I say negative about the Pogo? Everything else. The legs don't really have a spring feature, so it doesn't really bounce. The canopy is a nice idea, but it doesn't exactly work. Also, the legs can fall off too easily and the small bits are often missing. And why does it only come with two missiles when it has three missile pegs? The invader is slightly better, sort of. The colors are outrageous, as you would expect from a 90s vehicle. The spring-loaded missile launcher will appeal to some fans, not me really. Most importantly, it's now a space vehicle. It resembles a lunar lander and it can now be used for that purpose. The legs are not for bouncing. They are for landing on a surface with lower gravity, assisted by the rockets. Would it be effective in space combat? Who knows. At least it's less likely to crush the spine of the Astro Viper in the pilot seat. Although the invader is maybe slightly better, it still copies over some of the problems of the Pogo. The canopy still doesn't work quite right, the legs don't have any spring or flex, and they can pop off too easily, and the small bits still tend to get lost. Those are my thoughts on the Cobra Pogo ballistic battle ball and the invader. Now let's see what your Cobra Convergence 6 presenters have to say about it. Hey everybody, Kevin from Pegwarmers here. I wanted to start by thanking everybody involved with Cobra Convergence, all the creators that are putting out content this month. It's really awesome, but also a really big thanks to Hoodie Coco for spearheading this event year after year. It's fantastic. My thoughts on the Cobra Pogo. I had it as a kid, and I think I got it for a birthday, but I was never really that impressed with it. It has sculpted on springs on the side of the legs, and if those actually worked, if it actually retracted, it would have been really neat. But instead, when you would push down on it to pretend it was going to jump, the legs would just pop out the sides and fall off. I played with it a fair amount, though, and would get frustrated with it. Eventually I took the legs and the hoses off and just chucked them to the side, and I would pretend that the center pod was Cobra Commander's escape pod. I would put it in my Cobra base, which I didn't have the pterodrome, so it was just like, you know, shoebox or block castle or whatever. And if things got too hot, he could hop in it and shoot off, because it kind of looked like the escape pod from Star Wars. Oh, hello there. It's Mark here from the Talking Joe podcast. He just caught me reading about the Pogo in the pages of the G.I. Joe comic. Now, I'm from Talking Joe, and our reamer is very much talking about G.I. Joe comics. And this issue, issue 59 of A Real American Hero, written by Larry Hammer, with great art by Ron Wagner. Cover there from Mike Zeck, inked by Bob McLeod. That's where we first get to see the Pogo vehicle in the pages of the comic. And what's also super cool about this issue is this, this was back in the days when the comics would be advertised every so often and they would create extra additional animation to advertise the comic. But in reality, guess what? They're advertising the toy. So when the commercial went out for 59, there's some nice little footage advertising the toy as well, which is great. In my Cobra convergence video, I actually talk about that issue a little bit when we talk about the character of Raptor in our theme of crazy Cobras. But we're not doing that now. We are talking about the Pogo. And it first appears in this story, Divergent Paths. You can see it there in the background of Fred's garage or his workshop. So Fred Seven, soon to be Cobra commander, is an inventor and he's the creator of the Pogo. So that's lurking there. You can see it's it's spindly leg poking out from underneath that that top. If it was a toy, of course, you know, look at it too hard, the leg might actually fall off. But that's not happening here. So as the story progresses, they've tracked down the Joes and he takes the Pogo with him on the mission. But Cobra commander overrules him, pushes him out the way and launches the Pogo into the air after the Joes. In their APC and they have this great little battle as Cobra commander, the real Cobra commander in the Fred. What becomes the Fred Armour is chasing down the Joes and but they battle through a tunnel and all sorts of goodness. It's a great little action sequence. And that's that done for that issue. But later on we see the Pogo again when Fred has bumped off the original Cobra commander left him for dead and wants to pass himself off as the original Cobra commander. He hitches a ride with Captain Min in his boat and as they get to Cobra Island, they've not got permission to be there. So they are attacked. Tatatatatatatat. Boom. He launches from the boat as it explodes behind him and comes down to a landing on Cobra Island where he is greeted but with an array of Cobras in their his tanks and stingers and so on is confronted by Serpentor with the reveal that he is Cobra Commander. Great issue there with art by Ron Wagner but most significantly Russ Heath who had previously dispensered one issue early on in their run returns to ink the story with some absolutely gorgeous inks which makes this particular issue issue 64 that much more special and that's a pretty much the extent of the Pogo appearing in the original comics but some really great appearances and super stories which make what would otherwise be perhaps just a bit of a silly vehicle look very cool that's all I wanted to say Pogo could be cool in the comics as well as in the toy so I hope you enjoyed that and if you did maybe check out the Talking Joe Cobra Convergence video catch you down the road welcome to half the battle meet the Cobra Pogo Ballistic Battle Ball this vehicle was released in 1987 with all original parts no one knows why I still don't like it thanks to Mike I can appreciate that for some it's not without its charm but it's not for me is it the worst GI Joe vehicle well no not by a long shot that honor will forever belong to the septic tank but to me it's still a stinker oh well at least things can't get any worse right oh son of a bit meet the Cobra Invader this vehicle was released in 1993 with um some original parts kinda yeah this thing is basically the Pogo in different colors with one or two differences it's like they said at Hasbro hmm how can we make the Pogo look worse by using neon green of course welcome to the 90s I guess in some ways like quality control a vast improvement on the Pogo in other ways like the freaking neon green a big step backwards so is it better or worse than the Pogo well they both have different ups and downs so I think they're about the same hey Cobra Hollicks it's Dave codename phantom troublemaker from audible interlude a GI Joe podcast and the needless things youtube channel and I have been invited here to talk about the Cobra Ballistic Battle Ball so let's head into the workshop and take a look at this thing so I have very specific memories of reading this issue of the comic as a kid I loved it we're not here to talk about that I just wanted to mention it because I love this cover and I love the back of the flatbed truck that this thing springs forth from there was a mystery what's under that cover what's under that cover is the Cobra Ballistic Battle Ball or is it is more colloquially referred to the Pogo I just bought this one at Joe Fest I'm happy to have a standard version in my collection I'll assemble this thing later I love this vehicle I love the more outlandish science fictional elements of GI Joe what I wanted to show you guys today is a little project I made the invader which is obviously a repaint from later in the line but you may notice that this invader has much nicer looking stickers on it than what you normally see I didn't want those paper stickers on my invader so I ordered labels from toy hacks I can't say I applied them as well as I this should be a little lower but I love this color design on this vehicle I think it looks really really cool and when you put some nice for real decals on it I think you get a really awesome looking version of the Pogo in the form of the invader I just liked this neon green this sort of bronzy color with the black I think it's an awesome looking vehicle and when you put some good labels on it it looks great so that's all I wanted to share today please check out the Needless Things YouTube channel check out Audible Interlude a GI Joe podcast available every Friday and thank you so much for inviting us to be a part of Cobra Convergence 6 remember that was my review of the Pogo and the invader I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you're enjoying Cobra Convergence 6 we have more presenters coming up this week check the calendar at hcc788.com coming up we have JLS comics special mission force forgotten figures the Joe on Joe podcast the talking Joe podcast the human mechanism mark 2 audible interlude and my side of the laundry room if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up on youtube and subscribe to the youtube channel and share this video with your friends that's what helps this channel grow you can find me on social media on facebook and twitter and I have the aforementioned website hcc788.com if you would like to support the channel patreon is a great way to do it you can get some early access and some other perks and you can even get your name in videos like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now thank you for watching I'll be back soon with more Cobra videos until then remember only Cobra is Cobra