Wave 6, 2008 COBRA Para-Viper

I must admit with this figure I saw something I’ve rarely seen before. Shortly after these shipped from Big Bad Toy Store, I hopped around to various message boards, and on nearly every single board, there was a separate thread by different people who were absolutely lavishing this figure with praise. This is very unusual. Sure, there are often various threads about the wave as a whole, and often in those threads there is praise given to a particular figure, but folks took time out of their days to make threads specifically about this figure and raving about it top-to-bottom.



You know what? From a design perspective, the figure deserves every bit of praise he gets. This figure is LOADED. Absolutely loaded.

From head to toe, this figure is by far the most laden with accessories as any figure I have ever seen, but the coolest thing is the actual design and sculpting of these accessories. Sure, you can have a figure loaded with a helmet and web gear, but it’s the way this gear is designed and sculpted that makes this figure shine. His helmet? Awesome. His parachute gear? Incredible. The little touches? Fantastic. Straight off the top, his sculpted snake-like helmet is great looking head gear with removable goggles. The intricately sculpted parachute pack is absolutely huge and LOOKS great, but unfortunately it does restrict his movements pretty harshly. He really cannot move his legs much at all and his arms don’t move much either. G.I. Joe has been all about how figures move and how they interact, and that’s once again a tough call. The Anniversary line since day one has really struggled with finding a good meeting place between sculpting, design, and articulation. But really, this figure is designed with absolutely insane accessories for a halo jump, and heck, the accessories are removable, anyway, so…



But even as cool as the parachute is, it’s all of the other added features that make this figure shine. The small knife in the ankle sheath, the two flippers in the leg harness, and his awesome submachine gun only adds to the “cool” factor of this figure. I also really love the “fins” that these guys have on their forearms. I can’t even imagine what led to that design element, but whatever it was, I applaud it, and those are the cool little details that make some of these figures so cool. I can just picture a small squad of these bad boys dropping from the sky and preparing to infiltrate their target…I’m a huge Eel fan, too, so merging them into that branch is a fantastic idea, and the Eels are quickly becoming the defacto special ops team for COBRA, which makes a lot of sense.

One slight downside, though, is that if you want a decent ground troop figure, this one doesn’t really fit the bill that well. You’ve got to figure after he hits the ground, the Para-Viper is going to ditch his chute and move in by foot…but once you take the parachute pack off, the figure really doesn’t look that great dressed in the same flight suit as Ace and Wild Bill. He looks overly skinny and scrawny, and unless you dig up some other web gear for him to wear when he sheds the parachute pack, he just doesn’t look that great without it.

I have seen a lot of folks complain about the colors of this figure, but I don’t have an issue with it at all. Yeah, he’s purple, but it’s a very dark purple that would work fine in a nighttime assault. Sure, he’s got some orange kneepads as well, but the purple and orange colors tie perfectly in the COBRA Night Vulture branch, which I have to think is a deliberate homage that works exceptionally well. I’ve always loved the Night Vultures in spite of their odd color scheme, and I can say the same here without hesitation.

For those guys who display their figures, there is little to complain about here. Absolutely stacked to the hilt, this figure looks impressive on display, but is somewhat limited if you want a figure you can actually use. With his parachute pack he is stocky and immobile, but without it he looks scrawny and under-equipped. Kind of tough to find a middle ground. The new parts that we get with this figure are great, from the awesome head sculpt to the very cool textured gloves, and the lower legs…there are enough terrific parts to make this a great, great figure. It just depends on how you want to use it.



Wave 6, 2008 Mercenary Wraith (Variant)


First of all, you’ll have to take this review with a grain of salt…I haven’t been able to get my hands on a regular version of Wraith yet, so you’ll have to make do with the variant “translucent” version. I’m sure everyone feels very sorry for me. ;)

Even though the colors are drastically different, the figure itself remains unchanged (which could be considered better or worse, depending on your opinion).



Whether the fandom likes it or not, the Devils’ Due comics are forever a part of the G.I. Joe lexicon, and while there are some aspects of that run that I would like to forget, I do think that Devils’ Due added some cool things to the mythos, and one of those things is Wraith. Sure, he was sort of a cookie cutter character in a cool suit of armor, but the armor was cool enough that it carried him, and I think he ended up integrating into the G.I. Joe vs. COBRA mythos fairly well. Well enough that I’d always wished we got a figure for the character, and…well, now we have one. But does it do the character justice? That’s kind of another story.

The base figure itself is actually pretty cool. I love that new head sculpt, and the parts chosen from Snake Eyes v34 are fairly inspired. I really like the armored gauntlets and the sculpted armor on the lower legs, but there are some downsides here and there. The oversized chest armor really restricts his arm movement quite a bit and is a bit too large to be streamlined like the Wraith armor was meant to be. That’s really unfortunate because obviously it’s the armor that makes his character cool, and if the character loses cool points for being in the armor, it kind of defeats the purpose.



And while I do really like the arm gauntlets, the mounted guns are a bit clunky and the hoses are so thin and flimsy that many fans are simply snipping them off rather than break them (trust me, pose his arms more than a few times and they WILL break). I do think if you snip off those cables yourself it actually adds some nice playability to the figure, but the armor still has a negative impact on poseability.

The paint apps and coloring on both figures is still nicely unique. Various silvers, grays, and blacks make the normal version look fairly comic-accurate and even though he’s wearing metal armor, there’s enough color differences sprinkled throughout to still make the figure interesting. The “clear” variant of the figure uses a very nice somewhat opaque light blue plastic that simulates the stealth function reasonably well. I really love the fact that they went to the trouble of flesh-coloring the face, though, that is a very nice touch. When the mask is flipped down, you still get that translucent appearance, but with the mask flipped up it looks normal as well. I really love that little feature.

Accessories are another low point for this figure, however. He’s got a wildly oversized P90 submachine gun that he can’t even hold, much less fire. His backpack is somewhat generic and uninspired, as well. I love the facemask, but really, there’s nothing else to write home about.

I’ve been waiting a few years for this character, as have many fans, and unfortunately the end result doesn’t really deliver. I think it would have been tough to translate the armored character from the comics into a toy realistically (though Hasbro seems to do well enough with Iron Man figures of various scales) but this figure just really doesn’t do anything for me. Probably the weakest link of the wave, which is a shame considering how excited I was for it.

Que pichudo que esta Wraith!!! Yo lo quiero y mas despues de haberlo visto en los comics. Este mae era toda.

Si la verdad que es una muy buena figura propia de los comics pero muy bien calzada a la trama de GiJoe