Wave 7, 2008 COBRA Eel

Believe it or not, there was a time not so long ago that I was feeling pretty burnt out on the Anniversary line. Reviews were piling up, product was coming at a steady pace, but the product all seemed to be missing a certain... "life". From the surface, everything resembled the G.I. Joe I knew and loved, but there wasn't a whole lot of spirit or ingenuity in my mind. Something just seemed to be missing. We were dealing with an influx if barely-repaints, substandard parts like the dreaded Duke arms, tons and tons of repeat characters, and little to get really excited about.



Well, I can happily say that this little lull has ended, and it almost seems like every recent release we've gotten has been a lot more good than bad, and there are still a wealth of cool looking things on the horizon. Duke arms have been fixed and fixed well, even when we get repeat characters, there are certain improvements and awesome design element changes that make them worthwhile. From the Duke w/ Jet Pack in the Best of DVD set, to the COBRA Commander and COBRA Trooper in the same set, even though we're getting so many of the same stuff, the changes make it worth the money again. This trend looks to continue through the rest of the year with the revaluation of those awesome new Joe and COBRA 5-Packs that are coming. Thankfully, too, Hasbro seems to really be focusing a lot of attention on the single packs, giving us some great missing characters, some awesome new tooling, and even when we have repeat characters and rehashed parts, the choices make sense. Take COBRA Eel, for instance.

I can't decide if I should just start lavishing praise on this figure now, or if I should start by wondering why Hasbro can't make every Anniversary figure this good. Especially the COBRA troop builders. For every B.A.T. and Snow Serpent we get, we also get a COBRA Viper, which is somewhat disappointing, and only makes me drool at the thought of what we could get with a COBRA Viper the overall quality of the other COBRA Troopers that are out there. Thankfully the COBRA Eel follows right along the B.A.T. and Snow Serpent path, and skirts the mismatched parts and poorly tooled aspects of the COBRA Viper. I wasn't much of an Eel fan back in the day, since they were so limited to water-based use, but over the years I have learned to love the Eels, and I've really grown fond of the concept of them being sort of the Special Ops branch of COBRA. From the Eels come the Snow Serpents and Para-Vipers (and Lamprey's for that matter), and while the old version of the Eel didn't do much for me, this version absolutely blows me away.



It helps immensely that the core figure of the Eel is Torpedo from Wave 2 of 2008, because to date that has been one of the most impressive Anniversary figures to date. I am thrilled to see Torpedo being utilized so heavily from the original to the Sea Command pack, this COBRA Eel, and the upcoming COBRA Diver. The wet suit looks fantastic, the articulation is great, I really love the figure altogether.

This Eel does use different lower arms with the more familiar Eel gauntlets that differentiate it from Torpedo somewhat, which makes a nice difference. This immediately makes this figure resemble the original Eel much more tightly, even though it was a very minor tooling addition. It's small things like this that immediately make the Anniversary such a nice, viable option. Between heads, upper arms, lower arms, torsos, upper and lower legs, and even feet and hands, there is so much customizing and tweaking potential that various combinations of figures can have many successful results. This is a perfect example of that.

The new head sculpt used here is a work of art as well, using the wetsuit texture, but sculpted into a full facemask that the Eel helmet fits over. The COBRA Eel gets some nastiness right then and there, and also blends in well with other COBRA Troops. It also gives the Eel a bit more flexibility for land use, which is always nice. The existing tooling Hasbro used for the figure is fantastic, and all of the new parts are great, too. A nearly perfect combination gives us a nearly perfect figure. Very, very cool.

Of course all of these tooling additions and changes would mean little without the right color choices, and the color choices are terrific. Of course they're all based on the vintage color scheme, and that color scheme is just incredible with a great mix of gray, black, and red. The bright silver COBRA logo on his chest is a great top-off, too. Such a great color scheme covering a great figure.

While the accessories that the original Eel came with left him somewhat limited to land use, you cannot argue that they were very nicely detailed and designed. The almost jet pack nature of his scuba pack was really great, and that is translated perfectly here. I love the removable helmet Eel comes with, too, and with actual glass goggles to boot. A nice touch! He's got his familiar spear gun, flippers and all the bells and whistles. I'm still a bit on the fence about the shoulder pads, as they do kind of stick out of the figure a bit too much and don't really flow with the rest of the figure. Still, that's a somewhat minor complaint in the grand scheme of things. Beyond this slight complaint, the figure is great, the accessories are awesome, the paint details are perfect. You can't get much better than this. Wave 11 has been a pure pleasure to review to this point, and this figure is absolutely no different. Great stuff.




Wave 7, 2008 COBRA Flint

As every Joe fan will attest to, we've been fairly inundated with repeat characters, repeat parts, and a LOT of COBRA Troopers...more than I can shake a stick at. Where the Clone Troopers have pretty much flooded the Star Wars line, we're getting a very similar treatment with the basic COBRA "blue shirt". Part of me thinks that's cool, but part of me would like to see it happen with a figure like the Viper (a fixed version of the Viper, of course) rather than the more basic trooper, but still, army builders must be salivating at how many different various Troopers are out there. This version of Flint adds another element to the mix, and manages to fill a nice homage to the Sunbow cartoon at the same time.

I'm not going to sit here and sing the praises of getting another figure of reused parts, but if Hasbro is going to get so much mileage out of their tooling, they might as well pick some interesting combinations and figures that have some basis in the G.I. Joe mythos, which this figure does. Yet, rather than just give us another Flint, Hasbro tosses another head in the package, and the army builders can be satisfied as well.

As everyone is likely aware of by now, Flint appeared in this COBRA Trooper disguise alongside Mutt in the Weather Dominator mini-series. The rolled-up shirt sleeves and trademark COBRA Trooper uniform was used by both him and Mutt to survive behind enemy lines, at least for a short while.



By mixing up the tooling a little bit with the COBRA Trooper torso and legs, and Tiger Force Flint's head and arms, you get a pretty decent approximation of how Flint looked in those scenes, even though it's not nearly animation-accurate. Even with different strap colors and gloves instead of bare hands, this figure resembles the cartoon counterpart fairly well...well enough for me, anyway. One of the cooler things is that we got a Mutt figure in the last assortment as well, so we can actually reproduce both figures in this new disguised look!

But for those army builder fans who don't want a beret or moustache on their COBRA Trooper, each Flint figure comes with a spare Trooper head and helmet that can be easily swapped out, which gives you a unique new Trooper, complete with short sleeves and gloves. Many folks have sort of latched onto these figures as COBRA mechanics, and from a certain perspective, I think that works really well. The short sleeves are a somewhat casual look, probably not the way they would go into combat, so some sort of support role makes perfect sense. Whatever capacity you choose to use the Trooper in, it meshes with the rest of the COBRA army very well, yet has a little design difference that can be easily used to separate him from the normal ground pounders.

I already pointed out the Trooper head, and the figure also comes with a cartoon themed laser gun and the same knife that most other troopers carry in their leg sheath. We also get a unique Flint battle stand with a COBRA logo, which I think is a pretty neat little twist. But I have to ask when the heck are we going to get COBRA battle stands with two foot pegs?!? The Joes have had it for a long time now, we need them for the COBRA's too.

All in all, this figure is nothing amazing or different. Nothing new or ground-breaking, but it's a neat homage using some existing parts and gives everyone some more blood for their Trooper armies. Not bad for a swift repaint and low tooling costs.

Yo quiero un Cobra Eel!!!

yo tambien si consigue me compra uno jejeje

arro arro!!