Sideshow Collectibles - Desert Cobra Officer and Cobra Sniper a guest review by Mysterious Stranger
Chris here with a double shot review of two of the latest Sideshow Collectibles 12” G.I. Joe figures. This time I’m looking at the Cobra Desert Sniper and Cobra Desert Officer. I’m reviewing these two together since they are essentially the same basic figure with just a few distinct differences.
The difficult thing about doing these reviews is coming up with new ways to say “this figure rocks”. The quality and consistency of the Sideshow G.I. Joe line is really incredible and makes for a great product. But it also makes it hard to discuss the figures without being repetitive. That becomes even harder when the figures being reviewed are basic “repaints” of figures we’ve already received, in this case the Cobra Trooper. But if this was easy everyone would be doing it so here we go…
I’ve already reviewed the Cobra Officer and Cobra Sniper so you can check out those reviews for all the basic details. The Cobra Desert Officer and Cobra Desert Sniper are “repaints” but that doesn’t mean they are throw away figures.
Both figures use the same style uniform as their initial offerings only this time everything is done in a desert theme. The basic Cobra BDUs look really good in the desert tan and the red Cobra sigils on the chest and left shoulder really pop against this lighter color. The helmets both sport the “officer” chevron in black and there also is some weathering on the helmets to add a lived in and used look. The “battle damage” is nothing more than a few swipes of a metal color to make it look like the paint has been scraped off but it adds some realism to the helmet. As desert troops you’d expect their gear to have a little more wear and tear due to the elements they are exposed to and the wear on the helmet shows it.
The Desert Officer has the red mask and comes with the same gear as his blueshirt brother. The web gear appears to have been tweaked since that initial offering but my regular Officer is boxed up at the moment so I can’t do a comparison. Any changes that may have been made are minor and don’t stand out at all. It just feels like it fits the figure better. I have to say that I really prefer the web gear in this desert color as opposed to the blueshirt Officer’s mustard yellow. The darker brown just flows better with this figure than the yellow does against the blue.
As I said he comes with the same gear as the blueshirt Officer with one notable addition – goggles. The goggles have an elastic strap that fits over the helmet and matches the desert coloring of everything else. I have to say I’m a bit disappointed in the fit of the goggles over the eyes. The photos on the box show the goggles going over the helmet and sliding down over the eyes but I couldn’t get this configuration to look right at all. I shot a few pictures but none looked good so I left them out. You might have better luck than I did but for me the goggles resting on the helmet looks just fine.
The Desert Sniper, like the Officer, has the same gear as his blackshirt counterpart. I really like the black uniform of the regular Sniper but the desert version looks pretty solid too. Something about the way the tans and browns blend together just works really well. While I’d have preferred a camo pattern for the uniforms I can absolutely live with the plain tan color. There are enough darker browns in the kneepads, boots and web gear to break up the tan.
What really stands out to me about the Sniper is the sniper rifle. Very similar to the sniper rifle that has been associated with Cobra since 1982, this rifle was a favorite of mine in the original black. Getting it again with a desert camo paint job just ups the coolness of this weapon and adds a real world feel to it.
One last thing I want to talk about is the figure stand. Somewhere around Beachhead’s release Sideshow switched from the around the waist clip to the between the legs clip that Hot Toys has been using for some time. At first I didn’t care for this new clip but I’ve found that it works a lot better than the waist clip. It’s still adjustable and holds the figure well.
The interesting thing about these figure stands is that the desert figures (Dusty included) come with a rubber “sand” piece that lays over the round base. This piece is easily removable and adds a great little bit of diversity to the display of the figures.
The Cobra Desert Officer and Sniper add some nice diversity to the Cobra ranks and give Dusty some appropriate opponents to face off against in your bookshelf battles. But honestly these aren’t “must-haves” unless you are collecting the whole line like me or really like desert troops. If you’re looking for one Cobra soldier to add to your collection then I’d suggest tracking down the Blueshirt. But if you want something a little bit different and more real-world in design and execution then these guys will fit the bill nicely. 4 out of 5 stars.
GRADE: 
