G.I. Joe Convention 2017 Laser Viper

It seems like forever ago that we got our first glimpse of the now infamous Concept Case at JoeCon in 2012.  A showcase of canceled figures had G.I. Joe fans drooling and pressing their desperate faces to the glass all weekend long while dreaming of an alternate universe where these  toys might have actually existed.

Well, somewhere over the past five years, many of those figures have ended up seeing release.  One of the main holdouts from a fan-voted Top 10 list was Laser-Viper, and for the first time ever, at JoeCon 2017, fans everywhere (or at least fans in the greater Orlando, Florida area) got their chance to own them.

The Collectors Club didn’t just release a Laser Viper either, they released a full blown trio of Laser Vipers, mostly mimicking the build from the concept case from so many years ago.

G.I. Joe: Resolute Duke provides the torso, with 30th Anniversary Sci-Fi arms and what almost look to be Rise of COBRA legs.  The combination works really well, approximates the vintage (and concept case) look nicely and gives us a great update to the 1990 COBRA roster.  The parts are pretty next generation so the sculpting is great and the articulation works nicely.  Colors here are a bit more muted than they were for the concept case version, but they still work really well.  A combination of gray, blue and silver gives us just what we’re looking for in these updates to the COBRA laser specialists.

Accessories

One thing we didn’t get that many fans wanted, though were the iconic Laser-Viper backpacks.  I can understand it to a degree, after all that’s quite a bit of new tooling that would likely be required to provide them to us, but it still would have been nice.  As it stands, they come with Sci-Fi’s laser rifle and backpack, a removable helmet, and plenty of awesomeness.

Little by little we’re working our way through the most wanted concept case figures…at least the vintage rehashes.  Personally I would have loved to have seen some of the Pursuit of COBRA new concept ideas get moved forward, but I understand the fandom is much more adamant about the vintage updates, so that’s what the Club has been focusing on.  This Laser Viper does a great job as an update to the 1990 figure, and actually fleshes out some of the core troop builders for that year pretty effectively.  Thanks to the already released Range-Vipers, Night Creepers, Rock-Vipers, SAW-Vipers, we are now officially all caught up with 1990 COBRA Troopers.  Well, besides a standard color Undertow, I suppose.

Anyway, Laser Viper is a great figure and is one of the shining examples of this year’s selection of JoeCon exclusives.  Great stuff even without his laser backpack.