I’ve already covered the MASS Device Battle Pack, and I mentioned in that review that the Revenge of COBRA Battle Pack was heads and shoulders better, even without any drastically new characters or new concepts.  What Hasbro manages to do is to take some familiar stalwarts and give them new life with some minor cosmetic changes that make a big difference.

Once again, I apologize for the lack of my own pictures, but with my camera difficulties these days, the folks at YoJoe.com were kind enough to let me use their stuff.

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First we’ll talk about Roadblock, who really gets the least changes, and is definitely my least favorite figure of the set, even with his minor animated color alteration.

The figure itself uses the same tooling as the original, which is kind of unfortunate.  Roadblock had a lot of potential with this new body style, but his arms and hands are still somewhat unposeable and twisted in very specific poses that make them almost useless for most functions.  If they took this figure and gave him some new arms and hands, it would make a huge difference.  As it is, he looks okay, but is somewhat useless beyond  holding a machine gun.

Roadblock doesn’t come with many weapons, primarily just a knife, but he also comes with a set of the familiar creeper vines that hook onto his battle stand and wrap him up like the scene we all remember from the Revenge of COBRA mini-series.  It’s an interesting accessory to add, but I’m not sure how useful it is beyond this little scene.  All in all, the figure gets a relatively mediocre 4/10 from me.  The animated colors are nice, but there isn’t a whole lot more to rave about.

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But things get considerably better from here.

Lady Jaye has been a popular and familiar character ever since her debut in 1985, but she has never gotten the definitive version that is immediately familiar with how her character has been most portrayed.  That changes here, as we get a version of Lady Jaye without her baseball cap, with the wavy brown hair, and with the darker green pants.

She’s got a very nice removable holster with pistol, but the shining point of this figure’s accessory compliment is her newly tooled backpack with removable javelins.  That has been a staple of the character for over twenty years and we finally get what we’ve been waiting for.

The javelins are a bit thin, wiry and feel somewhat fragile, but they look terrific and are a great addition to the figure.  From the colors, the accessories, to the newly tooled head, this is the Lady Jaye we’ve been waiting for, and I’m thrilled that we got it in this set.  Now we just need a Flint to go along with her.  8/10.

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Now as cool as Lady Jaye is, she still isn’t my favorite figure in this set…it’s a very close call, but ultimately the Destro we get here is pretty much the best version of the character that we have ever gotten, perfectly resembling the cartoon version.

At first I thought the Destro we got in the 5-Pack was the ultimate version we could get, but Hasbro made some critical changes to the figure that really makes this version of Destro as great as it can be, and fully resembles the cartoon version.

The most important change is making the battle mask chrome, which is a very cool change and looks awesome in the Anniversary format.  A lot of the rest of the figure is pretty much a straight re-release, but there are red bits of trim here and there, and these awesome gray boots that are straight out of Sunbow.

Destro comes with the same pistol that he originally came with, but the biggest additional “accessory” (if you can call it that) is the excellent Weather Dominator that comes with the set.  I’ll talk about that next.  For Destro himself, I’d give him a very solid 9/10, pretty much the perfect version of this character.  I keep hoping maybe we’ll get some non-mangled hands with one of these releases, but no luck so far.

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Of course I mentioned the Weather Dominator itself, too.  There isn’t a whole lot to talk about, it just looks great.  It breaks into three pieces just like the cartoon and it’s a terrific sculpt as well.  A very cool additional piece that is a worthwhile substitute to getting a fourth figure in the set.  It also hooks to the MASS Device console, too, which is a nice bonus.

All in all, the Revenge of COBRA Battle Pack is an awesome set, especially for the price (considering a DVD and MASS Device piece are all included).  Some great, definitive versions of some critical characters with just enough new tooling and new paint to make it worthwhile.  I’m very much looking forward to seeing more DVD Battle Packs come down the pipe.