There isn’t a whole lot of new G.I. Joe product to captivate fans these days, but high end statue maker Prime One Studios has some pretty fantastic looking items coming out, including an amazing statue of Destro, the enemy weapons supplier.
These pieces aren’t cheap, but they’d make for a great conversation piece, and Destro is now available for Pre-Order at Sideshow Collectibles. Check out some of the images below.
Two more 2017 convention reviews under my belt today as we cover the Laser-Viper three pack as well as the COBRA Sky Serpent w/ Laser Viper Officer.
Peeled from the Concept Case, the Laser Viper has been a highly desirable figure from the fandom for a while… how does the final version measure up?
Check out the reviews below!
Sky Serpent
Now this was a very pleasant surprise. As one of the biggest G.I. Joe: Renegades fans on the planet, I long for more opportunities for Renegades toys of any kind and the Black Dragon helicopter was one of my favorite vehicles in recent years. Yes, compared to how it was utilized on the show it was far too small, but it was sleek, had an awesome design, and some pretty fun play features at that.
This version of the Black Dragon is colored in a lighter COBRA blue and red and named the Sky Serpent. It’s not often we get truly new concepts as convention vehicles, and I’m glad to see this one, it’s a great looking aircraft and it looks pretty awesome in blue.
Like the original, the Sky Serpent has great swing-back wings with rotating VTOL rotors, an opening canopy and a button mechanism that opens bomb bays on the bottom and drops bombs. The play features aren’t super advanced, but they are fun. While many folks complain about the size of the vehicle as well, I actually enjoy it as it makes it easier to handle and fly around one-handed. It’s a solidly built vehicle with a fantastic design aesthetic and great looking paint applications. I really like it, and I like that the Club has at least somewhat developed a battle foil for the Conquest. I can see the Conquest and the Sky Serpent in a pitched dogfight (although the lack of air-to-air missiles might hurt the Sky Serpent’s chances a little).
Laser Viper Officer
This one was another surprise from the Convention. Not based on any real pre-existing character (though the color scheme seems somewhat Shadow-Viper like from the 2002 Real American Hero Collection) the Laser Viper Officer was released as a pseudo pilot for the Sky Serpent, and honestly he is an amazing looking figure.
The great Laser Viper parts build combined with this really cool dark blue and red paint scheme gives us an excellent addition to the COBRA roster, and a nice new commander for the Laser Viper corps. I’m a bit conflicted as I would have loved to have seen some inspiration from the 2001 Laser Viper (based on the 1991 Sci-Fi) though taking some of the aesthetics from the Shadow Viper makes a certain amount of sense as well, I suppose, even if the Shadow Viper was an Astro Viper, not a Laser Viper.
How many times can I type the word “Viper” in this review?
At any rate, while this figure isn’t one I would have expected, I find myself really enjoying the build and colors. His crazy laser gun (from the Rise of COBRA Sgt. Flash figure, I believe) is neat as well.
Accessories
As mentioned, this figure comes with a removable helmet and huge laser gun, as well as technically coming with the Sky Serpent as well. Not a ton of accessories, but pretty good ones nonetheless.
I’m leery about buying vehicles these days, mostly because I don’t really have the space for them, but the Sky Serpent is a pretty awesome little COBRA aircraft, and the Laser Viper Officer is one heck of a cool looking pilot to boot. Greatly overshadowed by most of the BattleForce: 2000 elements, this little cadre of Laser Vipers has been a real pleasure to check out in hand and I think will end up commanding some serious interest down the road.
Summary
A great updated Black Dragon with a rocking new paint scheme and a new COBRA field commander both mix together to give us a pretty neat addition to the 2017 G.I. Joe Convention set. These vehicles aren’t cheap, but in this case, it’s a fun looking piece with a great looking pilot and may be worth trying to track down.
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.
Summary
Concept Case update? Check. Great selection of modern parts? Check. Finishing off the roster of 1990 COBRA Troopers? Check. Mix in some great paint apps and pretty decent accessories (though the laser backpack would have been even better) gives us a great new figure. His mixture with the BattleForce: 2000 story is questionable, but he’s a great figure and I’m glad the Club got him out there.
What a final day for the latest Marauder Kickstarter! I was already intrigued by this Kickstarter at launch, merely because the Exo-Suit looked so cool, and I was definitely on the hook for a few of the Contract Ops figures.
The K-9 ended up impressing me more than I thought it would, and then when news got out that they would be making Agency-Ops figures as a part of this deal? Yeah, I knew I was on board.
Whether or not we’d even hit Agency Ops was still in question leading to the last day. It was a stretch goal at the $214,000 $172,000 level, which felt a bit out of reach with 24 hours remaining. But everyone came together, and we ended up smashing that goal, the Kickstarter rounding off at nearly $218,000!
Huge congrats to the always great folks at Marauder for another successful Kickstarter, and a big thanks to Tommy over on the Marauder Task Force Facebook Page who whipped up a spectacular graphic outlining what would be contained in the “All In” pledge level (this is essentially everything that got unlocked during the Kickstarter).
This is a great look at more terrific additions to an already impressive product line. Marauder continues to reinvent 1:18 scale military action figures, and I can’t wait to get my hands on some of these and to see what’s still up their sleeves.
