A huge thanks to Mysterious Stranger, who received his Sideshow Collectibles COBRA Trooper very recently, and took some time this weekend to snap some pictures and write up a GREAT review of this figure.
Sideshow is sure making it hard for us armybuilders. Their first nameless soldier out of the chute is the infamous blueshirt Cobra Trooper and man would I like to have a few more of this guy. From the scowling face to the detailed boots, this figure is literally head to toe awesome. He is lacking very slightly in the accessory department but I’ll get to that in a minute. Overall though he’s a great figure and I’ll tell you why.
I didn’t take any pictures of the packaging. If you’ve seen a Sideshow 12″ figure in the last couple of years and the G.I. Joe figures specifically you know what you’re getting. Magnetic flap opening. Tray for the gear and tray for the figure. Awesome ARAH inspired box art with filecard on the back. Collector friendly and display worthy for you MIBers. Same old same old and it works incredibly well…
Click the “Read the rest of this entry” link below to read the full review and see a bunch of great images.
Over at Hisstank.com familiar pre-production fan Rulz has come up with the entire third wave of upcoming Alpha vehicles, and has kindly posted a number of images of said vehicles. The assortment includes the Polar Sharc Sub w/ Ice Storm, the Cobra Lava Pod w/ Volcano Viper, and the Tiger Claw ATV w/ Leatherneck. Personally, for as much as I love the Rise of COBRA, I do feel like the vehicles have been somewhat lacking, especially the Alpha class stuff. While the Snarler and the Skysweeper were both pretty cool, I’m not wild about the Rockslide, the Molepod, or the Cobra Snake Trax. Now, only in the third wave, we’ve got another Molepod, and another ATV Ferret repaint, with a Rockslide repaint coming with Dusty in Wave 4. It’s getting a bit silly. Dealing with repaints and mixed tools in the figure line is one thing, but paying $18 for repaint vehicles 2 months after they were released the first time is really pushing it.
But as mixed as I am on the vehicles, the figures are actually looking pretty damn good. I love the Rollbar and Air Raid from the Snarler and Sky Sweeper. Ice Storm and Volcano Viper both really kick ass, too. I even think the upcoming Dusty looks spectacular.
But this post is about Wave 3 isn’t it? :shifty:
The Polar Sharc Sub actually looks really neat, so I think that one is a home run all around. Ice Storm is an awesome looking new figure and new character to boot. The Volcano Viper has some serious potential, but I really didn’t dig the Molepod the first time around, I especially don’t dig the Lavapod repaint. I will say the Tiger Claw looks a lot cooler than the Snake Trax, though…but Leatherneck doesn’t offer a whole lot of new stuff to love, even in the jungle camo. Maybe I’ll let the images speak for themselves.
Notpicard keeps the 25th Anniversary unreleased goodness coming, giving us some great pictures of not only the already seen Python Patrol Tele-Viper, but also rounding off the full compliment of Python Patrol figures with the Trooper as well! Like the Tiger Force Roadblock, the Python Trooper is one we hadn’t seen a sniff of before now, and hadn’t even gotten any rumors about either. It seems interesting that all of these subteam remnants are leaking out there, perhaps they were originally planned as some sort of series of exclusives. Obviously the Tiger Force Roadblock was slated as part of Wave 15 (at least that’s the hypothesis based on silhouettes), but it does seem interesting that two Python Patrol figures not seen anywhere have suddenly shown up around the same time as the Roadblock.
Curiouser and curiouser…
Anyway, check out the original thread on JoeIntel, or you can check out the images below that they’ve graciously allowed me to mirror. You know…I’ve spent my fair time sorta slamming the Anniversary concept, or at least complaining about it’s repetetive nature in comparison to the Rise of COBRA and Pursuit of COBRA, at least from my own perspective. But you know, even though I much prefer the new over the rehashed, I can’t help but get a silly smile on my face when I see those Python Patrol guys in a group shot down there. That looks pretty bad ass, and in a way, I’m sorry those never made it to retail.
Granted, I’ll take the Pursuit of COBRA awesomeness over garish neon repaints of already-flawed tooling any day of the week, but those figures would still look pretty neat on display.
notpicard, the lucky Joefan who got his hands on an unreleased Training Snake Eyes figure has come through again with another gem, this one quite possibly more desirable than the last. Through sources known only to him, he was able to get a full paint sample test shot of the unreleased Tiger Force Roadblock! This long rumored figure was originally thought to come as a single pack in Wave 15 (judging by silhouettes on the back of Wave 14 carded samples).
Until now, however, no actual samples had ever been seen. Well, thanks to notpicard and the guys at JoeIntel, we can now get our first glimpse at this figure…check out the thread here, or the images I’ve been allowed to mirror below!
One has to wonder that if he managed to get this figure, what else is out there in unreleased form? Some of the rumored Python Patrol figures perhaps? I, for one, look forward to the revelations!
The latest G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club newsletter is hitting mailboxes, and reports are coming in that the first assortment of Pursuit of COBRA figures is shown in full color glory inside! Due to copyright reasons the GIJCC images will not be mirrored here, however I’ve linked the figures below to pictures gathered from JoeCon 2009:
It’s not exactly clear what assortments are what, or when these will be released, though I’d imagine we’ll see them before years end, which rocks my world! Of course, don’t forget to hit up the Pursuit of COBRA SuperPage for the lowdown on everything…
One of the coolest things I saw from JoeCon photos in August had to have been this item. An Alpha Class vehicle that was a bad ass motorcycle that also turns into a suit of killer robot power armor?!? I mean, come on. How can that go wrong?
Well, Gyre-Viper from HissTank.com got his hands on a test shot, and early reports aren’t real encouraging. Sounds like the parts and pieces aren’t real sturdy and he wasn’t all that impressed. Of course keep in mind his is a test shot, and there’s a distinct possibility things will be a whole lot sturdier in final form.
I actually really like the figure, too. I thought Wraith was a pretty nice Anniversary figure (fragile arm cables aside) that got an undeservedly bad rap. The Wraith armor fits in seamlessly with the Rise and Pursuit of COBRA theme, so this looks pretty neat to me. The new head sculpt sells it, too.
Anyway, Gyre-Viper was cool enough to snap a ton of pics of his new acquisition, which I’m mirroring below. I’ll judge for sure once I get it in hand. It certainly looks pretty awesome, I think, but I’m a guy who likes playing with his toys, so we’ll have to see where it goes from there.
It takes a lot of guts to emulate a timeless comic like Watchmen, especially when it comes to the fifth issue, but the guys at IDW, Mike Costa specifically, sought out to do just that when telling the tale of Tomax and Xamot in the G.I. Joe: COBRA Special, which was officially released yesterday (though I reviewed an advanced copy over a week ago). A few sites across the web have done reviews of this issue, and the results have been glowing. Check out some links below.
The guys at G.I. Joe Review have posted their latest episode of the G.I. Joe Review Podcast, including an interview with Herb Trimpe! Plus the guys review G.I. Joe #50 including the preview of Special Missions.
You can listen to the latest episode via the integrated MP3 player now:
All of the pertinent info (subscription links, discussion links, etc…) can be found below:
I’ve been a bit behind posting some news updates as I had to go through a marathon 25 hour laptop upgrade project for work over the past two days, but hopefully I’ll start catching up. First order of business is that for longtime Joe fans who are in love with the vintage look, Sideshow Collectibles continues to put out exceedingly impressive product. In the past two weeks, reports have come of the COBRA Trooper shipping to folks who ordered it, and just yesterday a poster at HissTank reported that Storm Shadow arrived!
These items are pricey, but they are fantastic, in my humble opinion. I’ve only had a chance to pick up Snake Eyes so far, but if he is any indication of the quality of these items, vintage fans are going to have a pretty sweet display shelf of 12″ greatness coming forward. In a recent Q & A, Sideshow even confirmed that they have a Battle Helmet version of COBRA’s notorious Commander in the works! Anyway, if you’ve missed out on any of this stuff, you haven’t necessarily missed the boat. Both items are currently sold out, but Sideshow’s wait list has given collectors some great second chances in the past. Click the banners below to get on the list for the COBRA Trooper and the Storm Shadow!