G.I. Joe: Resolute - Cobra Commander

As much as I love these Resolute sets, I do have to come to the conclusion that no, they're not perfect...there are some sculptural issues scattered throughout, there are some tooling dollars that I would have probably rather seen allocated elsewhere, and it's quite obvious that someone in marketing had their hands in here, too (as they usually do) considering a pair of sets geared just for collectors still has Duke, Snake Eyes, and Cobra Commander.

Duke I can forgive. The Arctic Duke is a great figure, and I love having a toy representation of the character in that particular environment, since that was so central to the animation.

Snake Eyes is less forgivable. Sure, they improved his color scheme to be more animation-accurate, but besides some minor paint changes and a shorter sword for his sheath, there isn't much to write home about.

However with Cobra Commander... the inclusion of Cobra Commander almost makes me angry. I mean, I understand why Hasbro Marketing probably felt the need to include him, but as a set for fans, shoe horning him in there (instead of maybe even another Alley-Viper!) really torques me off. They barely even changed him from the normal retail release over a year ago. Sure, he now has a pretty kick ass snake-head knife, but honestly, couldn't they have just included the knife and left out the figure? For a set that is geared so strongly for the collector crowd, this just seems like sort of a jerk move, and it's only all the more glaring because so much of these sets are so strong that this sticks out even more as a sore thumb.

Sculpturally, the figure looks remarkably similar to the original Cobra Commander. The helmet and head almost look just a bit on the larger side, but beyond that the figure is pretty much identical. Annoyingly identical. Let's face it, at this point, with the Pursuit of Cobra leading right up to Renegades, our chances of getting more Resolute product is pretty slim, it just really bugs me that a slot was taken up by a duplicate figure when we could have gotten another troop builder or something.

As I mentioned, the snake knife is actually pretty cool. Last seen jutting from the corpse of Major Bludd, I like the idea of Cobra Commander having a distinct weapon of choice, I just am a little annoyed that we end up getting saddled with yet another version of this character after having being inundated with him during the Anniversary line...not to mention his near identical deco.

Again, perhaps it's because I love the rest of these sets so much (well most of them, anyway) that this stings all the more. But for whatever reason, I really dislike Cobra Commander's inclusion here, and am hopeful that Hasbro does somehow find a way to get more Resolute product out there so he doesn't end up filling a hole that could have been used for a different character or trooper.

All told, this figure is still a nice one. I liked it with the 25th Anniversary line, and I like it now. But having this figure in this set is annoying at best and it's a decision I really wish they hadn't made.

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