G.I. Joe: The Pursuit of Cobra Snake Eyes (Jungle Battle)

Ummm…when the first three letters that come into my head when I’m preparing to write a review are “W”, “T”, and “F”, that’s probably not a good sign.  And I will freely admit that those were the first three letters in my head even BEFORE we knew he had his infamous “tornado kick” action.

From day one there was just something screwy about this figure.  He started off with the very cool Resolute head sculpt, but just went totally sideways from there.  Where nearly every Pursuit of Cobra figure was pulled directly from awesome futuristic military action, Snake Eyes was layered in a bizarre conglomeration of weird battle armor and oddly layered clothing.  Just like the Desert Battle Snake Eyes inexplicably goes into the desert wearing a parka and thick pants, this Jungle Assault Snake Eyes wades through the thick forest underbrush in three feet of battle armor, gauntlets, and random metal plates scattered throughout his body.  Seriously, what the hell is going on here?

I almost have to think that this version of Snake Eyes might have been planned for another line and was either re-purposed or reworked here for some wild and unknown reason.  Even without the spring-loaded kicking feature, this figure simply does not belong with the rest of the Pursuit of Cobra class.  There is nothing military here, there is no strong feeling of detail and sculpting here…there is only an odd spring-loaded figure crammed underneath thickly sculpted pads with more thick pads on the arms, and strange armor on the legs.  I honestly cannot make sense of any of it.  In all honesty, while I certainly have no love of spring-loaded action features on my toys, that’s not even the worst part about this Snake Eyes.  In fact, I barely think about even mentioning that, because this toy is simply no fun with or without that funky feature.  His total lack of coolness and interest is only all the more glaring among his stellar peers within the rest of the Pursuit of Cobra line.

Talking about his accessories, I immediately see something ironic.  Back during the Valor Vs. Venom days, Hasbro rocked the fandom community by releasing an awesome looking Storm Shadow as a spring-loaded monstrosity…and a later o-ring version of this same figure sported a pair of hook swords exactly like the ones we see here.  The lesson: if a figure comes with these swords, WATCH OUT.

Along with those swords, the Joe ninja comes with an assortment of other ninja gear, some of it cool, some of it not quite so cool.  His nunchaku with a real string drawn between the sticks is great.  Also I really like the bladed kata with the string as well.  The design of his strange circular blade is neat, too, though almost a little too “Klingon” for my tastes.  It’s almost shocking at how few accessories this figure comes with…there really is nothing here to make up for the action-attack or the clunky tooling throughout.

Usually I can come up with some selling point for pretty near every figure that hits retail.  Even if they’re mostly terrible, usually there will be some accessory, some small part of it that makes the figure even a little bit desirable.  That is certainly not the case here.  This figure, by and large, looks bad.  His secondary vest looks bad and hinders articulation to the extreme.  He’s got spring-loaded kicking action.  His accessories are nothing to write home about.  His paint scheme is boring.  There is literally not a single selling point I can think of for this figure, and trust me, I’ve tried. The funniest thing is, I think even without the spring-loaded kicking power, I would probably be saying the same thing. This just isn't a good figure with or without that feature.

Avoid.  Please.  For your own good.

GRADE:

Buy this figure NOW at BigBadToyStore.com!