The G.I. Joe Classified line is jumping into to the Cobra-La end of the G.I. Joe pool with their SDCC exclusive “Once a Man” Cobra Commander. I happen to enjoy the bizarre bio-organic bent of these crazy Cobra creatures and I feel like the Classified line will be able to pack the carapaces and scales of the Cobra-La characters with tons of crunchy texture detail, so I’ve been looking forward to see what they do. Cobra Commander is our first real taste of that, so let’s take a look!
The box has a very cool illustration on the cover that is lenticular and switches between CC’s three forms as well as giving us a look at main Cobra-La characters Golobulus and Nemesis. There is a clear slipcover that adds Cobra Commander’s oft-repeated “I was once a man!” quote to the back of the box which is basically the non-lenticular version of the front illustration. There’s also a little action scene showing Cobra Commander captured rendered on the inside opening flap. It is kind of interesting that they rendered him in his pre-mutated form for this box.
Cobra Commander comes with four hands (two fists, two trigger, one pointing , one open) two heads (snake and helmet), a knife, a gun, a pack, a faceplate, and a snake form figure.
The hands are re-use and fit securely into the sockets and swap easily. There’s a nice variety that lends to a lot of Cobra Commander histrionic gesticulating. The weapons fit well in the weapon hands and I do like seeing fists included with every figure. I do wish they had included a pair of mutated snake claws for the main body to amp up the monstrous feel of the mutating commander.
The knife fits well in the thigh sheathe and the hair-dryer style blaster in the holster on the back pack.
The pack is
I think they could have got away with skipping the weapons and pack for this version of Cobra Commander since in the show he’s already captured when turned into a mutant, but I like the option to put him in scenarios other than just re-enacting the movie.
The mask is kind of neat to get just for the long history of mystery around Cobra Commander’s helmet it’s fun to see the technology on the interior of the mask. The mutated head has a beautifully hideous visage with lots of different shapes of scales, a multitude of mismatched eyes, and a huge row of mouth scales that feel like his teeth are in the midst of transforming into the mouth scales. He’s perfectly disgusting, though I would love it if he was sculpted with an open mouth as it would be perfect for screaming his oft-repeated line.
The snake form is also a lot of fun and takes the design from the cartoon and amps it up in scaley detail. He’s sculpted in a bit of a curl so he can wrap around a figure, though since there isn’t any articulation other than swivels in the arms, you are stuck with one pose. A swivel at the waist would have helped with that.
Sculpting is phenomenal on this figure. The retro CC is a great looking figure and this one re-uses the head and waist down from that body with a brand new scaley torso with a ripped shirt overlay. That figure with this paint on the helmet has a great cartoon CC feel. The shirt can come off easily and it’s pretty cool that they went so far as to paint the same snake pattern on the back of his mid-transformation body as the almost final form. Again the scales are a pretty close approximation of the cartoon look with added depth, detail and general awesome. It’s not exact, since the movie version had a scaley crotch and a scaley leg and while I would have liked a new lower leg part, but I can live without the scaled crotch piece. The shirt is slightly thicker than I’d like, but I like the overall effect and I almost want to use this guy as my regular CC. He’s just cool.
Paint is pretty nice since he’s got a bit of shading on the mutated scales on the head and some nice color separation on the scales. I do wish that wash on the snake head was on the rest of the body. Articulation moves pretty well with a nice range of motion from the waist, lower neck, and head ball joints. Cobra Commander has:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, hips, wrists, and ankles
- Ball and socket head, neck, and waist
- Swivel biceps, ankles, and thighs
- Hinged mid-torso, drop-down hips, and pectoral butterfly joints
I also like the range of forward motion on the ankles though the head movement is slightly hindered on the helmeted head as it can bump up against the ripped shirt. He can look up pretty well with the snake head even though he doesn’t have my preferred hinge joint.
Overall, I love this figure a lot. He’s super-poseable with beautiful sculpting and packed with fun accessories. It’s almost too good to just be used for this one-off scene and I need to imagine some scenarios to use him more.
I do think he’s similarly mutated when they de-snake him the first DIC cartoon miniseries, so maybe this is what he looks like outside of the battle armor. It’s also making me jones for more Cobra-La themed stuff to use with him and I cannot wait to get my hands on Nemesis Immortal see how they execute Golobulus, Pythona, and the Royal Guards. I have not seen an official announcement of when he goes up on sale, but since the Legends figure is scheduled for 8/5 at 7PM ET, I would imagine this CC will follow suit.
EDIT: Hasbro announced that he and the other SDCC exclusives were going up 8/5 at 1PM ET for Pulse Premium Members and 2PM for everyone.
