The first Cobra Island Trooper and the subsequent Cobra Infantry figure variant are a couple of my favorite figures in the Classified line and I always liked the female Cobra on the old cartoon, so I was very pleased to see female versions of the trooper announced. I was also happy to see these ship a little earlier than scheduled too. Let’s take a look at the Cobra Valkyries two-pack!
The box is windowless and features a digitally rendered moody scene of two troopers on guard duty in a Cobra Castle. There’s also a fun little Easter egg of a mind-controlled Junkyard from the old cartoon episode Cobra’s Creatures in the deep background. The painted portrait of the duo graces an insert on the front, the side, and the tray for the figures themselves. I’m really enjoying the look of these, especially the hint of a story and atmosphere you get from the rendered scenes, and I’m curious to see how they move forward with plastic packaging in the future. I’m hoping the cool little story render can go on the back of the box.
The set comes with two figures and a ton of stuff including tan and black versions of: two rifles with removeable magazines, two pistols, a knife, and a backpack. There are three different heads and two different types of helmet as well as nine blast effects.
The knife is a tiny little thing that fits in the sheathe on the figure’s shoulder straps. The hands can be stretched out a bit by the guns, so they hold the knife somewhat loosely, but it fits solidly in the sheathe and I haven’t had an issue with them falling out. I do appreciate that they painted the blade silver, it makes the blunted blades feel a bit sharper to me than a solid black or tan knife.
The pistols are solid black or tan plastic and fit securely in belt or leg holsters. They have a nice crisp feeling to the sculpting and can fit the blast effects. It almost feels like the holsters should have a hole at the bottom so the guns could insert deeper in there.
The rifles are similarly sharp as the pistols and have removeable clips that stay in securely. The bigger one has a squared-off barrel with lines on it that remind me a bit of the earlier laser-gun vibes of the original Cobra Trooper weapons in classified. I think my favorite is the smaller machine gun as it reminds me of the rifle they used in the cartoon often.
The backpack has a very modern military feel to it and includes two pegs where you can attach the rifles. They can attach facing either direction, but seem to fit better with the magazines pointing away from the body. The nice thing about this pack is it the most solidly attached backpack I’ve noted in the line so far.
There are three heads, two with different eye portraits and a third gas-mask/goggle face version. There are three helmets including two regular trooper helmets and one with the V officer symbol. I think the officer helmet has a bit of a Darth Vader flare to it and looks best with the goggles and gas-mask face. I do like that the angry eyes do have different sculpting and aren’t just straight repaints.
The blast effects can plug into the barrels of all the guns, however the longer rifle also has a grenade launcher secondary barrel that can only fit the long skinny blast effects due to interference from the main barrel. These are the same effects from the Viper pack and some can be combined together. I didn’t notice until writing this up that some of the blast effects in the photos aren’t pushed in all the way, but most do fit, but I did notice the peg on the smoke effect is a little long for the pistol.
The bodies of the two figures are the same and so are the secondary belts, straps, and holsters, they are just cast in different colors. The bodies look to me like they use some parts from the upcoming HISS tank gunner. I really like the solid build they created and the way the pants have a similar fabric texture to the male troopers. The darker sections of the upper body have an interesting textured detail panels similar to the male trooopers, however the pattern is a bit different, more dots than stripes. The right arm strap has an interesting little silver detail that I wonder if it might be a garrote wire like the loop on the original Cobra trooper’s arm in the vintage line. The overlays conform well to the body, though the belt can be a little loose.
The paint is good, but I have a couple sets and some are cleaner than others. This figure has some slop from the eye skin color on the mask and I’ve noticed that the blue of the eyes almost bleeds into the whites of the eyes on the lighter skin face. The figure with the tan belts and weapons also gets a little additional paint with tan straps on the shin and arm guards and some black details on the straps and belt.
The articulation is pretty much standard G.I. Joe Classified except instead of an ab crunch, there is a mid-torso ball joint in addition to the waist joint. Those don’t get quite the nice range of motion of the crunch and don’t move quite as nicely as Zaranna’s ball joints. They are a little stiff. Otherwise articulation moves well with:
- Ball and socket head, lower neck, mid-torso, and waist
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles
- Swivel biceps, thighs, and boots
- Double-hinged knees and elbows
- Butterfly-hinged pecs
I do feel like a broken record, but again I miss the hinge at the top of the neck for looking up motion.
Overall I like these lot and they are great compliments to the original Classified Cobra troopers. The tan gear reminds me of the straps on the old early comic-book versions of the Cobra Troopers, so on one hand I really like them, but part of me wishes both figures had matching weapon and strap colors for a more uniform army. The trooper with the black equipment matches especially well with the Cobra Island trooper, so I wouldn’t mind seeing a repaint in the more blue and gray infantry color scheme at some point.
Source: Fwoosh
