I don’t think I’m allowed to review one of these Target Exclusive Cobra Island figures without talking about how tough it is to track them down. I still don’t have a trooper and Baroness was the most I’ve worked to find a toy in a long time. I came close quite a few times only to be denied, but I did finally get lucky this week, so let’s take a look at The Baroness and Cobra C.O.I.L!
I was super happy to finally see this on the shelves, so that might be affecting my perception of the beauty here, but this is one of the prettiest boxes in the line. I do really like the massive canvas for the artwork. Somebody mentioned it looked a bit like the work of Nagel and I could totally see it. I do wish there was more info on the box, however. For example, I don’t know what C.O.I.L. stands for.
The set comes with a Baroness figure, a red motorcycle, two larger guns, two pistols, a knife, an alternate motorcycle helmet head, and a snake/gun thing.
The bike is an impressive piece with tons of futuristic detail and massive wheels. It looks like a street racer, but the wheels make me think it could do a little off-road work too. There is a bit of articulation in that the front wheel can turn a bit when you turn the handle bars. The handle bars are ball jointed, so it makes it easy to adjust the figure to hold the grips. The windscreen has a green tint that fades as it goes up and the screen itself can tilt slightly.
The machine guns can attach to the sides of the bike via pegs and can swivel where they attach. The kick stand does a good job holding the machine stable, but you can also balance on the rather thick wheels.
Baroness fits well on the bike and you can attach her feet at pegs near the stand for a more upright riding position or place her feet on little platforms near the wheel for a more agressive position.
I think Baroness looks better riding the bike with the helmet head because the hair prevents true looking up poses. Paint is good here, I really like the black tampo details here and there and the metallic paint on the engine. The only thing I would change is some of the shinier red plastic around the front wheel. The painted red stuff near the back wheel looks a lot better.
Destro fits on the bike and it kind of matches his color scheme. Overall, I really like this vehicle and I feel like it fits the semi-futuristic vibe that I associate with Cobra vehicles well.
The helmet has a bit of a snake motif to it which kind of makes me think of Power-Ranger helmets, but since it’s all one color it’s easy to miss.
The dagger pommel is in the shape of a hooded cobra, natch, and fits somewhat loosely into the hip sheath. I would be cautious with this accessory, especially when posing the figure on the bike, because it does slip out of the sheath.
Baroness does have two matching gold pistols, similar to Destro’s gold sidearm. They fit securely into holsters at her back and I kind of like the way the handles look back there.
The bigger guns are cast in a glossy black plastic and have a futuristic machine gun feel to them that I like, though the illustration indicates they are lasers of some kind. She can dual wield them, but I think that looks fairly awkward and she looks better holding one with two hands.
Finally, there is this robotic snake thing. It looks to me like a gun, but I suppose it could be a flame-thrower or a gas emitter. Who knows? It is amusing to me how much this reminds me of the snake from McFarlane toys’ Raw 10 line. It wraps around the arm pretty securely and has nice metalic paint and sharp techno-details. This is the kind of thing I would have loved as a kid.
Sculpting is quite beautiful and this design really plays up the snake motif with snake skin texture panels here and there. She has four raised-detail cobra symbols on the outfit and even the shoulder pads have a snake motif. Aside from the snake overkill, this feels like a very classic Baroness design to me. One thing I don’t like is that her arms don’t rest well at her sides, they kind of stick out.
I think the face is pretty much perfection and Hasbro did a great job on the glasses, making them crystal clear and thin enough to look good. The face printing works really well with the sculpt and I’m surprised at how much her eyes pop behind the glasses.
Scale- wise, she’s stands at just about six inches, so somewhat taller than I expected, right about Snake Eyes’ height.
Articulation is good, not as good as the male figures because she doesn’t have double elbows or bicep swivels, but good. Baroness has:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, elbows, hips, and ankles
- Ball and socket waist, mid-torso, neck, and head
- Swivel thighs and shoulder pads
- Double hinged knees
- Hinged neck
- Drop-down hips
- Butterfly pecs
The ankles don’t get a lot of forward movement due to the sculpting on the shin armor. The head also doesn’t get a lot of upward motion due to the long hair, even though that plastic is pretty soft. She gets good backward and side to side range of motion with the waist and mid-torso ball joints, but it’s not great moving forward and the swivel is also pretty limited. Her elbows only get a 90 degree bend.
The shoulder pads can swivel along with the shoulders, but also independently of the shoulder which allows for nice shoulder movement and the pads don’t impede articulation.
Paint is good as I really like the faceprinting and the mix of gloss and matte black with the dark gray scale sections. The one spot where I notice a problem is the application of red on some of the Cobra symbols is a little sloppy. The hair is all black, btw. I noticed I got some pink spill light on the figure in some shots, so I wanted to make sure to note that the hair is not pink at all since that was a design element in the recent video game preview.
Overall I like this set a lot and I’m very happy to get a vehicle so early in the line. I really home we see the R.A.M. cycle sooner rather than later. As a figure on her own, Baroness does have a few articulation problems, but the beautifully sculpted face and armor far outweigh my articulation quibbles. I’d love to see them add double jointed elbows and bicep swivels to the ladies. I hope Hasbro and Target work it out to get a lot more of these sets out there.
