Citizens of the world!!
Cobra Commander is getting some major mileage out of this body. First he made it out in a standard dark blue version, with an upcoming lighter blue variant coming out soon. But for Hasbro’s Pulsecon-that-wasn’t SDCC, the Commander got a gold, black and red version that pushed the pompous regality to the limit. This is Pomp and Circumstance Cobra Commander, for when he really wants to hammer home that he’s in charge and you’re not.
So essentially the body you’re getting here is something you’re familiar with if you already have a Cobra Commander in your hands. Matthew K has already given us a thorough and lovely breakdown of the standard Cobra Commander, so the articulation and movement has been covered. In brief, he moves well in the arms and legs, and is a little stiff in the torso, but nothing that ruins the overall effect.
I’ve mentioned before in many many articles that I tend to love anything that contains the mixture of red and black, and the addition of gold to those two colors always spices things up, so the color scheme of this iteration of Cobra Commander really grabbed my attention from the first time I saw it. In the interest of full and probably tiresome-at-this-point disclosure, I was not fully happy with the design of Cobra Commander when he debuted, but like most figures in the line I’ve grown accustomed to it. I don’t quite have Destro, Zartan and Baroness levels of appreciation, but I like it far more than I do the upcoming Firefly and potentially the standard Storm Shadow, so this elevator of conflicting opinions is certainly getting a workout.
The chest has a fairly ornate paint scheme and is pulled off very well. I only had two major paint issues on my figure. One seems to be standard with everybody’s figure, in that a strip of gold paint is missing along the lower left side of the abdominal section.
The other issue was a thin red smear on the gold faceplate. The gold itself is paint, so I’m not sure how I’m going to get the red off without removing the gold as well. I might have to do what I can and retouch it afterwards, I don’t know.
Cobra Commander is gussied up this time around with the addition of a cape, and thanks to all the hapless demons who prowl around in the basement of existential angst that his cape is made of “soft goods” and not plastic. If he had been bestricken—soiled, even–with a plastic cape I would have had no choice but to rip it off and fling it away into the deepest darkest dungeons. Instead, no playtime is interrupted trying to negotiate a stiff and unyielding thing draped around his shoulders.
I like that a pair of elastic cords keep the cape where it should be. I had no issue with the cape falling off or impeding his motionabilitifying. The cape is an appropriate-looking thing for someone like Cobra Commander, who is mainly made of ego and sibilance. It’s red on the inside like Dracula’s cape and has a black snakeskin design on the outside. The cape itself is forked like a snake’s tongue at the end, and drapes nice and long, for regal ground-sweeping action. Your train, sir!
Adding a cape to a bad guy not ordinarily known for a cape kind of adds a certain something to them. It’s like when the 1987 live action Masters of the Universe movie added a cape to Skeletor. Suddenly he was about 35 percent more badass. Because when you have a cape, you can turn with attitude. Regular people just “turn around,” but when badass bad guys with capes turn around, the cape takes on a life of it’s own adding a huge damn punctuation mark to their pivoting. Whenever Darth Vader turned around, it was as if his cape was fist-bumping the world.
I think what I’m saying is I’ve wanted it to be socially acceptable to wear a cape my entire life, and that Seinfeld episode spoke to me in a very deep and meaningful way.
The bulk of the accessories this Cobra Commander comes with are repeats from his standard version. You get the gun-hands, the pointer, the fist and the dictator-hand. Just like capes, the bad guy leader types should always come with at least one pointer hand. It’s not his fault, it’s everyone else’s fault, and he needs to be able to Harrison Ford point at the person that he’s blaming for everything going wrong. Dessstro, this isss all your fault. Baronesssss, you done screwed up, beeyotch. Sssstorm Ssssshadow, you have too many essessssssss in your name. Ssssshe sssssellsssss ssssssseashellssss by the sssssseassssshore. By the time he gets to the end of that sentence everybody has left the room, and the inside of his mask is coated in ssssssaliva.
The strange sword is the same, but this time he gets rid of his regular release oddball gun in favor of a gold version of his original vintage action figure laser hair dryer thing. Yes, I know, it makes no more sense than his regular gun, but this one has nostalgia going for it. I have never fully understood how that thing works or what it’s supposed to do. I don’t think he’s going to be going around committing random acts of hairdrying, so it must be a laser. A strange laser. A kind of gated laser. Does it go bazorp or bazoop?
Regardless of all that, it is a pretty cool inclusion.
He also comes with a miniature globe that he can hold perfectly in his dictator hand. It’s just the right size for pointing to a random landmass and declaring that he’s going to nuke it with his orbiting death ray. That crazy cobra Commander is always threatening nations with his death ray, wanting huge sums of money and stuff. Even though he’s…probably a billionaire, right? You can’t afford all the stuff he does without being a billionaire. He is throwing a ton of money into making death rays, crazy tanks and Android killing machines, but never runs out. Dude is loaded.
Oh, and finally, he comes with a snake staff. Now this is definitely something that should have come standard with every version of Cobra Commander. His pointing finger probably gets tired, but he’s got idiots to blame so he’s got to use something. Bam. Snake staff.
I mean, Sssssnake sssstaff.
