When new Marvel Legends were revealed at the 2015 New York Comic Con, most people were pooping themselves over the reveal of a proper ’90s-era Jim Lee Rogue — and with good reason. Most people who look at ToyBiz’s first attempt at a Jim Lee Rogue end up turning to stone. However, my own excremental explosion occurred at the sight of Cottonmouth, a member of the Serpent Society.
The Serpent Society is a niche group of snake-themed villains who are colorful, wacky, and pop up fairly often. They’re not a group I held out much hope for, but it’s a new day in Marvellegendstown, and it appears that in this new day we’re living in, Hope isn’t just a figure from way back in the Terrax Wave. Anybody has a chance. I actually believe that. Well … more or less.
I was floored, flummoxed, and flabbergasted by Cottonmouth’s appearance. Could this be the beginning of a slow trickle of Serpent Society members? Even if there’s one every handful of waves, that’s more than over a dozen years of Legends have managed so far. Hasbro has shown some determination towards filling in various teams lately, so maybe the Serpent Society is next.
If that is a possibility, I took a look at the SS roster and tried to narrow down the top five Serpent Society figures I’d want after Bitey McLongjaw made it out. It wasn’t easy, but here’s what I came up with. In alphabetical order so nobody will feel left out:
Anaconda
I have one thing in common with Indiana Jones other than rogueish good looks: I hate snakes. So everyone on this list is guaranteed to have a high creep factor. The Serpent Society has had a pretty high amount of females in their ranks, but none are so freakin’ creepy as Anaconda. She’s got those long, stretched-out, grabby snake arms that are just wrong in all the right ways, and getting a figure with a pair of long, bendy arms would be fantastic. Recently Squeeeze from the masters of the Universe Classics line showed us how cool that effect could be. Anaconda is a … rather large girl, so she’d be on the larger female body. Maybe they can fix those hips while they’re at it.
Cobra
Cobra is great for a Society member and as a standalone, and he also works great with a potential Mr. Hyde figure (who I have to believe has a decent enough chance to having a figure at some point in the line), so he fills in a lot of boxes. Plus, he’s got a great look, either in his regular look or his King Cobra days when he was running the Society. Cobra would make a great figure and probably has the best chance out of everybody to get a figure. He’s been pretty high on my want list for a while, so if he can ride the Serpent coattails and get a figure out of it, then that would be super.
Death Adder
Where does 2+2 equal dead? With a Death Adder. I’ll get my hat. But yeah, the Adder is my personal favorite out of all the Society members. With those bold, decidedly un-snakelike colors, those cool claws, and that spiky tail, he just hits all the right notes for me. Death Adder has died and come back and died so often I don’t know where he stands, and I don’t care. All you have to do is look at him to see how cool he’d be as an action figure.
Puff Adder
Where does 2+2 equal bloated? Yeah, I don’t know, it doesn’t work twice. Puff Adder is the thick dude on the team, and he would make good use of a new body specifically designed for some larger guys, like Iron Clad, D-man, or other people that need to be thicker than other figures. Classic Thanos, even. See? Plenty of uses for that body.
Sidewinder
Sidewinder was the leader of the pack for a while, and you can’t have a good group of serpents without the nest-leader. Snakes have nest-leaders, right? Whatever, I’m not a snake expert, mainly because they’re creepy legless bastards. But Sidewinder would have to be made in order to have a decent Serpent Society. With the other four and Cottonmouth, that would make a great six-figure display of serpents to face-off against Captain America or anybody else. We’re close to flavor country here, people, and everything is just a ComicCon away from reality.
Honorable mention to Golobulus. Wait, no, I mean Bushmaster.
He’s the one with the human torso but the bionic snake tail for the rest of him. There’s nothing uncreepy about any of that. He would be in the top five if I didn’t think the chances of Hasbro making a fully articulated lower snake-tail section had about as much of a chance of happening as an Ultron figure that wasn’t a random figure painted silver.
