Snake Eyes. He’s been a ninja, a commando, a poet, a pauper, a pawn and a king. He’s probably the most well-known member of the GI Joe team, and with that comes a wide variety of recognizable takes.
The initial special edition and “retail” version of Snake Eyes depicted him in something resembling his V2 design, with the knight-like visor. It was run through the update-modernizer quite a bit, but the headsculpt firmly planted it in the version 2 era. But as a follow up to that we’ve got a version that serves as an update to his Version 1 commando look, complete with a companion piece many people felt Snake Eyes wouldn’t be complete without.
Timber, Snake Eyes’ pet Timber Wolf, was included with V2 Snake Eyes after previous pet inclusions such as Junkyard with Mutt and Freedom with Spirit. Timber would join Snake Eyes in all the media of the time, from cartoon to comics. When the 6-inch Joe line began it felt like a matter of “when” and not “if” when talking about Timber.
I’ll start off the review with Snake Eyes despite the fact that Timber is almost the star of the set. Snake Eyes carries forth some reuse from previous figures. There’s the arms and torso from beach head and the legs from Duke. The shin-guards are, I think, new, with some appropriate scratching sculpted in.
The holster that debuted with the initial Snake Eyes returns here, along with the knife sheath, this time without the odd closed off opening that the earlier retail runs had.
The tactical vest is a brand new overlay that unfortunately hinders the articulation in his torso. He can still get some twist and bent at the waist with the ball joint there, but the ab crunch is effectively useless, with extremely limited give. It’s a shame to have a very well-articulated body with a major articulation point cut off on a lot of these figures, but that’s the trade-off of having to go with reuse.
The head is the centerpiece, denoting that this is indeed a take on the V1 Commando look, complete with goggles in place of his visor. It’s hard for me to say what version of Snake Eyes I’m more of a fan of, as that seems to change depending on what’s currently in my eyeline, but there is a strong nostalgic pull towards the one that represents my earliest memories of him, and of dozens of excellent comic stories. This is the foundational Snake Eyes look, and I’m glad we’re getting a representation of it fairly early in the line.
The only major issue I have is the loose left hip on mine. The right is slightly jiggly too, but nowhere near as bad as the left one, which almost wants to splay outwards when he’s just standing there. It makes getting him into a reliable pose a problem. I’ve had to put some oil on a couple figures to loosen them, but now it looks like I might have to go in the other direction to tighten up his leg.
That aside, the figure is, to put it mildly, superfrickinfun. There’s a lurking aggression in his midnight black action figureness that is cooler than a toy has any right to be. Maybe that’s why I almost have to give the edge to V1 goggles Snake Eyes: there’s something even more mysterious about those blacked out goggles than his visor. It’s almost primal.
This time around, Snake Eyes comes with exclusively realistic guns as opposed to the futuristic ones of the previous retail version. The UZI and pistol from the Special Edition Snake Eyes make a return appearance, along with a pair of extra weapons to make him…extra killy. I’m not a gun expert but that look close enough to actual real world weapons to where I’ll say they are, or at least takes on them. One of them looks close enough to a Brugger and Thormet, the other…I’m not sure. Looks like one of those newfangled modern guns. Either way, Snake Eyes has way more killing power than he ever has before.
Timber, I’m happy to report, is completely free of reuse. Pause for applause. But yeah, this is a fully articulated wolf. I just recently opened the Dungeons and Dragons Drizzt and Georgewashington figure and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of articulation crammed into that thing, and Timber carries forth that standard of “Hasbro doing animals justice. Except Timber is notably smaller than GryffindorWigglesrump. I’m probably butchering that cat’s name…
Timber has full articulated legs, a posable tail, a mid-torso bal joint, another joint closer to his head that gives you mostly up and down, and then a ball-jointed neck. He can approximate…well, he can do quite a bit. He can get into a decent sitting position if you fudge it a little, but mainly anything you want in terms of walking, attacking and so forth, he can do. As Snake Eyes is all black they didn’t skimp on the paint for Timber, giving him a lovely realistic gradient on his fur that enhances the overall realism. This makes me want an entire subline of just Hasbro animals. Hasbranimals. Never mind that sounds like someone has an animal in their bra.
Timber comes with two heads, one calm and one your throat is mine, bitch, you were just renting it. It is an angry, scary head and is sure to terrify ever member of Cobra. And some other Joes also.
I did have to do some twisting on Timber’s legs to get everything going in the right direction, because he wasn’t bending quite right. I almost thought I had wrong parts, but once everything was facing the right way everything was cool, and I was relieved.
This is a major success this early in the line. With the figures starting to be more and more available and the less than stellar (gold) design details starting to fade out, the future of the Joe line is looking brighter and brighter. Can a V4 be that far behind? Red goggles, you guys.
Red. Goggles.
