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I should probably save this for after I pick up more figures, but what the hell, if I find a G.I.Joe Trooper at retail to own and review at this point I'll be one of the more extremely lucky guys out there. That being said... Onwards and Upwards!

Review #4 Cobra Commander:
a) Packaging: Been there, done that, generic as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! :lol

b) The Figure: A lot of fans complained heavily about the design of Cobra Commander's outfit and mask in Rise of Cobra, so much so that even the film maker's took the complaints to heart. I'm not sure entirely how the switch is going to play out in the film, however I'm confident that we'll still see CC in his old RoC outfit when he's let out of the prison before adapting the new look.

A lot of people are complaining that this figure is not entirely movie accurate, to them I say this, as the main villain of the piece I'm sure we'll see a lot more Cobra Commanders before Retaliation ends as a Toyline and I'm sure we'll see an entirely movie accurate sculpt. For the time being though, is this figure really so bad because he's not screen accurate?

And to this I reply, hell no! Retaliation Cobra Commander looks pretty damn impressive, we've seen the same basic body armor with silver battle mask design from good old CC for a long time, the progression and evolution of the sculpts on these figures has always been impressive. So much so that each different iteration is a worthy pick-up by Joe fans and Collectors alike.

We've got the standard figure articulation for most Retaliation figures on this one folks, he's got shoulders, elbows, neck, waist, wrists, hips and knees. No ankles, no pivot in the wrists, no double knee, but this level of articulation still has great potential for poses and maintains the fun factor for the kids.

There are two different paint jobs, blue a standard Cobra Commander staple and black, some thought that the black would be only available as a chase variant and in the amazon four pack. This is erroneous, in fact I haven't seen a single blue version at mass retail, which is a real bummer because I prefer blue over black when it comes to Cobra Commander. To me blue is standard while things like black and crimson are more dress uniforms used for special occassions.

The sculpt on this figure is utterly brilliant, his battle armor looks like actual kevlar, his legs have cobra symbols on the knee guards and his battle mask... This thing looks like it would need to be put on in layers, first of all he has his standard silver faceplate, which is over layed by the helmet resembling a sort of wrap-around style of helmet... At least I think that's the style it would be likened too, I'm no good with descriptors sometimes.

Basically the helmet resembles a cobra's head, four teeth are placed at key points around the area of the silver face mask, looking as though they are keeping the face mask in place, the back of the helmet has a design pattern reminiscent of a open cobra hood and there are two red eyes painted on the upper part of the front with a smaller protrusion resembling another cobra head. It is one killer represenstation/interpretation of Cobra Commander's battle mask.

Accessory wise he has very little, a removeable blet with bandolier filled with pouches for storing... who knows what. A large light gray automatic rifle or machine gun and a smaller pistol mounted in a hip holster. And of course the gimmick of the piece, a large three pieced Cobra Headed staff.

This accessory, while looking very cool for the kiddies and some of us who happen to dig the look of this style of accessory, does suffer from a few noticeable flaws. First off, it's oversized. It is way too big, thus becoming top heavy when Cobra Commander holds it, even more so if you have the missile sticking out of the mouth. Yep it's an overgrown missile launcher disgused as a snake's-head staff.

The details on the staff are quite nice, and I kind of wish Hasbro would have included a smaller version with similar sculpting as a sort of alternative to the huge gimmic one. For one thing a smaller version wouldn't look so out of place and ridiculous in Cobra Commander's hand and also it wouldn't drag him down by being so top heavy.

Even the missile has nice sculpted detail, almost resembling a flaming burst of snake venom.

Overall I'd have to say this is a worthy successor to the name Cobra Commander, and the figure as a whole really stands out as one of the more livelier designs based on the Commander's battle mask in recent times, he's certainly more imposing and threatening looking compared to his Renegades Counterpart.

Ratings wise I'd have to give him a solid 4.5 out of 5, he's really a great figure and even in spite of coming with a gimmicky over-grown missile launcher, the launcher itself has great sculpted details and isn't too bad, if it weren't so top heavy I might even be able to get the Commander to hold it and wield it like he's doing on the back of the card without toppling over every five seconds. Again, why did we not get figure stands Hasbro?
Worth picking up, I might even say he's worth picking up twice if you can find both blue and black versions for retail price.