2004 COBRA Infantry Forces

In the last decade or so, the reflections upon the repaint era, are generally negative. It makes sense, because, that was an era, where the fanbase was pretty aware of everything going down, had a generally solid knack for identifying what was going to be an issue, and there is some resentment to the fact that the majority of releases after the repaint era, were generally more in line with what the collectors had been asking for (single carded figures, retro style character art, et al.), while when the 2000s era releases were at their hottest, there wasn’t that kind of willingness to throw the collectors a bone.

There was one time Hasbro threw the collectors a bone, and I think we’d still be viewing these figures as amongst the best releases Hasbro ever concocted, had the line died off in 2005 or 2006, and stayed dead. That would be the COBRA Infantry Forces 6-Pack. A release that featured the top figure choice that most collectors had been asking for, for a few years, a Comic Book reference, and a release format that perfectly encapsulated what the G.I. Joe fanbase’s preferences really were, and in fact, still are.

After G.I. Joe’s initial vintage run ended, it had a couple phases of non 3 3/4″ stuff, that was loosely related to A Real American Hero, but after that had faded out, and 3 3/4″ made it’s return, as a line which acknowledged the collector base, and in doing that, the idea of army builders was touched upon, fairly rarely. In 1998, there was a set of Vipers released, and then Hasbro went to releasing retail Army Builders in two packs with characters, in diverse multipacks and as vehicle drivers for the next few years, following up with a novel online B.A.T. 6-pack, that you might not have gotten if you ordered it from The Store On 44.

In 2004, Hasbro finally did a mass release army builder set, which was likely the most popular release with collectors they ever did in the O-Ring format, the COBRA Infantry Forces TRU Exclusive 6 Pack. Never before, and really not ever since, did Hasbro really nail an army builder set, the lack of characters was the biggest positive that could happen. The same basic release scheme was used for the Night Watch set, but it didn’t have the oomph this set had, and didn’t have the same molds as the TRU set, which was a death knell at the time.

At first glance, the figure appears to be a 1982 COBRA Soldier repaint, with Thunder’s arms and a new head. What is often overlooked is the fact that the mold is completely re-done, and in doing so the parts, have been beefed up a little, so that the figure has a better match for the Thunder arms, as well as fitting in better with a lot of the contemporary releases of it’s time. The 2000s were still a time when the swivel head releases from 1982 through 1984 were considered “too scrawny” and “under detailed” by the majority of the fan base, who at the same time had little problem with mixing the random assortment of repainted vintage O-ring molds, and the New Sculpt Figures that were so disparate in design, that a non-collector might have trouble determining if they were even from the same toyline. The biggest tell is just how much more prevalent the few wrinkles sculpted into the torso are on this mold, versus how they are on every other release. In some ways it was beneficial they did this, because they wound up matching the arms from Thunder a lot better.

The molds used in the COBRA Infantry Forces 6-pack are in line with Mutt, Scrap Iron, Storm Shadow, and a handful of other vintage molds that were re made for the purpose of getting classic molds back into collectors hands. This is one of those things that wasn’t discussed too much at the time they were actually released. Some things were pointed out, like how the Urban Scrap Iron head, with it’s cartoon colouring wasn’t swappable with an ’84 Scrap Iron body. I don’t know how much of that, was people not noticing the actual differences, or if it was just not something discussed for the fact that burning questions like why aren’t we getting remade 1985 Snake Eyes figures?

The biggest change between the original and this figure is the head. It’s smaller, sleeker and works well at maintaining the original’s look, while being more in-line with other figures. The head was initially going to have a removable helmet, and be the same one as the helmetless Crimson Guard. Frankly this one looks better, than the removable helmet’s head. I don’t like the head as much as the original, but I will state it’s the best new head sculpt released on an O-Ring G.I. Joe between 1998 and 2023.

Toys R Us exclusives would often feature paint apps that were a step up from the figures released in mass release 2-packs. They’re not to the level that would be seen on releases available at the G.I. Joe Conventions, but they were definitely better than the Viper from Wave 7.5 (or whatever the “Army builder wave” was). The TRU COBRAs were no different, and despite being a mold that didn’t have a lot of room for details, and a design that was obviously being done to evoke the vintage figures, what we wound up getting were little (and probably unneeded) details like shoulder patches and chevrons. There was also subtle changes to the faces of the figures, the eyebrows were different on the three white soldiers, and the fourth was a black guy. It was nice to see some form of diversity amongst the COBRA figures, especially since it was something that once you had a few sets, could be done at various ratios for photographs.

I will say, there was a negative aspect of these figures, and that was the fact they didn’t really move as fluidly as other figures from that era. They look good, but there’s a stiffness to the figures, that comes off like they have O-Rings that are too tight. I don’t think that’s the case, because it feels like that even after switching the O-ring. I chalk it up to the new torso being an millimetre off or so, and not really being a perfect mesh with the waist.

I don’t often use these figures, any more, and in many ways they’re incompatible with the rest of my COBRA army at this point, but that’s just the way things go. With the head sculpt being the main reason these figures don’t fit in with the rest of the collection, I’ve never been able to internally elaborate on the subtle differences this COBRA Trooper has from others, with it’s design.

These figures feature a glossiness, you don’t see on any other examples of the COBRA Soldier mold, and that combined with the increased bulk, and the ranking system, and unit patch, and the change in arms, show these figures off more as COBRA the professional army, rather than COBRA the terrorist organization. So in some ways, these were the figures I kind of envisioned being COBRA’s garrison in friendly countries, and those shown off in parades. It’s odd how much change can be brought about by using a gloss paint app rather than a matte one, but it gives you a much classier looking figure, which is then ratcheted up, when you take away the assassination weapon on the figure’s arm.

It’s always fun to be able to come up with goofy little ideas that differentiate the various examples of the same figure, in this case, it’s too little to really make them a figure that would have prominence in my collection, but it’s something that also helps me keep them around.

Despite being an immensely popular figure at it’s time, the TRU COBRAs haven’t had much in the way of staying power, but unlike many figures, it’s pretty easy to point out what caused the figures to fall out of the limelight. At the time, they were the best COBRA Soldier we were probably going to get, and they were still relatively strong well into the late 2000s, however they were unable to recover from two massive paradigm shifts in the world of G.I. Joe collectors. The first was the mass adoption of the 25th Anniversary, which was always pretty interesting, because the biggest and earliest group of converts were the people who had G.I. Joe collections predominantly made up of 2000s releases, as they probably had less skin in the game, from a collection stand point, and were often the collectors with the most evident “little brother syndrome”, where the complaints were always levied about how G.I. Joe wasn’t as popular as the other toy lines, and didn’t really cater to collectors in the same way. In a lot of ways, I see parallels with those who adopted the 6 inch G.I. Joe line, as they get to feel like they’re in the same game as the big boys. I could be wrong, but then again, I keep all my G.I. Joes in plastic bins in a closet, and it’s always been a relatively isolated from my real life kind of hobby.

The other thing that really killed these figures off, in the O-ring collector’s conscious, was the relatively soon afterwards, arrival of the Factory Custom COBRA Soldiers. When all of a sudden, the complete original COBRA Soldier mold is available, in more colours than you could ever want, with the Dragonuv sniper rifle, and the easily army built nature of them, really showed up these Toys R Us releases. The thing that makes this the most noticeable is the fact that from 2004 until 2008, one of the most common critiques any photograph of a vintage Trooper would have, would be the head sculpt and how it wasn’t as good as the one from 2004. Any one still around from that era, probably can’t recall too many examples of photographs featuring both head sculpts together. Even those who didn’t have druthers either way for the heads, would avoid capturing them together.

Funnily enough, these figures are probably the impetus for the Factory Custom COBRA Soldiers that have dominated the entirety of O-Ring format G.I. Joe collecting for the last fifteen years. This release helped unlock the insatiable bloodlust for COBRA Soldier figures, and with it being a short term run and a Toys R Us exclusive that really only saw release in the United States and Australia, there was an opening for those who didn’t really get the opportunity to army build these figures. If these figures had been more readily available, I doubt the need for COBRA Soldiers would be high enough to warrant any form of Factory Custom run, which would then lead to a lot of other figures never seeing the light of day.

These figures would also probably have had a longer moment in the sun, if this mold was used again in the Comic Pack, like it was supposed to be, and maybe in the Night Watch set as well. The whiplash of going from this head, to the original from ’82, which was then used in the factory customs, kind of prevented this figure from maintaining the momentum it had developed. Then again, we also wouldn’t get the hilarious rumour some dude started about how Hasbro’s factory with this mold was seized by the Chinese Government, at a time when half of the mold was in use as Comic Pack Scrap Iron!

In the end, twenty years after these figures were released to a lot of fanfare, we’re now left with a relic of a past time that’s been forgotten in a lot of ways. It’s funny, because that is also a pretty solid description of the entirety of 2000-2006 G.I. Joe, but unlike the vast majority of that era, these figures probably deserve a better fate than what they received. Suffering from the fate of Icarus, flying too close to the sun. It’s funny, in a way, to lament how these figures fell off a cliff, especially when, all things considered, the fact is, that I was pretty instrumental in the downfall of these figures, since I was the first person in the then much smaller, G.I. Joe photography circle, to publicly champion the Black Major’s factory customs.

Either way, this figure, which made up the majority of the packaged release, has a historical importance, that gets forgotten about in the shuffle of things. It was the first real example of a figure truly invoking the vintage release, as well as bringing about a sea change in the acceptance of the swivel head design. It also gave the fanbase a glimmer of hope that Hasbro was finally “getting it”, even though I’d argue that aspects of this release were done, begrudgingly, in order to get the fanbase off of Hasbro’s back. The success of this release, was probably a short term hindrance, as nothing could really compare, but it paved the way for the retro aspect of the 25th Anniversary line, showing that the fanbase was actually indeed rabid about the vintage design scheme, and not entirely beholden to it being a straight up reissue.