Crimson Neo-Viper – “Cobra Royal Guard”
The Crimson Guard. They have been iconic Cobra troopers for years, representative of the insidiousness of Cobra, and the lengths they will go to achieve victory (Hiring ACCOUNTANTS!).
For the Rise of Cobra movie, Hasbro has introduced a ‘revamp’ of the classic Crimson Guard; the Crimson Neo-Viper.
Is this a fitting tribute to the classic “Siegies”, or a quick way to cash in on a repaint?
The Crimson Neo-Viper is labeled as “Cobra’s Royal Guard”, which is a bit of a departure from previous generations of Crimson Guards. The original Crimson Guards were elite troopers who were placed all over the country in top businesses, to help fight for Cobra from the inside. They were regarded as the “best of the best”.
The Crimson Guards were fan favorites since they were introduced in 1985, appearing in numerous different incarnations, but always keeping the core principles intact.
The creation of the Crimson Neo-Viper takes a major departure from previous G.I. Joe lore, as the Crimson Neo-Viper is a super powered bodyguard for the COBRA leadership.
What exact role the new Crimson Neo-Viper will play will not be known until the movie is released on August 07th, 2009.
(Excerpt from file card)
CRIMSON NEO-VIPERS are masters of power and lethality within the COBRA ranks. They guard the leaders of COBRA and willingly submit to agonizing procedures to obtain exceptional abilities and incredible endurance.
PREFERRED WEAPON:
M.A.R.S. Industries D57-B extreme environment electromagnetic rifle
I was going through the gi joe figures with my son this evening and i got to looking at this figure close up. I never paid it much attention when he first bought them. After i looked at it comparatively with the original neo-viper i liked this version much better.
Some simple thing they did to spruce this version up was actually paint the shoulder pauldrons. The original neo-viper’s were plain black like the rest of the sleeve. The cobra logo was also tampo printed on the side of the shoulder pauldron rather than on the front of the sleeve. For some reason Hasbro gets a hard one from printing the insignias on the front of the arms rather than the sides of the arm like they would be in real life.
The red is just awesome. On this figure. Not a color or style i would choose if this figure were based on real life, but the red metalized look is just incredible.