Hazard-Viper (30th Anniversary)

by KansasBrawler

As you’ll recall from my Field Report about Tactical Ninja Snake Eyes, I’m a sucker for pieces that contain unreleased tooling. That’s what sold me on the 30th Anniversary Hazard Viper to begin with. It was based around the sort-of-cancelled Rise of Cobra Volcano Viper. Honestly, I’m glad I had an opportunity to get the tooling this way because I don’t know if I would have wanted to pick up a Volcano Pod just for its cool looking driver. It’s not a 100% reproduction, but the parts that were replaced, in my opinion, are mostly for the better.

The mold looks great here and I honestly like it more as a hazardous materials expert than I do a guy that hangs out in a volcano. He uses the legs from the Rise of Cobra Ice Viper, the arms of Pursuit of Cobra Skydive, and the head and torso of the Rise of Cobra M.A.R.S. Industries Trooper under the vest and helmet that originally were slated to be used with the Volcano Viper. I like the look of the Hazard Viper’s equipment, but the helmet on mine doesn’t really fit that well in the collar. After a lot of fiddling recently, I’ve managed to make it look better, but it’s still not perfect. The bulky vest works very well with the Ice Viper’s legs and having never purchased that figure during the Rise of Cobra days, I was very impressed by how well-articulated the legs are even with their added bulk. I think the Skydive arms also work better with this look instead of the Neo-Viper arms the Volcano Viper was originally slated to use. The armored shoulder pieces mesh better with the baggy sleeves and look more like a hazardous material suit than the Neo-Viper arms did. I think that simple part swap really improved things, even though I still don’t like the funky way his hands are positioned. It makes it kind of hard for him to hold things, which wasn’t really an issue with Skydive since that figure didn’t have many hand-held accessories, but this one has them in spades. Much like the 25th Airborne arms, I think the Skydive arms could use a remolding with new hands to make them more useful. I like the combination of baggy and armored pieces on this mold. The baggy gear looks a lot like a hazardous material suit, however, the armored pieces remind you that these guys aren’t just lab rats, but trained Cobra operatives who can fight if need be. Plus, considering their ties with Compound Z, a little extra armor is always nice to have when you’re dealing with zombies. The detailing on the sculpt is great, with all sorts of wrinkles and folds sculpted into it. It really helps ground these guys in reality even though they’re working with fantastical deadly materials.

The color scheme for this figure is great. I don’t mind bright colors on my Joes and Cobras, especially when there’s a good justification for them. Hazardous materials troopers are always decked out in bright colors as a warning to those around them and the Hazard Viper is no exception. The figure is predominantly orange, but it’s still relatively subdued so it doesn’t come across as garish. The orange is accentuated by black trim and a gunmetal gray-like color for the armored parts of his gear. The black trim is good, but on a few pouches, the lines are a bit wobbly so there might be some minor quality control issues on the paint. Mine weren’t bad, which is good because I only ever saw the one I bought on the pegs in my area. The paint detailing on the chest-mounted oxygen canisters is impressive. Though the text on the canisters is not legible, it’s still quite crisp and looks very nice. Because branding is important to Cobra, there are also two black Cobra logos on his front pouches. My only wish is that they would have used the cool Cobra biohazard symbols they used on the Compound Z canisters out here as well. It would have been a nice added detail.

Using Volcano Viper’s gear has some benefits, however, it’s unfortunate that he lost one air tank in the process of becoming a Hazard Viper. The original Volcano Viper had three air tanks, two mounted on the front of the vest and one mounted on the back right by his neck. However, to make use of his backpack, that tank had to be sacrificed and honestly, I’d rather have the air tank than the backpack. The backpack is the same one that came with the Arctic Assault Destro that he used as a Mr. Freeze style ice blaster. For the Hazard Viper, it’s been repurposed into a chemical gun but from what I can tell, Hasbro removed the functional water-spraying feature from this iteration, which is kind of silly. While I didn’t pick up the Arctic Assault Destro, I at least appreciated them making his backpack a functional water sprayer. Its design may have been a little clunky, but at least it worked. From what I can tell, the Hazard Viper’s version has all of the clunkiness and none of the functionality. I haven’t ever tested the backpack with water, but the button on the back of mine doesn’t move at all, so I’m assuming that means its water spraying function has been stripped out. If you’re going to remove its one redeeming function, I don’t understand why you would bother including it, aside from it being something that looks like a chemical sprayer. Though I don’t like the execution on his backpack sprayer, the rest of his gear is pretty nice. First of all, he comes with a pair of pistols. A chemical weapons scientist packing heat makes me think back fondly to the GoldenEye video game on the N64 where if you accidentally shot the wrong scientist (or on purpose if you were a little off in the head), he’d pull a gun on you and start firing. I’m sure it was an unintentional reference, but it’s still one that makes me smirk. He also comes with SDCC Destro’s injector tool, which again makes sense for a Cobra chemical weapons scientist. I can just see these guys using that tool to experiment on hapless Cobra soldiers, accidentally turning them into Zombie Vipers. Finally, the Hazard Viper also carries a case filled with three large canisters of Compound Z. This accessory was originally seen with Rex “The Doctor” Lewis out of the Rise of Cobra line and I liked it then, and I still like it now, even if the case is also inexplicably the same orange as the rest of the figure. The canisters have silver handles with a bright blue body and a really neat biohazard symbol with the Cobra logo in the center. It’s little details like that which make me still love the Joe line after all these years.

While not the most glamorous of characters, the Hazard Viper does a great job of filling in Cobra’s vacant chemical/biological/radiological specialists, at least in the modern era. Though the job is similar to that of the classic Toxo-Viper, the Hazard Viper is clearly a better version. It’s not a punishment to be assigned to the Hazard Viper corps; you’re an elite and deadly member of the Cobra science division when you’re inducted into this group. While he has had specialists like this on the payroll before, it’s clear Cobra Commander has now placed a premium on developing dangerous new weapons and the Hazard Vipers are definitely on the frontline of those endeavors. The design on the Hazard Viper is solid, and even though it was originally designed for actions deep in the Earth’s core, it works very well in this role as a toxic weapons specialist. Plus, it’s nice that Airtight now has a foil in the Viper corps and I really like the idea of Airtight raiding a Cobra weapons lab and having to fight a few of these guys before being able to neutralize the new threat.