SCC Figure Spotlight - ALLEY-VIPER (Version 1)

"We aren't afraid of taking over ANY city... except maybe some parts of New York!" - Alley-Viper, 1993.

COBRA URBAN ASSAULT TROOPER - ALLEY-VIPER  (Version 1)

    As the Cobra Organization grew over the years, they were consistently developing new specialized divisions of troopers to fight in various environments or locations.  They unleashed the Alley-Vipers upon the world in 1989 as a group of soldiers specifically tasked for inner city or urban warfare.  The Alley-Viper's are devious, ruthless and brutal opponents!  Each one is heavily armed, armored and mean!

    The file card explains the Alley-Vipers have been selected from other Cobra divisions that are already considered diabolical.  Then they are put through the extremely difficult training process to become an Alley-Viper.  Some of the final steps to their training includes takes a full machine gun blast across their armor and surviving, as well as running through gas-filled chambers with no gas mask.  The idea is to take a tough soldier, and to make him even tougher!

    The Alley-Vipers are so vicious and powerful, they don't feel the need to hide or run for cover.  Therefore their armored uniform is bright orange with bright blue camo checkering all over.  The sight of a squad of Alley-Vipers running down a city street should instill fear in anyone considering taking them on.

    The figure for the Alley-Viper has an orange face shield that attaches to the helmet.  The figure's face appears to be covered with a blue balaclava mask under the helmet.  Again, his uniform is orange with the blue camo pattern.  There are several interesting details like the Cobra symbol sculpted onto the mask and helmet, the black knife and grenade on his chest, or the brown throwing knife on his wrist.

    For accessories, the Alley-Viper comes with the face shield, a rifle, backpack and riot shield.  Both the face shield and riot shield have the same color/camo pattern as the figure.  The rifle and backpack are black.  The backpack has lots of technical detail as well as a grappling hook launcher.  Unfortunately, the launcher is not removeable, but the grappling hook is.  The rifle is an odd weapon with a scope, grenade launcher, and sub-machine gun.  The weapon looks very formidable and powerful.  Though it is a made-up design, I think this rifle looks awesome!

    This was the last year I was actively collecting before I took a slight break!  Sheesh, it was figures like this that made it hard to walk away!  I really liked the idea of these were nearly unbeatable opponents to any and all the Joes.  With their armor, weaponry and brute force, defeating a group of these guys wasn't going to be an easy task.  

    The colors were off-putting to some people, they were alright by me.  I liked the idea that they WANTED to be seen!  This was a great figure all the way around!  The ONLY potential flaw I can find with this figure is the face mask.  The package artwork shows the mask going over the face, but revealing the eyes.  On the figure, the mask covers the whole face.  Maybe that's the way it was intended, who knows?  It's not enough to hurt the Alley-Viper's rating though, and this dude is going to catch himself a sweet rating of 5 out of 5 Orange Cream Milkshakes!!!  YEAH!

    So where are you at on Alley-Viper (v1)?  Did you embrace the loud colors or despise them?  Did you buy a whole army of these cats?  Let me know your thoughts on the Alley-Viper below!


Spending more of my leisure time jaw-jabbering about the Alley-Viper...

---  The Alley-Viper (v1) was listed among my Top 10 Army Builders.

---  Down the road, Alley-Viper would see 2 more updates in 1993 and 1994.

---  Though the Alley-Viper got some backlash in the day about his obnoxious colors, he was still a popular figure!  He even recently got the Classified figure treatment!

Classified Alley-Viper!


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