Bootleg Urban Cobra Trooper

When bootleg Cobra Troopers first showed up in 2009-ish, there was a hushed excitement over their release.  As more and more versions came to light. collectors were finally given the panoply of Cobra army builders many had dreamed of since childhood.  Cheap, high quality bootlegs brought us long awaited Crimson, Desert, Forest and Urban Cobra Troopers who could fill in missing ranks of the Cobra army.  The figures, of course, were somewhat controversial at the time.  But, that has passed and vintage Joe collectors pretty much only had factory customs to thank for any new product in their domain.  The first Cobra Troopers had two basic configurations: paint masks derived from the vintage Trooper and those same paint masks with an added cammo pattern.  The cammo figures brought new life to the mold in a lot of ways.  It is the grey, white and black Urban paint job that has grabbed my attention today.

Any kid who got the 1984 Stinger and it's repainted Cobra Officer driver were just waiting for a matching Cobra Trooper.  Hasbro had spoiled everyone by releasing the Officer and Trooper together in 1982/83 and anything other than having both molds in the color combinations seemed wrong.  Yet, Hasbro never came through.  Even when faced with the reality of righting past skipped figures in the 2000's, Hasbro failed to deliver.  A companion grey Cobra Trooper never materialized.  Enter the factory custom makers.

When the Cobra Troopers first appeared, they were modeled after the blue, retail figure.  These offered collectors nothing other than good looking figures at lower prices.  Soon, though, new colors began to appear.  The first, of course, were Crimson Troopers.  But, black, white and jungle troops soon followed.  Interspersed with these figures were two flavors of grey Troopers.  One, that was harder to find, is a straight grey repaint of the Trooper designed to match the Stinger Driver.  The second, showcased here, is an urban repaint using a white base, but with large amounts of grey paint to make it appear closer to the Stinger Driver than it would sans paint masks.  A few years later, solid grey Troopers with red web gear padding appeared.  They are probably my favorite versions, but suffer from the quality issues we'll get into later.

These urban versions were the paint job that most captured my attention.  I had long wanted figures that better matched up with the Stinger and Hiss.  And, these figures delivered.  I bought a nice squad of the simple, grey figures.  But, I found they didn't really create the visual effect I wanted.  But, these grey cammo figures did.  The additional color to break up the grey body suit added a great deal of visual depth.  This figure seemed like an upgrade from the original Cobra Trooper while still maintaining enough of a 1983 aesthetic to seem like something Hasbro could have released.  

So, I've been trying to write this profile for over a decade.  It was easy to come up with the first half of it.  But, after that, I stalled.  Even the photos of this figure that appear below were taken in the 2010's.  Since then, I haven't used this figure to the degree that I would have once thought.  Part of that is that there are just so many other Cobra Trooper repaints that I tend to forget I have these guys.  I haven't taken a photo featuring them since 2017.  

And, this is what tends to baffle me.  I still really like this figure.  In fact, I probably like him more than just about any other Cobra Trooper repaint.  On top of that, I have a couple of Stingers that are staples of my Cobra photos.  These figures are a natural match for it.  Despite that, I don't get these guys out.  Part of it has to be the fact that these figures were released during a time when my interest in Joe was at a low point.  I had just sold a huge portion of my collection and wasn't really thinking about getting back into collecting.  The other part is that there have just been so many Cobra Troopers released in the past 18 years that this paint job gets lost in the shuffle.  In 2010, the cammo pattern on a Cobra-esque colored base was a novel approach to a figure.  In 2026, it's passe.  We can get over 200 different paint jobs on a Cobra Trooper mold with new variations appearing every year.  So, the impact of a great release like this one is muted.

Over at the Attica Gazette, RTG often writes about the fact that nothing really permeates the Joe culture like figures used to.  In the 2000's, everyone was getting every figure that was released.  Every new factory custom wave of figures would instantly appear across the various Joe photo groups.  Collectors would find unique ways to showcase the new releases.  But, everyone would hunt them down.  Now, there are entire factory custom molds that are all but lost as they simply don't appear anywhere.  And, they really never did.  When there's so much, you start to strategically skip certain releases.  And, that's heavily what has happened with the Joe world in general.  Even new Super7 releases tend to disappear after three or four months...never to be seen again.  There are fewer guys who take Joe photos these days.  So, that's part of why so many figures are lost to time.  But, it's also that the line has gotten so vast that it's really tough for a single figure to resonate across the fandom like these early cammo Cobra Troopers back during their release.

There are good and bad things about these early Cobra Troopers.  The best aspect is that the construction was very high quality.  Later figure runs tended to have loose joints, split legs and general quality issues that made them less attractive.  (The aforementioned Stinger Colored Troopers with red web gear suffers from this.)    These early runs, though, were nearly Hasbro quality.  The downside, though, is that the figures were out of scale, even if it was slightly.  Standing next to a real Joe figure, you couldn't tell the difference.  But, these early factory customs can not fit on the footpegs of vintage vehicles and vintage backpacks will not affix to their backs as the hole is too small.  These are smaller issues, though the footpeg size difference makes it hard to pose and use them with Stingers and Hiss Tanks.  The scale issue was corrected on much later Trooper offerings and more recent release colors don't have these limitations.

Many of the earliest versions of the Cobra Trooper that were released have achieved a bit of aftermarket appreciation.  Some configurations sell in the $30 range.  Of course, as they are still customs, you will also see the same figure sell for $10 a few weeks later.  But, in general, prices are higher for many of the early, well done factory custom Trooper repaints.  For many of the common repaints, there were a lot of figures made.  It took the collecting world a long time to absorb them as many were available for a couple of years.  But, absorb them, the collecting world did.  And, now, anyone who wants to build armies of these figures will likely pay a lot more than they would have five or six years ago.  But, new flavors of the Cobra Trooper continue to appear.  So, there are still cheaper ways to build a diverse Cobra army.  It just may take a bit of effort to get the exact one you want.