1989 Night Viper

I did not buy any G.I. Joe figures in 1989.  I was simply out of the game.  I did swipe a 1989 Snake Eyes.  You can read that story in his profile, though.  But, even my younger brothers were pretty done with G.I. Joe.  My youngest brother got a Scoop figure.  But, that was it.  None of the other 1989 figures existed in my collection.  In 1990, my brother got a Bullhorn figure.  But, I was not only now old enough to drive myself to stores, I also had a full time job providing, for the era, a good deal of spending money.  I usually worked 3:30 to midnight with a thirty minute lunch.  There was only one store close enough to drive to, buy something and get out.  It was a nearby Kohl's.  

While they still had a hefty toy department and full selection of Joe figures and vehicles, the end was near as the entire stock they had was from 1988 and 1989.  But, among these figures, I had the pick of the litter.  While I had dreamed of getting a Rock and Roll or Downtown, there was another figure that caught my eye.  I had never really seen the Night Viper figure.  But, here, in front of me, the green and black Cobra was something completely new to me.  And, he included a great looking rifle (with a strap!), a face shield and a backpack that looked like they'd make for a perfect addition to my collection.  I bought the single Night Viper and snuck him into my house when I got home from work after everyone was asleep.  Here, I opened the figure and found he was everything I wanted him to be.

What I did not want, though, was for my younger brothers to find the figure.  They had a bad habit of pawing through my room when I was not home: looking for toys I had stashed in the closet.  They had found the purloined 1989 Snake Eyes.  And, they would take him from the red Lego case in which I stored my saved Joes that was buried in the back of my closet.  With the Night Viper, I had opened the package carefully, to preserve the bubble.  I had an old, paper, Banana Republic bag that was on the top shelf of my closet, above the reach of my siblings.  So, I put the Night Viper card into this bag.  It stayed there until 2013 when my mother moved out of the house.  Yet, I don't know what happened to it after that.  I can't imagine me throwing it away.  But, it's not in my collection any longer.  It was probably put into a box of comics that I ended up giving to my nephews.  But, it was a shame for it to survive so long and then disappear after I was a full time collector.

The figure, though, was a different story.  First, I tried putting him the Lego case.  But, of course, my youngest brother found him in due time.  Avoiding the questions of the figure's origin, I tried hiding him under my bed or among the boxes of baseball cards that now adorned the shelves in my room.  In time, my brother forgot about him.  With the figure in hand, though, I came to a realization.  I no longer really had the capacity to play with a toy any longer.  I would pull out the Night Viper from time to time.  But, I'd mostly just look at the exquisite detailing and design that went into him.  I really didn't have the capacity to act out adventures with him any longer.  That was probably the turning point for my transformation into a collector instead of viewing Joes as toys.  

That didn't mean, though, that I appreciated the figure any less.  In fact, he was something I really enjoyed due to his overt quality.  Despite that, though, I didn't buy any more Joes until the end of 1992.  The allure of sports cards was too great and my disposable income from my teenage years went to those.  As the card market has exploded even moreso than the Joe market since 2020, it's probably a break even choice as to which was better.  But, I would have enjoyed 1,000's of dollars of retail Joes more than I do the boxes and boxes of commons that once filled an entire closet.

In the late 1990's and early 2000's, though, I got lucky with Night Vipers.  I was one of the few people specifically looking for lots of 1989 - 1994 figures back then.  And, I'd get a lot of collections for under $2 per mint and complete with filecard figure.  I was able to get several Night, Alley and HEAT Vipers in these lots.  As the Funskool figure became available, the price on Hasbro Night Vipers dipped a bit.  And, I was able to fill out a squad of them.  Even during my great purge in 2010 where I liquidated my massive armies of 1989 Cobras, I kept my squad of 6 Night Vipers, even though I had another 8 of the Funskool versions.  The figure was too cool to get rid of.  And, I figured that I'd one day have a way to display the figures to finally fully appreciate the mold's greatness.

With the Night Viper, less is more.  The figure is just two main colors: green and black.  There is a bright green Cobra logo, a gold belt buckle and flesh around the eyes.  The minimal paint masks, though, work due to the intricacy of the figure's sculpt.  Whereas you don't tend to see great paint wear on Night Vipers, that's more than made up for by the the oft-broken pegs that hold the rifle on the figure's leg or the visor on the figure's head.  Both of these parts are brittle and get broken very easily...even when the figure was new.  I still don't know why a rifle with a strap that allows it to be held over the shoulder or across the backpack needed to also he holstered on the Night Viper's leg.  But, it's a great little detail that added to the figure's mystique.

Accessory wise, the Night Viper was well equipped.   Along with the aforementioned rifle and visor, the figure also included a backpack and a monocle.  The backpack is small and compact.  It's purpose isn't entirely clear.  But, that's the joy of a figure like this.  It allows you to make the pack whatever you want or need.  The monocle is the most lost accessory on the Night Viper.  And, many that were affixed to the peg on the figure's visor were snapped off, with the peg forever trapped in the monocle's hole.  With all the brittle features and one easily lost accessory, it's a miracle that so many Night Viper's survived childhood playtimes.  But, they did.  And, collectors are better for it as we have another awesome army builder available to us.

The Night Viper did not have much of a life.  Hasbro released the figure in 1989 and 1990.  In 1992, the Night Viper's body was used for the oddball kitbash Heli Viper figure.  As it was in purple and red, few people even really consider that it was the Night Viper that comprised most of that figure.  From there, the mold went to India.  Funskool started producing Night Vipers around 1995 and produced them through April of 2004.  At that time, the mold was returned to Hasbro.  They then used it as the body for the ill fitting 2005 Iron Grenadier.  The final use was the 2006 Operation Flaming Moth Night Viper.  It was green, expensive and not really a hit with the collector community.  The mold then died off.  Around 2017 or 2018, though, Black Major produced Night Viper figures.  These exist in 20 or more color combinations.  And, now, collectors can get Night Vipers in pretty much any color scheme they would want.  Black Major didn't really suck all the demand for the Night Viper out of the community, though, and I'm sure that any release of the Night Viper in the Pulse era would be embraced by the collecting world.

1989 Night Vipers got super expensive in the early 2000's.  It was first Cobra army builder to break $30 for a mint and complete specimen.  But, slowly, the massive quantity of Funskool Night Vipers sated the army building demand of the collecting world.  By 2003, the price of a complete Night Viper was under $15.  In 2022, though, the stupidity of the Joe world has also caught up with the Night Viper.  Incomplete figures will fetch $30.  Dealers will sell an appalling amount of mint and complete figures for more than $50.  And, in the event you can find a mint and complete figure left to open pricing, it will still usually cross over $40.  But, as the cheap Funskool figures have been absorbed, there's no longer an alternate outlet for those who want a Night Viper army.