2006 Viper - Viper Pit

Army building is heavily a phenomenon of adult collecting.  It spawns from the fantasies that we all had as kids of owning as many toys as you could possibly want.  Truthfully, army building something to great degrees is probably extremely unhealthy, obsessive behavior.  But, in collecting circles, it's not looked upon as that.  Instead, it is celebrated.  It is a cause of jealousy.  And, in the early 2000's, it was the fastest way "in" to be considered a "serious collector".  Back then, though, it was all about army building at retail.  In the end, all it proved was that you were good at shopping.  Despite collectors clamoring to buy up every retail army builder they saw during that time, Hasbro was able to sate demand.  Every few months, new army builders would appear.  Rarely were they perfect.  And, most times, they were downright flawed.  As the swan song of the Joe line, though, Hasbro dropped one final army building set on the collecting world.  At first glance, it was perfect: six classic Vipers done up in classic colors.  There was no way it wouldn't be a hit.  And, a hit it was.  So much so, that Hasbro did a second production run to get them into collector hands.  But, in the 14+ years since this set debuted, the flaws that were apparent upon its release have only become more pronounced.

If you were a fan of this set, or if you weren't a fan of this set, it was maddening.  If you loved 6 of, essentially, the same figure in colors like very common (and falling in price) original Joes, this set was frustrating because Hasbro only ever delivered two army building sets in that vein.  The rest featured characters, odd mold choices or bizarre colors.  If you didn't like this set and wished they had gone with a variety of Viper colors as the line's final send off, well, you knew that your desires would never be fulfilled.  Either way, though, collectors bought the set up.  Knowing it was the final release in the line helped to drive demand.  But, the fact that the 6 Vipers in the set were excellent stand ins for the original figure (and, in some ways superior) only helped the set's popularity.

But, with heavy purchase volume came issues.  The corners that Hasbro was cutting in terms of design and materials came to roost on this set.  The o-rings were bad.  The joints were stiff.  And, worst of all, the crotch piece was not properly designed with the upper legs and many collectors simply sheared away the little piece of plastic just by trying to sit the figure in a vehicle.  The drooping heads that were a hallmark of all Vipers released from 1997 and on were even more pronounced on these figures.  All of these issues combined to make the figures not only awkward to pose, but a downright liability to move around for fear of breakage.  All these years later, this set's poor quality continues to be it's hallmark and comments sections are filled with criticism of these figures for their brittle nature.

The actual set, though, did look good.  It included one gold face plated Viper and 5 silver faced Vipers: the subject of this profile.  The paint masks on the set were convention set level quality.  This figure features two-toned gloves, a very finely detailed Cobra logo, silver buckles on his chest and metallic grenades.  He features substantially more paint applications than the 1986 Viper.  And, even more than the retail Vipers that Hasbro had been pumping out since 2002.  From a pure aesthetic point of view, this was one of the best Vipers ever produced.

As this was the final Joe product to be released before the anniversary debacle, I bought this set heavily.  I figured I'd never regret getting cheap Vipers.  And, back then, I still had delusions of a massive collection display that would include a magnificent Cobra rally.  But, even if that didn't come to fruition, having a large quantity of Vipers available for photos, dios and just general purpose was enticing.  And, in the package, the set didn't disappoint.  But, once opened, the quality issues that others found also limited my use of these figures.  To this day, the figure rarely appears in any photos because the figures are so difficult to pose.  

Personally, I enjoyed the Viper Pit's weapons.  The Ambush rifle in grey is decent enough.  The fact that I had used the version of it from the 1994 Flint with my 1994 Vipers also gave it a nostalgic bent for me.  The little pistols were nice add ons.  The 1992 Gung Ho backpacks are fine.  The big win, though, was the inclusion of the machine guns.  This sculpt was from a JvC era figure.  But, it worked well enough with the ARAH figure scale.  And, it looks great with the Viper.  I've always liked Vipers or Troopers to be self sufficient.  So, Troopers having heavy machine guns, mortars or bazookas was fine by me.  The Viper including this machine gun works in the same vein.  It allows the Vipers to have heavier fire support and makes them a more formidable force.  To me, this was the only value in the Viper Pit set.  I was able to get some cheap Vipers that had different weapons to use.

Beyond that, though, this set's value is limited.  If you want to stand them all up in a row on a shelf, this set looks really nice.  The excellent paint masks and solid gear make for a visual treat and one of the better looking figures from the repaint era.  But, that's the extent of their use.  Once you want to use them in photos, dios or displays, the severe limitations of the poor quality become way to apparent.  You can't really pose the figures and any sudden movement may leave you with a snapped crotch.  Over the years, I've tried to get them into more photos.  But, the stiff legs hinder even cautious movement and I've had more than a dozen of the o-rings snap just in proper storage.  So, the figure's visual appeal is more than offset by the quality issues and that has left these figures with a legacy that is far below what a cursory visual inspection would imply.

One fun fact about this Viper Pit set is that it included one filecard for all 6 figures.  We do not know the production runs on this set.  At the time, Toys R Us ordered around 20,000 Cobra sets when they sold vintage Joe 6 packs.  But, they also only ordered around 16,000 Joe themed sets of the same product.  It's likely that the first Viper Pit production run was in that ballpark.  The initial production run sold out at most online dealers relatively quickly.  Hasbro then produced a second, distinct run of the figures to help sate demand.  And, sate it, that extra run did.  The second production run lingered at retail and quickly stagnated as collectors had moved on and the anniversary collectors who were starting to come online didn't care about vintage style Joes.  As late as 2013, you could still buy packaged sets at dealers for original retail cost.  The filecard and production numbers are related, though, in that there is, at best, one filecard per every 6 figures that Hasbro released.  This means the filecard is, likely, one of the rarest filecards per figure in the line's history.  It's not a great filecard.  But, the fact that only 1 in 6 figures at max could possibly have the filecard, it's worth noting and holding onto any filecards you may have.

My final take on these figures is that, for the right price, they are good stand ins for the classic Viper.  But, that's about it.  Among the late Viper repaints that Hasbro created after 1994, this version falls in the middle.  The paint masks make it more interesting than most of the retail Vipers of the 2000's.  But, the 1998 Cobra Trooper and Officer and the 2002 Crimson Viper match the paint masks and have the added benefit of bringing something relatively new to the mold in terms of coloring.  So, that also means this figure is something skipable.  I'd rather have a ton of other figures than these Vipers.  But, the realities of retail in the 2000's made it possible to acquire a large amount of these figures.  And, the economic realities of the early 2010's when I went to sell off a large part of my collection meant that these figures were worth less than retail and weren't worth selling at that time.  So, even today, I have a massive bin full of these Vipers...that I never use.  Every now and then, I'll check on them to find a few more have snapped their o-rings.  But, that's about the extent of their value.  In today's market, it might be worth exploring their trade potential.  But, again, that's about all the purpose I can find for them.

Viper Pit Vipers are oddly priced.  Loose, mint and complete figures sell in the $12-$15 range.  (Dealers sell a farcical amount at $20, too!)  But, you can get an entire set of 6 loose figures for around $40 with a little patience.  That's a far better deal.  Dealers tend to sell loose and complete sets for about the same price as carded sets.  But, even carded sets top out around $60 in the open market.  That's quite a jump from where these figures were just 5 or 6 years ago.  But, it's also not nearly the leap we've seen with some of the other 6 figure sets that were produced in the same time frame.  But, collectors bought all of the Viper Pits and the later production run put way too many into the marketplace.  14 years after the set's release, this means that people can now get the figures for not too great a markup.  But, the relatively poor design choices have left this Viper as a poor substitute for the original and the demand for this figure reflects that.

2006 Cobra Viper Leader (Viper Pit)

Army builders are largely the staple of the modern collecting experience. While there are niches of collectors who only want one of every figure, it seems to be that the majority of Joe collectors feel the need to amass as many versions of the various Cobra Troops that they can. This is, of course, not a trait that is exclusive to Joe collectors. But, it seems that Joe collectors are very particular in their wants and desires from army building figures. Unlike Star Wars collectors who will gobble up every Clone and Stormtrooper they can find, Joe collectors seem to have greater fondness for items that are similar to the vintage versions. In fact, the more similar something is to a pre-existing figure, the more likely it will be a hit in the collecting community. This characteristic of Joe collectors is likely a function of their incredible frugality and has created a lot of frustration with the line as we see the same thing over and over. But, when these homages to vintage figures are done right, the results can be stunning. In the case of the Viper Pit set, though, the result was a little bit of both.

If Hasbro had released this set in 2003 or 2004, they simply would not have been able to make enough of them. This set would have outsold the Cobra Infantry without even trying. Collectors were STARVED for classic Vipers at the time and many people were actively building armies of the vintage figure...even at $30 a piece. But, by 2006, the army building bug had largely passed. Collectors were a bit older and were no longer as inclined to buy up hundreds of the same figure. At the same time, three years worth of army builder overkill had left many collectors with large collections of army building figures...many of whom weren't all that great. So, when faced with the prospect of buying hundreds more of one mold, collectors balked. (Especially when you considered that many of the 2003-2005 army builders were no longer even worth their original retail price.) That isn't to say that collectors didn't buy the set. Far from it. But, instead of buying 6 or 8 Viper Pits, they bought one or two. This tamer purchasing pattern lead to wider availability and there was no panic to acquire these figures like there was with the Cobra Infantry of 2004.

While this Viper mold is based on the original, it is actually the first Viper to use this parts combination. The original Viper legs were lost in 1997 and all subsequent Vipers were released using BAT legs. Over the years, collector complaints about those legs finally reached Hasbro and they did something about it. Unfortunately, they did the wrong thing about it. For these figures, Hasbro recast the upper legs of the original Viper. The result is that the fat upper legs easily snap the BAT waist piece that is still part of the figure. So, in their zeal to fix a minor problems, collectors actually created a worse problem and largely rendered the Viper Pit figure irrelevant.

When I first heard of this release, I thought there were some strong possibilities that would have made this a set for the ages. While this Viper mold was released in rainbows of colors in the modern line, there are still glaring gaps. I would have enjoyed seeing repaints like a desert Viper, arctic Viper or even the mold in a simple black and silver. These would have been welcome additions to the panoply of Vipers and not kept this mold stale. Had this set been 2 Vipers in the vintage homage colors, this leader figure and one of each of those themed Vipers, I think collector interest might have been higher since the set offered a bit more than army building figures in colors similar to those that most collectors had already amassed. Unfortunately, Hasbro did not go this route and Viper mold, actually, still has potential for more releases. The upside is that Hasbro has realized the errors of their ways in the Anniversary line and we have seen several molds repainted into some environmental themes. Had these types of sets been tried during the days of ARAH repaints, I think they would have been similarly received by the collectors of the time.  

While this set sold rather strongly at its release, sales quickly petered out and the Viper Pit was readily available at brick and mortar stores for nearly a year. To this day, online dealers still have the sets in stock for original retail price. This is due to a few factors. First off, the widespread complaints about figure quality quickly saturated Joe message boards. It quickly became apparent that if you were going to stand these figures in a row to collect dust on a shelf, they were OK. But, if you wanted to pose them in any manner, the construction constraints really hindered any use of the figures. This largely disenfranchised the remaining collector base since any figures they bought would have to be heavily modified in order for them to be even close to usable. Secondly, the collector market had largely quieted down by late 2006. Collector interest was at an all time low and those who were still around were fatigued by the pace of release from the prior 4 years. Finally, this set didn't offer anything that most collectors didn't already have. As such, there was no compelling reason to buy up dozens of sets since most collectors already had large armies of Vipers in colors close enough to these figures that the Viper Pit became redundant.  

Technically, this figure isn't the Viper Leader or anything like that. According the file cards, this is just another Viper who happens to have a golden faceplate. However, in 2009, Hasbro released Vipers with coloring similar to the Viper Pit as part of the anniversary line. In that set, the golden Viper is alluded to as a leader figure. It is a logical leap, but that lends some official credibility to a trend that collectors intuitively knew already. The golden faceshield, though, really only works as a mark of prominence. Given a choice between silver masked Vipers from the set and the golden version, I'd take the silver versions every time. The silver seems to go better with the blue, black and red that comprises the rest of the figure. Of note, though, is that this leader figure does also feature golden latches on his flak jacket. The remaining Viper Pit members all feature silver buckles to match their faceplates.

In my collection, this figure is just a squad leader. He doesn't command legions. (That is left to the Golden Viper from 1990.) He is just out on patrol with some other green recruits. I see these Vipers as Cobra's entry level. Most are uneducated, but love a small paycheck and the freedom to use military weaponry. Anyone worth a salt will quickly distinguish themselves in the Viper ranks and move up into one of the more specialized Cobra units. The Vipers remain cannon fodder and their most dangerous trait tends to be their sheer numbers.

The accessories in the Viper Pit were fairly decent. The figures included backpacks taken from the 1992 Gung Ho. The vintage Viper backpack that was used in 2002 for the convention Crimson and Fuschia Vipers remains MIA. But, the Gung Ho pack is an acceptable alternative as it is about the same size and features the basic trappings you would expect from a field trooper. The Vipers also included a choice of 2 rifles: a grey repaint of Ambush's gun or a heavy machine gun that was first used in the new sculpt line. The grey rifles are a decent homage to the original Viper gun. The coloring is consistent and the Ambush gun does have some similarities (from a toy designer's perspective) to the original rifle. These work well enough. The heavy machine guns, though, are very well done. The are scaled for use with ARAH style Joes and give these Vipers a bit more punch. Gone are the grenade launchers from the original Viper rifle and in is a heavier weapon that will allow a Viper to yield more firepower in the field. There are also two pistols in the set: which are most often attributed to this leader figure by collectors. Even while these weapons are decent, I still have found myself outfitting my Viper Pit figures with different weapons. In the photo below, you will see the leader with a sniper from the Python Patrol Officer. It is just a weapon that gives the leader a little more authority. (And also ties him back to the standard Cobra Troopers from which he was inspired.)

Quality wise, this figure is both excellent and terrible. The paint details on all the Viper Pit figures are convention level quality. The figures feature two toned gloves and goggles, painted buckles, intricate Cobra logos and paint masks over paint masks on the legs. The result is a figure that is probably superior in terms of paint to even the vintage Viper. The construction, though, is where the figure suffers. All of the Viper Pit figures used tight O-rings that hinder the figure's movements. Sure, you can easily replace these. But, that's still a knock against the figures overall. The waist piece is too small for the legs and more than one collector has snapped a crotch just by posing a Viper Pit figure in a kneeling position. This can be abated by sanding down the waist piece, if you are so inclined. Finally, the figure's heads all droop down. This has been an issue since 1997, but has become more pronounced. Again, there is a fix where you can sand down a tab in the figure's torso to make the head more natural. But, this just adds to the amount of work a collector has to do to make this figure normal.

If you are patient, you can buy carded sets on the aftermarket for below retail. Loose figures from the Viper Pit set are readily available in the $7 range, but often go unsold. If you find a lot with two or three of the figures, you can often get them for $3 or $4 each. Historically, that's a low price for a Viper mold with decent accessories. But, the market for ARAH style army builders is largely dead. As such, I don't think we're ever going to see the heyday of army builder pricing like we did in 2002 and 2003. That's not a bad thing as collectors can now still build armies without spending tons of money. And, since figures like this pretty much devastated the pricing of vintage figures, you don't even have to relegate yourself to the modern interpretations of classic molds. Overall, I'm torn on this. I like seeing cheap Joes. But, at the cheaper prices, less people are inclined to part with their collections...especially those collectors who invested $25-$30 each on some of the vintage army builders back at the height of the market. So, the available stock is largely incomplete or off condition cast offs. Still, sets like the Viper Pit did fill a niche in the collecting world and have a place. But, this set could have been so much more. Alas, that's pretty much the story of the entire run of ARAH style Joes from 2000-2006....