G.i. Joe Classified # 153 Cobra Frag-viper
Frag-vipers are essentially Cobra Vipers armed with manual grenade tossing baskets called Cestas from the sport called Jai Alai. Their ability to rapidly launch grenades in near-complete silence along with the lack of any muzzle flashes allows them to quickly attack without giving their position away, making them ideal for dealing high levels of explosive damage to enemy positions before anyone can tell where its coming from.
The figure uses the basic Joe Grunt body as a base underneath all that gear.
The Frag-viper comes unmasked in the package. I gotta say, the lack of expression and color on their faces is really freaky. It’s like they’re no longer human. Interesting design choice to go for while updating these guys.
His helmet’s hose plugs into the backpack like so.
Headsup, this part of his belt tends to get in the way of the figure’s right leg.
His backpack grenade dispenser features a lot of sculpted grenades. Too bad we only get one actual grenade to work with here.
The Frag-viper comes with twin HK MP7s, the same guns we got with Classified Shockwave.
The guns are holstered away on the sides of his thighs.
Same as before, the ammo clips can be removed from each gun.
Strangely, though, I find it sometimes hard to get the Frag-viper to properly hold his gun. It tends to be leaning downwards wherever I place it in his hands.
With the cesta equipped, the Frag-viper will only have one hand free to use guns.
Of course, the Frag-viper’s main weapon is this Jai Alai-inspired grenade tosser, which uses a manual hurling basket based on the sport’s cesta.
Thanks to the automatic feeder, the Frag-viper can keep on hurling without having to actually reload. This results in three times the firing speed for the weapon.
When not in use, there doesn’t seem to be an actual spot for the cesta to plug into the backpack, but I decided to mount it on the feeder cable like so.
The set comes with a grenade with effects parts sculpted in.
Like I mentioned, too bad we don’t get any simple grenades to go with this figure.
Thanks to the helmet’s onboard automatic range-finder adjusting the variable time-fuses in each grenade, the grenades the Frag-viper tosses are automatically timed to explode right as they land, with varying distances already accounted for.
Overall, a pretty amazing figure! I really liked how the design team pulled off the feeder cable design, plus the upscaled details based on the look of the classic figure really look great! My only complaint is the lack of extra “normal” grenades for this figure. We only get the one piece that has the effects parts sculpted in.
Man… With this and the just announced Night Viper and Cobra-la troopers, we are pretty close to completing all the original Vipers from the vintage line, I think all that’s left are HEAT, Laser, Astro, Toxo-Vipers and Undertows for the non-driver Cobras? Wow… I never thought this line would go the distance.
Hasbro’s pre-order codename for the Frag-viper is “Grandpa”, based on the Simpsons character.
Gold
