1998, all repaints, some of them in cool 3-packs.
Figures from Oktober Guard are not in.
Let everyone know what figure you like best (and please explain why)!

http://www.yojoe.com/action/98/

Tim 121RVC

Trooooo-Perrrrr

Vypra, with the trooper coming in second.

Had to go with Vypra, since I helped come up with this character's name and wrote her file card.

However, a REAL close second would be the Cobra Officer and Trooper, since I liked the colors given to these renamed Vipers (and yeah, I wrote their cards, too).

The Snow Serpent in the Cobra Polar set was pretty interesting, as well (and no, I didn't do his card.)

I'm surprised at the standings right now. I went with the Snow Serpent. Great, simple color scheme that suits the figure and the accessories are the same ones it originally came with, without the stupid launcher. Great figure. The Night Creeper is a close second.

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While all of the Polar team are great, Snow Serpent is pure win. A snow trooper who is actually colored for the arctic

This is hard. The Snow Serpent is awesome and is the best version ever of that mold. While Firefly is now overdone, this version was the first alternate repaint. And, looking at current Ebay prices for the figure, remains the only modern Firefly (aside from the con versions) that has any value. Even the Snow Creeper was a cool take on a mold that was very obscure at the time. Vypra even has some cachet as the colors are strong. As popular as she is now, it's easy to forget that the Rattler and Vypra were remarkable peg-warmers back in '98 and '99.

But, the winner here has to be the Cobra Trooper. It is, simply put, the best cobra army builder ever offered. It has convention quality paint applications, a full complement of accessories that make sense, a perfect coloring and was 3 of those great combos for $10. All that adds up to the best deal collectors have ever seen. I still remember the rainy and brisk day of December 6th, 1998 when I went to the Fiesta Mall TRU in Tempe, AZ and found these figures. I stood in line for 30 minutes waiting to check out, but it was worth it. My only regret is that I quit when I acquired 6 packs of them thinking that that was more figures than I could ever want. I still have 2 unopened packs of these out in the garage. Maybe I should break them open this weekend.....

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You came up with Ann A. Conda? What other filecards did you write, some were okay but a lot of them had weird problems like 97 Grunt having Clutch's box art and 97 Destro's name not being spelled correctly

Uh, yeah, sorry about that. It was my little way of coming up with a counterpart to G.I.Joe names like "Skip A. Stone" for Cutter, and "Albert M. Pine" for Alpine. Personally, I figured someone at Hasbro would cringe and ask me to come up with something else. So what happened? They liked it.

That spelling on Destro's name bugged me, too, and I'm pretty sure I got it right when I wrote it. I had no control over the box art that was used. I just wrote file cards and sent them the details.

For the record, the file cards during 1997-98 that I wrote are as follows:

1997: Duke, Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, Lady Jaye, Destro, Baroness, Cobra Commander (and believe me, I was honored -- and a tad nervous -- to be given the opportunity to write the cards for that many of the big guns). I didn't do any of the file cards for the "Stars & Stripes" set.

1998: Oktober Guard 3-pack, Navy Assault 3-pack, Cobra Infantry 3-pack, and Vypra. I also came up with the character names for Lt. Volga and Vypra, and painted the original prototype for Lt. Volga, who was originally intended as Daina.

I should also state that I was never a Hasbro employee. In the 1997-98 line, Hasbro wanted a certain amount of collector/fan input, so they enlisted a few of us that they'd met at previous G.I.Joe Conventions who had made a good impression on them or some such. Fortunately, I was one of them.

Snow Serpent! Indeed a snow trooper in way better colours than the one with the yellow.

Second places are shared by the Trooper, the Officer and Night Creeper, all in fine outfits.

Tim 121RVC

Snow Serpent. That is a beautiful arctic figure right there.

I've never been a fan of the "Cobra Officers" and "Cobra Troopers". They should have been called Vipers (nitpicky I know, but naming issues bother me). I think the original Viper colors were perfect and these new schemes were ok, but nothing earth shattering.

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Snow Serpent seems to win this poll!


Tim 121RVC

At least it wasn't Carly L. Blast, Sally C. Bratl, or Carly St. Ball...

I have always liked the unique wordplay in the names, and if anyone has heard the ones in the closing credits of Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion you'll know what I mean.

That's why I do try to come up with some interesting ones for my own characters. Here's two of them:

-Virginia Richmond
-Leigh Harvey (sort of along the idea of DDP's MayDay)
-Sally Hogan (Former FBI Agent, she runs the JOEs shooting range)

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