PoeGhostal.com Review:
G.I. Joe Zombie Viper

The interchangeable “normal” arms come with small patches of clothing that have to be popped in between the elbow and the forearm – they’re tiny, but if you lose them you’ll have a gap between the elbow and forearm, so be careful.

The Compound-Z canister plugs into a hole in the harness, and the end of the plug can be plugged into the back of the helmet. There are two additional holes for each, so either Hasbro once intended to include three and then production costs forced them down to one, or they were expecting people to army-build these figures (which I suspect many would have, had they not been so damned hard to find).

Articulation is typical for a current G.I. Joe figure: a ball-and-socket head, ball-and-hinge shoulders, ball-and-hinge elbows and wrists (no wrist artic on the tendrils), swivel forearms, what I think is a ball-jointed torso (hard to tell, it’s very constricted by the harness), ball-and-hinge hips, double-hinge knees, and ball-and-hinge ankles. It’s plenty for a figure of this scale, though I’ll admit that being used to swivel thigh articulation, I miss it here.

The bio card for the Zombie-Viper seems as whitewashed as the figure’s blood is blue-washed. Most of the bio is taken up explaining that Compound-Z has turned the Cobra troops into “drones.” There’s no mention of the gross tendril arms nor the obvious physical deterioration they’ve undergone. And the last sentence is just lame. It appears Hasbro was very concerned that parents would find this figure inappropriate for children. Wasn’t there a toy line based on a cartoon based on Tales from the Crypt in the ‘80s that had a zombie figure? Hell, there was a zombie in Kenner’s Real Ghostbusters line.

Evidently aware of the figure’s crossover appeal, Hasbro sculpted a whole slew of zombified Joes for an unproduced “Zombie Invasion” concept. All I can tell you, Hasbro, is that this non-Joe collector would be tempted to buy every one of those figures based on the awesomeness of this one.

*Which is not to say NoisyDvL5 and/or Vault are Rob Liefeld! Far from it; to the best of my knowledge, neither of them has been in a Levi’s commercial or appeared on The Dennis Miller Show.

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21 thoughts on “PoeGhostal.com Review:
G.I. Joe Zombie Viper

  1. *Which is not to say NoisyDvL5 and/or Vault are Rob Liefeld! Far from it; to the best of my knowledge, neither of them has been in a Levi’s commercial or appeared on The Dennis Miller Show.

    It’s true… I can’t draw feet.

    1. Ever heard of the Rob Liefeld drinking game? You get a bottle of liquor and a Rob Liefeld comic, and you take a shot every time you see a muscle group that doesn’t exist in real life. Legend has it no one’s ever made it past the first page.

      1. i might have to give that a whirl… in my younger years, we did the “brain candy” drinking game, where you picked an actor and every time a scene changed, and your actor appeared, you drank. i had bruce mcculloch and i survived. i was no good on two feet, but i survived. then again, that was 12 years ago… maybe i better pass on the liefeld challenge…

        course, you could vary the liefeld too… do a shot every time feet should appear, do a shot every time a weapon has no handle, or *GASP* a shot for every pouch. THAT might kill you.

  2. Sweet review, excellent photos.

    Still confused about the tentacles, though. Is Compound Z derived from The Thing?

  3. This figure reminds me more of “Resident Evil”, specifically the movies, where the zombies are grossly mutated. It’s great to see Hasbro expand the Joe universe like this. The figure has one of the most impressive sculpts in the 30th line.

    1. There’s still plenty of Retaliation merchandise, and for some reason my local TRU just restocked on the early 30th waves (Duke, Dusty, Snake Eyes in a biker jacket, etc.). I’ve still never seen a Renegades Storm Shadow, though…

      1. I have all the retaliation stuff I need until waves 2 and 3 come out whenever. I want new stuff (Beyond obv the sub which I just couldnt do)

        Man I would love it if my TRU would re stock the early 30th waves

  4. Oh how I wish I haggled somebody to get one cheaper. Ugh had the chance and.missed out do to forgetting what I wanted at a local toy show. Woulda been cool to.have some but was thinking of actual dead joe characters.

  5. looking at this fig now, i can’t believe i didn’t make an effort to get one. i totally sluffed it off at the time. i’m disappointed in myself.

  6. Poe, the harness is removable. There is a tab that you open–pop off the head and slide it over his body. And he does have a torso joint.

  7. Aww… thanks for the shoutout Poe! I’d like to note that “In other words, they are deadly zombie warriors” is possibly my favorite piece of bizarre copy on toy packaging ever! The whole coloration of the figure does remind me of something though it’s been hard to put my finger on; likening it to what’d appear in “Heavy Metal” is pretty sharp I’d say.

    Ed really shot some lovely pics here, especially that first shot where the colors really make the exposed part of his head pop really well.

    It’s too bad about the Zombie subline Hasbro was considering as that Cobra Commander looks to be the best version of the character ever. I’d have bought nearly everything in that cabinet short of some of the weirder ‘Legends of the Arashikage’ figures!

    1. I loved seeing all those figs too (though I want just a normal version of that Commander instead of the zombified) and I really hope they continue on that path once the movie stuff is clear!!

      1. If he had parts to make him normal, I don’t think we’d need another version of the bucket head look for quite awhile. He even had ball jointed wrists! ARGH why didn’t it happen!?

  8. I passed on this guy quite a few times myself. Probably should have picked some up, but I kind of fell out of love with 3 3/4 Joe and just haven’t quite found my smile again.

    Of course this is also probably an example of Ed Speir’s great photos making the figure look even cooler than it really is. Lord knows I’ve bought tons of figures based on cool photos that I could never recreate. Often they don’t live up to the film.

  9. I love the figure, Although I have to point out those ball hinged wrists were not typical of GI Joe, it was a pretty new POA for the fig and only a few of them at the time had it (Although I think all the figs from his wave did). In additon the “cost cutting” to be able to add those wonderful spring loaded launchers (note the cynisim there) is taking that articulation away from many of the new figs.

    But a great review, love seeing other’s pics of these guys, Zombie Viper was one of thsoe really awesome and unexpected pleasures.

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