Cobra Rattler, 25th Anniversary

Review:

If I asked you what the most iconic Cobra vehicle ever produced was, you would likely name the Hiss Tank.  If you moved on to the second most iconic vehicle, I'm guessing the Rattler would be what most people would say.  The Rattler became the primary fighter of the Cobra air force sometime around 1984 when it was introduced for sale and showed up in the Real American Hero cartoons.  I'm not sure the episode it first appeared in, but prior to that Cobra utilized a delta winged VTOL craft that was never officially released as a toy (however, several years later Hasbro did release something similar to this original Cobra jet in the Cobra Hurricane VTOL).

Years later in 2008, Hasbro reintroduced the Rattler for the 25th Anniversary of GI Joe's 3.75" line.  Here it is:

First thing anyone might notice had you never set eyes on GI Joe before is how similar looking it is to the real world A-10 Thunderbolt II, an attack fighter currently used by the United States Air Force (provided you were in fact familiar with military jets).  There are some very notable differences, however:

The Rattler has a second position behind the cockpit, while the A-10 is a single-seat aircraft.  Notice too that the engines are mounted above and on both sides of the tail section on the real world airplane, while the Rattler's are integrated into the wings and possesses a third, smaller jet engine mounted on the top of the tail.

In the real world, the A-10 Thunderbolt is an attack aircraft capable of short take-offs and landing on underdeveloped forward airfields that are typically more crude than a lot of jets are designed to handle, but the Rattler is capable of something more spectacular:  it can take off and land vertically by rotating it's wings and primary jet engines perpendicular to the ground:

Nifty.

Here is a good commercial showing the play value of the Cobra Rattler and some of it's contemporaries in action:

The Rattler did have a number of re-releases prior to the lastest one in 2008 as part of the 25th Anniversary line:  the original in 1984 and then again in 2002 (the later released in a striking black and metallic copper scheme).  The mold was also released under the Tiger Force line with the associated black/yellow striping as a GI Joe vehicle twice, and as the "A-10 Thunderbolt" in a more conventional camo green drab color as well.  YoJoe has images of all the versions.  This makes the Rattler a very popular release, having been put to retail six different times.  No doubt this has to do with the toy's prominence within cartoons, the fact that the aircraft it's based on is one *bad* airplane, as well as it's own inherent cool factor as a toy.

One thing about Cobra is that for a terrorist organization, it's rather cavalier about utilizing unorthodox color schemes.  Sometimes the radical color schemes just doesn't work out so well, but in the case of the Rattler it turns out to be very striking.

Other than it's appearance, the thing that stands out most about the Rattler is the number of ordinance accessories it has mounted under the wings: fourteen armaments including an array of bombs and missiles, plus the two racks from which the bombs hang.  Including the iconic vulcan cannon carried over from the real life A-10 and the two turret mounted guns, this gives the Rattler an astounding number of weapons to use against it's foes.  The cannon can be rotated using your finger and all missiles are removable from the pylons or racks they come attached to.  Two of the missiles have a detachable second stage for targets at long range.  All weapons attach firmly to the aircraft until you take them off.

It also features two removable sets of panels and removable cowling over both wing-board engines that reveal even further detail.  Check out the images below:

The above three images show three different configurations of the tail panel: normal panel (top), battle damage (middle), and removed (bottom).   The three images below show the normal panel (top), battle damaged panel (middle), and removed (bottom)

The cowling of the engines reveals the detail of the twin wing-mounted turbofan engines:

Removing the midsection mounted turret reveals the place where a second figure can fit in the vehicle:

The turret position is a tight fit, especially for those figures that have big shoulders or bulky web gear.  Even though the turret's clear plastic dome lifts up, you will have to remove the entire turret to fit most figures in this space, and many just won't fit at all.  One problem with the clear plastic turret dome is that when you fully open it as in the above image, the back of it nicks over the black plastic ring to which it's mounted.  When you open it, it feels like you could break something if you aren't careful.  When closed and during play, the entire turret comes off easily, particularly if there is a figure manning the turret.  And having a figure in there doesn't allow the turret to rotate nicely.

Unfortunately, this isn't the only issue, or even the most severe issue with the Rattler.  The seams of the toy aren't fastened with screws, they're glued together with cyanoacrylate (crazy glue).  This makes it tough to disassemble if you lose a small gun inside, or if you're just looking to do customs.  

The stickers are horrible, just completely horrible.  They appear to consist of two layers which will separate from each other very easily, both when you remove them from the sheet and if you try to remove them from the vehicle when trying to position them better.  When the layers separate, there is no simple way of restoring them.  You will just have a portion of the top layer most likely curling up in a very unsightly manner.  If they don't separate, reapplying them or mishandling them can give the clear borders a milky, cloudy sheen that detracts from the toy's appearance. You can see some if it in the images above, and I consider myself quite good at applying stickers.  Fortunately, it appears that Cobra Stickers offers some better quality replacements.

The worst problem with the Rattler, however, is the landing gear:

The landing gear is closed out of the box and quite difficult to pry open.  The wheel is mounted on a rather thin plastic rod which attaches to gear mechanism within the body.  The mechanism works well at holding the gear open and closed, but it gives a lot of resistance in doing so and puts pressure on this thin piece of plastic.  The trouble is, you see that bright blue spot in the middle of the image above?  that's the landing gear rod's plastic revealing stress from the bending of simply opening and closing, and for me this stress mark became apparent after opening the gear for the first time!  I've heard of some Rattler owners, particularly of the initial release in 1984 not wanting to risk attempting to open the gear for fear of it breaking off, which from what I understand happened a lot with the original toy.  While it's supposedly better with the more modern releases, as you can see above there is still some real concern with this.  And even if you can somehow get a replacement gear, remember, the toy is glued together with crazy glue and I would expect it would be difficult to get apart without breaking something else.    The two rear landing gears offer similar resistance, but do not exhibit the same stress marks as the front one does.  I have put a few drops of oil into the gear mechanisms to reduce the amount of resistance to opening and closing them, and it seems to have reduced the pressure needed to open and close them.  The wheels themselves roll freely and are made out of a hard rubber instead of plastic, which is a welcomed touch, however the landing gear is a real let down for the Rattler.  

There is one more problem that bears mentioning. Apparently, the elevators and wings are not parallel to each other.  There is a noticeable drop between the right elevator and the left from some sort of warping in the body or miss-molding of the plastic.  Reports I've heard indicate this is "normal" for the tail section to droop slightly to one side like this.

Wild Weasel was as a figure first released with the original Cobra Rattler.  For the 25th Anniversary line, he's been updated to match the modern sculpting and tooling of the 25th line.

There's a lot I like about this figure.  The red jumpsuit is a very well detailed modern representation of the original Wild Weasel.  The intricacy of his flight suit shows that a lot of thought went into it.  The two white pouches above his knees might be 'relief bags'.

If you don't care much for this figure as Wild Weasel, this is a tempting army builder given it's otherwise anonymous appearance, for which it's nice that an identical Wild Weasel figure was made available in a cheaper comic pack with a 25th version of Capt Ace and included a display stand (along with a different set of goggles).

I included a figure stand with the first image of Wild Weasel above, though the figure as included with the Rattler did not have one.  The only accessories it came with (besides the plane) are pictured above.  The goggles are removable to show the figure's eyes (see second pic above) and the sidearm fits nicely into his holster.  The knife and helmet are not removable.

Grade: 

Quality: D-
Landing gear stress marks a big concern.  Horrible stickers

Appearance: B-

visually striking, great color.  Lots of cool detail and features..  Elevator droop and noticeable glue lines on seams.  Stickers can look bad if misapplied.  

Playability: B

tons of weapons and accessories that stay attached to the aircraft.  removable panels.  The turret comes off too easily.  VTOL functionality.  Two figures can be seated inside.

Figure: C+ 

very good appearance, detail, and coloring, but helm and knife aren't removable.  No figure stand.

OVERALL: C+

Summary:  Yeah, I really hammered the Rattler for it's problems, but it's hard to recommend something that looks like it could break so easily with normal use.  I understand that a lot of people will attest to the durability of the toy when dropped.  Hey, this is 2013 and polymers have come a long ways.  toys shouldn't often break when dropped on carpet, but the Rattler will have frustrating breaks if you just open the gear and close it too often.  This is a big fail.  I understand that these style of stickers are quite common in the 25th era:  The Vamp has them as does the Conquest.  These stickers should never have been put out on anything as they are maddening.  

As a fan of ARAH, you probably need at least one of these.  If you prefer some other era, I have provided a number of reasons to stay away from this toy -particularly since it's fairly expensive now that it's not been produced in several years.  I bought two because I really like jets and because the Rattler is an iconic mainstay of A Real American Hero, but I am not pining for a re-release.  If you're looking for a Cobra attack aircraft that's cheaper, more available in stores, and lacks many of the frustrating aspects the Rattler has, look no further than the Cobra Black Dragon VTOL that was released as part of the 30th Anniversary line.  I have given a tactical summary of it here.

In conclusion, I really like the Rattler and am glad to have it, but it's faults cannot be ignored.