G.I. Joe Classified Series Tele-Viper and Trubble Bubble review

With the arrival of the Tele-Viper, Hasbro successfully knocked out all the Cobra army builders from the iconic 1985 lineup. But it wasn’t just his arrival that was so exciting. With the G.I. Joe Classified Series line proving to be a massive hit with collectors, Hasbro got more encouraged to knock out more vehicles.

We’d gotten the RAM and the Cobra COIL, but the arrival of the Trubble Bubble felt like a declaration from the CS team that more non-HasLab size vehicle greatness was on the way. I’ve been pretty excited about this one.

Let’s see if this Bubble flies high or is simply trouble.

Package:  This package is a little wider than the RAM/COIL setup in case you’re lining all your vehicle boxes out on the same shelf. As usual, I really like this rendered artwork showing off the figure (and vehicle) in action. Honoring the tradition of the cartoon, there’s a slew of Trubble Bubbles blanketing a mountain range.

To the side of the main portrait, as usual, is a drawing of the Tele-Viper with a splendid sneer as he’s raising his weapon. Above him on the white stripe is the various accessories. On the left side is a wider portrait of the Tele-Viper artwork with the other featuring the QR Code and small stats.

Over on the back are larger pictures of the figure, Trubble Bubble and accessories. Somehow the skill sets don’t look any bigger despite the larger packaging space.

Tele-Viper’s skill sets are a 1 in electrical engineering and cryptography as well as a 2 in communication and telecommunications device.

Likeness: The Tele-Viper deviates from the original design in some notable areas. With one tiny exception the updates are well done and make sense.

I love the default head. The sneer gives the head sculpt so much personality, which is helpful since he’s one of the few Cobra grunts with their mouths visible. His helmet design is stellar with excellent detailing looking sufficiently tech-ed out.

I like the popped-up collar, which kind of gives him a geek squad look while the waffle pattern vest shows he’s ready for battle.

The vest is fully closed now and isn’t the Marty McFly variety. This gives him more of a bulkier appearance.

Maintaining that blue-collar Cobra goon visual, his sleeves are rolled up. Hasbro updated him a bit more with a watch and nicely detailed gloves. The right arm also has a tech device with readouts to keep the Tele-Viper apprised of what’s going on to report to Cobra Commander.

He’s got a belt with pouches and maybe a satellite phone? I do miss the Cobra snake belt buckle though. Interestingly, Hasbro switched up the boots losing the laced-up style and using the padded top mold.

Paint:  Hasbro stuck with the traditional purple and blue colors. The big exception is the arms. With the original design, the Tele-Viper had a dark blue/black slim turtleneck. That’s maintained here, but it’s now a full long-sleeve shirt.

That’s done to accommodate the additional accessories. The darker blue and purples give the Tele-Viper an overall dark color scheme so the black arms blur some of the distinct hues. It’s a savvy move from Hasbro as Cobra diversifies its ranks further and there’s always the Retro option if Hasbro wants to go completely old school with the design.

The Cobra logo on the shoulders shifts from the interior to the sides of the sleeves while the gloves, device and watch split the purples and blues.

As I’m expecting at this point all the paintwork is very nice and crisp. The silver goggles really pop.

Scale:  Tele-Viper is another standard size figure and will look eye to eye with the standard size characters.

Articulation: The Tele-Viper has nice and tight joints allowing him to hit all kinds of poses with no trouble…hmmn, that time the pun wasn’t intended. He can do splicing, sit at the communications desk or jam Joe frequencies in the field.

I do wish Hasbro could make these vests out of a thinner material to allow for better back and forth torso motion. There’s some give, but not as much as it with figures that don’t have those restrictive vests.

Tele-Viper has:

• head
• neck
• shoulders (butterfly)
• elbow (double-jointed)
• wrist
• wrist hinge
• mid-torso
• torso
• waist
• hips (ball-jointed)
• drop down hips
• knees (double-jointed)
• ankles

Accessories: I mentioned earlier the accommodations Hasbro took to mix the Tele-Viper up and make army building easier.

Hasbro gave the Tele-Viper two additional portraits: one black and the other with really creepy looking visor and mouth plate. I can almost envision the latter as a drone created by Dr. Mindbender to allow for easier piloting of the Trubble Bubble.

Another aspect of the additional portraits is Hasbro could have really just done the simple thing of painting the default head black and calling it a day. Instead, they put in the work to create a new sculpt with a broader nose and opposite side sneer for the black Tele-Viper. That’s really going above and beyond.

The visor on the third portrait has raised red light buttons. It’s a very cool looking portrait.

Tele-Viper gets his signature sonic blaster weapon, which faithfully connects to a tube leading to his beehive shaped backpack. I love that Hasbro isn’t afraid to mix it up and create different accessories for the Joes/Cobras, but I’ve got a sweet spot for some of the gear and it’s cool seeing that replicated in this format.

And you can tab the blaster onto the backpack in a nice touch.

Now it’s probably time to get into the main featured accessory — the Trubble Bubble.

There’s no need to mess with a good thing. Hasbro kept the design intact. Oddly, it took me this long to see the design of the Bubble’s shield is shaped like Cobra Commander and the Cobra trooper’s helmets.

I’m impressed how faithfully the Classified Series Trubble Bubble is compared to the original.

You’d really need to do a precise one to one comparison to see the subtle changes Hasbro’s CS team made.

In most instances, the CS TB sculpted the details that were originally conveyed via stickers. I love that some of the decals like the SB, PE 40 L7A and Cobra logos carried over from the RAH version.

There are some fun additions like the three down Skystrikers on the exhaust port. The real question is how many Trubble Bubbles it took to take out a Skystriker?

All the armament is intact from the big chain gun under the steering console and missiles on either side. I do miss the stickers on the missiles and putting the stickers on myself.

Hasbro added much more color in the interior with various, greens, reds and blacks on the paneling as well as a radar scope and gauge, The steering console has a range device like something you’d see in Star Wars.

In the sense of safety there’s now a seat belt setup. Since the bubble section raises all the way back to the exhaust jets, there’s no issue arranging most Cobras into it.

You will need to press the tabs on either side of the Bubble a little harder than you’d expect. They lock in nice and snug when they’re in place.

The Trubble Bubble also came with an aerial mine. This has a ton of detail and paint apps. It also has a tab you can open to show the hardware inside. That’s a nice touch. I wish this could be stored on the TB itself beyond the loose fit of the back end of the chain gun.

Worth It?  The Trubble Bubble is $55 and is a Pulse exclusive. That basically makes the price of the TB $30 since the Tele-Viper is $25. That feels like a fair price for me for a smaller size vehicle that’s done with so much care and interest to do right.

Rating: 10 out of 10

It’s hard to knock the value of this set with a well-engineered figure and a stellar interpretation of a Cobra vehicle that invites army building.

Where to Get it? This was a Pulse exclusive, but you can get the Python Patrol version at Target now.

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