Every evil army needs its "shock" troopers!
Ghost Vipers and D.I.R.E. Beasts are the front line of Cobra's supernatural troopers recklessly unleashing forces they can't
begin to fully comprehend.
When Crystal Ball was released, he introduced the "DIRE Tech" the Ghost-Viper also uses, but there was no explanation of what that was. If you dug around on Walmart's site, however, you may have found a bit that initially just copied the original filecard (though correcting the "Romalian" typo and not using any slurs this time) before going on to say "Recently his arcane paranormal research has centered on harnessing extradimensional energy of an unknown origin as a potentially limitless alternative power source. Through this D.I.R.E. (Dread-Inducing Responsive Energy) Tech, Crystal Ball can manifest spectral ectoplasmic physical forms with strange, fear-provoking side effects." All that to discover what "DIRE" was! And then this figure just explains it right on the front of the box.
The name of the game with this action figure is "options": you're going to have a lot of choices about how you want to display him, beginning with the head. Right out of the box, he's got a brand new helmet that
distinctly belongs to him, rather than being a prepaint for some established character they're going to do later. Fittingly, it feels like something Marvel's Ghost would wear, with a breathing apparatus over the mouth, tubes running along the jawline, and four "eyes" that are likely meant to be cameras feeding into his sealed dome. It's molded from translucent green plastic, in an effort to give it a haunting glow, but the single thin, unpainted stripe running over the top doesn't really let in enough light to let the eyes and tubes illuminate the way they're intended to.
If you don't like that one, there's a more classic option. Pop the techo-helmet off, and you can swap it for a normal Viper helmet, the kind that usually has the mirrored faceplate. This is the existing sculpt, which is fine, but this time the face has a pale green skull painted on it for extra intimidation. It's very much like that one Call of Duty meme, with the guy staring at you like an idiot from the passenger seat. We still get the removable goggles, with their lenses painted red this time for contrast.
The body's all reused parts, but a new combination. He's got the Retro Collection Viper's legs and torso, including the vest and belt,
and then the arms from the Techno-Viper, so he can have those fancy touchscreen devices on his forearms. It's a bit surprising they'd use the Retro Viper pieces rather than the regular one, but hey, that just means more new pieces for me! What's the difference between them? Well, the padded sections on the Retro pants are narrower and continue below the knee, and the grenades on the vest are bit more old-school, being spherical instead of cylindrical. The belt has a few small pouches, and a holster on the back, plus a small molded flashlight.
The colors are intended to complement Crystal Ball, the same way the Iron Grenadier BAT was black, red, and gold, to match Destro's faction.
The base uniform is grey, with tan for the padding, black for the boots and gloves, and a darker brown for the vest. The accent color is gold, and all of it contrasts really well against the soapy green translucent bits. He's got a Cobra logo in gold on his left shoulder, and on his right, Crystal Ball's pointy symbol, now serving as unit patch or something. No question who the Ghost Viper answers to!
Surprisingly, the Ghost-Viper is one of the characters Hasbro released a filecard for, though of course not where anyone could actually find it. That explains a little more about the DIRE Tech, including that
it can "manifest as bursts of gas." While the Techno-Viper had holographic displays that could plug into the wrist computers he wore, those spots on this figure are given over to little gouts of translucent green flame. He's got a backpack with tanks (reused from Classified Barbecue) to hold this spectral ectoplasm, and a hose runs from that to a spray nozzle. Sadly, he does not have the leg holster Barbecue had, so there's nowhere to really store that when he's not holding it. He does, however, have an actual spray of stuff that can plug into the gun's barrel, releasing a translucent green cloud that turns into a screaming skull at the front. The set also includes a pistol for his holster, and the two rifles Retro Baroness had.
But that's just the beginning.
Apparently advanced Ghost-Vipers can form their spooky fog into physical objects, so this figure gets an arternate pair of hands that are actually huge, spectral claws. They have balljointed wrists, for maximum poseability, and the sculpt looks like skeletal hands with large, sharp claws, and flame or fur or smoke coming off the back that goes far enough up the arms to look like it's connected to the wrist projectors.
Then, we get two more heads: a cobra with long fangs and its hood spread open, or a wolf with a tremendous underbite.
The filecard calls those masks (as in, "not an actual physical transformation"), but this really isn't helping the "DIRE Tech" gimmick duck those Visionaries allegations, is it? Both heads look awesome, especially when paired with the claws, but now you really need four of this figure if you're going to display it in all the ways it's possible.
Finally, "truly adept" Ghost-Vipers can manifest DIRE Beasts, which are not just fancy disguises applied to the Viper's own body,
but autonomous creatures capable of moving about on their own. The two in this set match the Ghost-Viper's masks: a wolf and a snake. They're both existing molds, from Timber and Bucephalus respectively, which means the wolf is fully articulated and has two heads, and the snake is a single solid piece. They're both molded from the translucent green plastic, so we know they're ghosts.
The Ghost-Viper is, like Crystal Ball himself, a Walmart exclusive. And sold out nearly as fast. I got incredubly lucky, though, when William B. West mentioned that some people were finding it on Walmart's big "collector" display. I went to the one WM I knew the display, and this single Ghost-Viper was there! It's the same trip where I got Budo, so it was a big GI Joe day overall. This is a really cool character, and I'm elated I was able to get one, but Hasbro and Walmart need to either start doing rereleases or figure out the appropriate level of demand in the first place, because constantly selling out is just leaving money on the table. More fans want to buy Crystal Ball than have him. More fans want to buy the Ghost-Viper than have it. More fans want to buy the DIRE Night Creeper than have it. And more fans will want to buy whatever next year's exclusive is going to be than will be able to get it. It's especially bad here, on a figure that promotes army-building with its various extra parts.
-- 08/28/26
If there's a Ghost-Viper v.2, do you want it to come with the crocodile, the scorpion, or the dinosaur? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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