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A skull-faced ninja? It'll never work!
Vypra allegedly offered her services to Cobra Commander as a mercenary and intelligence courier by audaciously sneaking into his private business meeting at Extensive Enterprises. Intrigued by her boldness he brought her aboard.
When this Target-exclusive figure was revealed, I initially thought she was a new character - but that bio (sourced from the Hasbro Pulse website because there's nothing on the packaging other than her Mercenary 2, Bladed Weapons 2, Martial Arts 2, Ninjutsu 2 stats) makes it clear she's meant to be this Vypra, the Generation 2 vehicle driver one. So an already-obscure character, now in a design she's never had before. No wonder I didn't recognize her right away! And yet the bio doesn't use the line about her using "deceptive attire" to cover her tracks? This is what happens when you let your CEO lay people off just to line his own pockets.
The majority of this figure is
the same mold as Akiko, because a lady ninja is a lady ninja is a lady ninja. ["kunoichi" --ed.] And where else could Hasbro possibly get any baggy pants to give her? Nowhere, that's right! She's got the little jacket held shut by a sash, and even more evidence of bundled shirts on her neck. The arms are different, coming instead from Zarana, meaning Vypra gets molded armor on her shoulders and elbows, and nice snake-scale textures on her forearms.
The head is what's really different. The mold isn't technically new, having originally appeared on the female Blue Ninja, but that two-pack was an Amazon exclusive, so you might not even know it exists. This is a typical ninja mask, covering everything but her golden eyes, and there's a technological headband with an armored plate over the forehead. Believe it!
If you don't like the ninjette look, there's an option: the figure includes
a grey skull mask with a flaming red eye painted on the forehead. When the figure was revealed, I took that to be a new piece; but I was just as wrong as when I thought the character and the head were new! This skull actually originated with that SDCC Zartan Hasbro never made available to the rest of us, though there it was white, didn't have a symbol on it, and the centers of the mechanical eyes were red instead of solid black. It looks really cool on her, though, so reusing it was a terrific choice.
While the two previous Vypras wore navy blue ninja uniforms (plain blue in G3, camouflage in G2), Classified Vypra ditches that
entirely. Just as Target's Joe team exclusives are all Tiger Force, their Cobras are all Python Patrol, meaning this Vypra's colors are black, red, and yellow. It's far more understated on Vypra than on a lot of the other figures, with the "Python" print limited to just the edges of her top (and a logo high on the right shoulder), so she honestly just looks like a sinister ninja, rather than a sinister ninja who's been painted weird ways.
Though she's been Frankensteined from up to three different bodies (the Akiko mold was also used for the Blue Ninja, so you could technically count that and the head as coming from just one source), Vypra's
articulation remains up to par: swivel/hinge ankles, swivel shins, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips mounted on a hinge, balljointed chest and waist, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge shoulders on pectoral hinges, a hinge at the top of the neck and a balljoint at the bottom, and a balljointead head. You may overlook one of the two torso joints at first, since they're both under different pieces of clothing, but they are there. The hinges in the shoulder really don't seem to work, though; Zarana was able to lift he arms, so it's not the armor that does it, but Vypra doesn't really have the same range of motion.
Other than the it-might-as-well-be-new skull mask,
Vypra's accessories come from Storm Shadow. The combination quiver/scabbards backpack is grey, with a golden Arashikage symbol in the center (though she's never been directly connected to the ninja clan before). The fletching on her arrows, both the ones molded into the quiver and the removable one, is also golden. The bow and the hilts of her swords are dark red. The bow got utterly warped during shipping, way more than you'd expect from something that was having no consistent pressure applied to it.
Vypra may not be as new a character as I initially thought, but that doesn't diminish her quality at all. Even without any unique parts, she's so far removed from her predecessors that she might as well have been created just for Classified, and that's what we like! Her Python Patrol colors are incredibly striking, but look excellent even without knowing she's meant to be part of a sub-team.
-- 01/19/24
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