Select Page

Curse you, ROSS STORES!!

Well, they’re at it again.  Ross, the bane of my collectors’ existence has once again scored a coup, this time with the previously released only in Canada Wave 3 of the Rise of Cobra Alpha vehicles.  This wave contains the Polar Shark Sub w/ Ice Storm, the Desert Rockslide w/ Dusty, the Tiger Claw ATV w/ Leatherneck, and the Lavapod w/ Volcano Viper.
Now, I’ve been able to get these, so really, I’m not feeling too wounded, but every time I hear about Ross getting these cool tail enders, I just get reminded how the nearest store is like 350 miles away.  The vehicles are retailing for about $8.99 apiece, just to twist that knife a bit deeper.
Thanks to GeneralsJoes regular Nas for the info, with confirmation pics at HissTank.com.  If you have a Ross near you, GO GET ‘EM.

Weekend Recap – Alpha vehicles Wave 3 high res gallery

Another nice post over on HissTank.com reveals some great images of the soon to be released third wave of Alpha scale vehicles, slated to hit in early 2010, according to the latest Hasbro Q & A.  Some very nice pictures of all vehicles and vehicle drivers.  Not really wild about any of the three vehicles, but Volcano Viper is insane!  The new Dusty is pretty freaking great, too, but Leatherneck leaves me a bit “bleh”.  Still cool to see the images, though.

no images were found

Some nice loose images of upcoming Wave 3 Alpha Vehicles

Over at Hisstank.com familiar pre-production fan Rulz has come up with the entire third wave of upcoming Alpha vehicles, and has kindly posted a number of images of said vehicles.  The assortment includes the Polar Sharc Sub w/ Ice Storm, the Cobra Lava Pod w/ Volcano Viper, and the Tiger Claw ATV w/ Leatherneck.  Personally, for as much as I love the Rise of COBRA, I do feel like the vehicles have been somewhat lacking, especially the Alpha class stuff.  While the Snarler and the Skysweeper were both pretty cool, I’m not wild about the Rockslide, the Molepod, or the Cobra Snake Trax.  Now, only in the third wave, we’ve got another Molepod, and another ATV Ferret repaint, with a Rockslide repaint coming with Dusty in Wave 4.  It’s getting a bit silly.  Dealing with repaints and mixed tools in the figure line is one thing, but paying $18 for repaint vehicles 2 months after they were released the first time is really pushing it.

But as mixed as I am on the vehicles, the figures are actually looking pretty damn good.  I love the Rollbar and Air Raid from the Snarler and Sky Sweeper.  Ice Storm and Volcano Viper both really kick ass, too.  I even think the upcoming Dusty looks spectacular.

But this post is about Wave 3 isn’t it?  :shifty:

The Polar Sharc Sub actually looks really neat, so I think that one is a home run all around.  Ice Storm is an awesome looking new figure and new character to boot.  The Volcano Viper has some serious potential, but I really didn’t dig the Molepod the first time around, I especially don’t dig the Lavapod repaint.  I will say the Tiger Claw looks a lot cooler than the Snake Trax, though…but Leatherneck doesn’t offer a whole lot of new stuff to love, even in the jungle camo.  Maybe I’ll let the images speak for themselves.

no images were found

High Res product images for latest wave of Alpha class vehicles

Awash with repaints and retools, the next wave of Alpha Vehicles consists of a mostly blech repaint of a mostly blech vehicle, the Lava Pod, however, the Volcano-Viper looks all sorts of kick ass.  Pretty funny how he uses the same tooling as the arctic Ice-Viper, yet the ultra-hot weather specialist still looks right at home.  A bad ass head sculpt and mask don’t hurt.

The Rockslide is no great shakes either, but the digicam Dusty looks pretty nasty as a great modern update for the familiar old favorite.  Hopefully the final version comes with his head scarf, I can’t recall if we saw it during the various convention photo shoots.  My least favorite of this underwhelming trio is the TigerClaw, a haphazard repaint and retool of the already haphazard Snake Trax w/ Scrap Iron.  But what really bums me out here is the vehicle driver.  If they’re going to give us a Leatherneck in green camouflage, couldn’t they at least have made it a pure homage to the ’86 version, rather than this strange dark forest camo?  At least that way they’d make the old school folks happy…instead, we get a bizarrly kitbashed version that is unchanged from the original other than a different camouflage scheme that still doesn’t look like the right camouflage scheme.  The figure isn’t really a bad one, I guess…he does have some neat military elements, but I can hear those complaints coming a mile away.

Ah, well, at least he’s got the fixed Duke arms.  Check out the images below.

no images were found