Art Design: Two seperate carded sets joined together by an additional layer of harder transparent plastic. This set is a lot easier to open with a bladed instrument. The backs of both cards have the usual level of outstanding comic book style art and Cross Hair has his own File Card, which is also a collectible.
The Headsculpt: A very interesting and unique face. Cross Hair looks a bit like a young Jeff Bridges or Alec Baldwin. The face camouflage is perfectly applied, very crisp, no drips or fuzziness here.
The Cross Hair Outfit: Cross Hair brings an excellent camouflage boonie hat, rubber camo flak jacket, molded-on shirt, brown cloth pants with a green tint, and green boots, and a gigantic M-50 with bipod and a huge scope. He looks great, too bad the Flak Jacket has no working pockets. The boots seem to be a green variation of the 50th Anniversary Target sets' boots. The color scheme is definitely different and refreshing.
The Cobra Spy Mission Outfit: This set should make anyone who likes the Cobra theme very excited. Unfortunately, I have only seen one at any retail store in the past thirty days. The Cobra Outfit (see photo on the right) includes the breast-plate with the Cobra insignia, the Airborne Paratrooper helmet in blue with the face mask, and the Cobra Hood with the red insignia. The gear includes a sniper rifle with working bipod; an ammo belt; and a rubber belt with drop-down holsters. The belt has a knife and gun holster (and a large Hall of Fame era gold knife and gun), and a drop-down holster for grenades. Two red Flash grenades are included. At the photo on the left, the action figure is modelling the Cobra gear on a black jumpsuit and boots (which are not included in the set).
The Action Figure: The top of the body has the molded-on shirt which gives the arms very limited mobility. However, the hands have green molded-on finger-less gloves with velcro fasteners that resemble the kind many people use for for lifting weights. These gloves are so realistic that even the velcro fastener near the wrists looks like it is peeling slightly open. I swapped the hands and head from this figure to the Flint figure, which has muscular arms and a molded-on green USAF shirt.
Overall: This is probably the nicest economy priced set that GI Joe has ever issued. It is several cuts above the norm.
Price: It was released to x-Marts and possibly other retail outlets. The price at Wal-Mart is $9.96, which is an incredible bargain and a great way for GI Joe to help families to introduce their kids to GI Joe with the kind of set that any kid would remember forever.
Grade: A+
