MOTU 200X | Cobra Khan

When you talk about the Masters of the Universe it is not just about He-Man battling Skeletor who want to take over Castle Grayskull. It’s also about the characters that populate Eternia and their individual stories and journey how they join the two faction of Heroic Warriors and Evil Warriors. Mattel produced some interesting characters and some odd ones, but there’s this lesser known creature that has appeared in the Filmation cartoon as well as featured in the mini comics packed in with the original toyline. Cobra Khan is not your usual bumbling henchman, but often carries a darker agenda portrayed in the cartoon.

There has been several depictions of Cobra Khan, but for someone who is not truly as a loyal henchman to Skeletor adds a layer of intrigue in what his true loyalty. In the Filmation cartoon, Cobra Khan is silent, soft-spoken, and vile with villainy. His true loyalty is not to Skeletor or King Hiss, but only to himself. This character trait has appeared previously to other animated franchise most notably comparable to the Decepticon’s Starscream in Transformers.

But the villainy of Cobra Khan takes the subtle baddie to new heights playing two sides of evil between Skeletor and the Snake Men that would later become a third faction in the MOTU 2002 series at the end of the second season before it was abruptly cancelled and ending with a cliffhanger.

Cobra Khan of Repton

The Cobra Khan Action figure had a major redesign when it was reintroduced in the MOTU 2002 series by the Four Horsemen Design team. This take of Khan is more slender and snake-like compared to the brutish and well-rounded original figure that was released in 1985 prior to his first on-screen appearance on the Filmation cartoon.

Design queues for Cobra Khan is the cobra-like aesthetics like the big wings appearing on the side of his neck, which only appeared in the classic cartoon. Besides the changes and improvements to well associated with the 2002 animation series its head is now have a moving jaw and detailed fangs.

Of course, the other changes aside from the aesthetics is the height and stature of the character, which pretty evident how well the Four Horsemen designed a modern take of Cobra Khan with a bit of ‘fear factor’ and still have his toy gimmick intact represented in this 2002 version of the character.

Armed with a Projectile

Speaking of the toy gimmick that was originally introduced in the vintage toy is now present with this 2002 version. The same with how you fill the water by removing his head and an empty and hallowed out torso can store the water for his ‘spray gimmick’ can be seen here. It’s unfortunate due to the age of the figure there are some tiny leaks that shows that Cobra Khan can no longer store water properly for him to use his spraying abilities, which in the 2002 series says that he spits acid rather than spraying a mist to incapacitate his victims.

Cobra Khan was released twice during its 2002 series run with two different versions of the card back. The last one was towards the end of the toyline’s shelf life that introduced the Snake Men with the packaging is based on that theme. Khan comes with his traditional pistol similar to Zodak’sm but the 2002 is even better with more exaggerated details as well as a spring-loaded weapon that fires the nozzle part of the pistol into a projectile cast in slightly lighter shade of bronze with details of a snake head. Due to the age of the figure he can’t hold his weapon properly.

Like most of the MOTU 2002 figures they lack the articulation in the elbow and knees, but makes up to bringing back the nostalgia of the figure’s gimmick made sense in re-introducing it to new fans of the toy and animated series.

Featured Articulation:

• Head Removable
• Shoulders can Rotate
• No Elbow and Knee Joint
• Limited Rotation on the writst
• Free Rotating Waist Joint
• Hinge-like Ball Joint at the Thighs
• No Ankle Joint

Overall Cobra Khan is still a fun figure having his sleeping mist spray gimmick still included in this 2002 series makes it interesting why the Classic version did not have it, but hopefully longtime fans are looking forward for the MOTU Origins range of figures to include Cobra Khan having it. For now, this figure is still an interesting character despite that his body can no longer store water to use the gimmick.

Cobra Khan is part of the MOTU 2002 series and under the Snake Men subseries that feature the water squirting gimmick that was released in the mid-2000s, and became a clearance item as how this was acquired.