This Cobra Rage in the photo is what I would consider my first vehicle purchase more as a collector than whatever you want to call what I was before that.
This Rage, I think I bought from a Kay Bee, and definitely bought in late 1991 shortly after moving to a new HQ at that time. This HQ was located in a much larger city than the comparative middle of nowhere location that the HQ was before.
The strangest thing about this Cobra Rage purchase was the most Deja Vu moment of this fan's life. While mostly situated in the new HQ in 1991, I had this Rage on the red carpet of the new room near the radiator and it is still a moment of life that was really strange. I had seen this Rage in the room, on the red carpet but the radiator in a dream or something before.
This weird moment of life has always stood out in general.
This Cobra Rage is long gone. Here it has the G.I.Joe versus Cobra Alley Vipers, the one that came with Big Ben(s). That helps to date the photo, and unlike other film photos in 35mm I did at the time with the SLR, this one didn't turn out totally suck.
The "Duke legs" bugged me on these figures. I didn't want to admit it to myself 20 years ago but was able to come to terms with that aspect of the figures 11 years ago as of this post. I would have much preferred to have the 1993 Alley Viper as a squad, and actually still do. I had one. But then as the urban trooper would have been a good fit with an urban combat vehicle, the not-exactly-matching figure/vehicle color schemes sort of made me reconsider that route of attempting to build a dedicated Cobra urban fighting unit.