STAR-VIPER. A highly-advanced Strato-Viper who piloted the Stellar Stilleto high-altitude rocket fighter. Dr. Mindbender surgically altered the Star Viper by implanting an electro-magnetic shunt into the right side of his brain. Electronic impulses sent into the shunt gave him very fast reflexes and heightened senses, giving him an advantage in high altitude dogfights. The Star Viper had an even higher tolerance for G-forces than a standard Strato-Viper. On the Star-Viper's first mission, he infiltrated Joe headquarters -- Pit III -- in Utah by grabbing onto the underside of a Joe vehicle passing by him on the road to the Pit. The vehicle was moving at the time. He snuck inside and remained hidden until nightfall, when he stole some of the Joe team's highly-advanced electronic "black boxes" from the Defiant space shuttle. He barely escaped with his life, stealing a jeep and evading a handful of Joe vehicles chasing him. He met up with the BAT-driven trailer truck that had dropped him off and escaped in the Stiletto hidden inside. Star-Viper was about to receive a hero's welcome on Cobra Island when a heated argument between Serpentor and the Cobra Commander imposter, Fred VII turned violent and triggered Cobra's civil war.

A short time after the civil war ended, the Joes sent a large group of fighters and other aircraft to Cobra Island, drawing the attention of Cobra fighter squadrons. Star-Viper flew the only Stiletto in the squadron, despite the fact that his arrogance garnered the contempt of the other pilots. The Joes' stealth fighter pilot goaded the cocky Cobra pilot into exceeding his own G-force threshold. His circuits overloaded and the Star-Viper's fighter plunged into ocean below. He did not survive.

(GI 72-73; SM 16; Figure: 1)