PZ-002 Serpent
And here we have the second and final power zoid, Serpent. Like Tank, Serpent was never released in Japan and it also has an incredibly bizarre design. Whereas Tank was a sort of hybrid of a battering ram and a duck, Serpent is a sort of rickshaw/dragon design. Additionally, Serpent is the first “empire” zoid released so far. We’ve seen zoids in the grey/red empire color scheme before, but those have been recolored versions of existing zoids released in lines after 1985. Serpent, on the other hand, hit stores in 1983, making it the first actual Zenebas zoid introduced. Finally Serpent is rated at 372 mph, making it by far the fastest zoid so far, beating out Gurantula’s 205 mph by a significant margin.
As for the design itself, well....I’ll say the Zenebas Empire deserved better for their first zoid. I came to appreciate Tank over time, despite the fact that it’s essentially a car and not a mech, but Serpent has all of the flaws of Tank with none of the redeeming goofiness. It just looks bad, like something cobbled together out of leftover parts or other, better zoids. The two massive wheels, the odd swept-back neck, the tiny arms (?) on the front all together look just ungainly and unfortunate.
Like Tank, Serpent came in a few color variations. The US release had came with either green or brown wheels, seemingly at random. The European release had grey wheels and a slightly lighter red. The US release came with the same style of republic stickers as the other zoids so far while the European release was the first zoid with empire stickers. Also like Tank, Serpent was only released as part of Power Zoids line. While I appreciate these early stabs at a battery-operated zoid, they represent a sort of evolutionary dead end for the line. Very shortly we’ll be seeing the first proper motorized zoid which will instead scale up the type of design we’ve seen with the windups, rather than making them these strange wheeled monstrosities.
I really don’t like Serpent much at all. Still, rating it is quite difficult. I find it’s design to be far inferior to the other zoids so far, including its republic counterpart, but I also find it to be far more striking than some of the later designs which can trend towards the generic. In that sense, I can feel comfortable awarding Serpent a 1/5. The worst we’ve seen so far, but probably not the worst we will see.