Who's Kobra?

Who's This? A serpentine cult leader.

The facts: This version of Kobra - the organization also called Kobra's original leader - first appeared in his own series' #1 (March 1976), created by Jack Kirby and Steve Sherman, a rare villain book for the era, in which the international threat would be fought by Kobra's own brother and other heroes. The book's first issue, originally titled King Kobra, sat on a shelf for a year, during which Kirby left DC. When it was finally published, Martin Pasko had to take over the writing, going so far as changing some of Kirby's dialog and have Pablo Marcos redraw some of the art.  The DC Implosion killed the series after issue 7, with the 8th appearing in DC Special Series. Pasko never took it seriously and thought the concept a preposterous throwaway idea. So it's crazy that Kobra has since become a main threat in the DCU. His Kobra Cult was a major threat in such books as Checkmate vol.2, JSA, the Flash (Wally West), Suicide Squad vol.1  and various iterations of the Outsiders, among others. He was killed by Black Adam in JSA #51 (October 2003), but others would lead the cult. His dead twin was resurrected in Faces of Evil: Kobra (2009), and a "King Kobra", introduced in Convergence, fought Deadshot and Katana in a mini-series. These days, Kobra is apparently led by a female cult leader, but the cult's methods haven't really changed.
How you could have heard of him: The Kobra Cult is still around, causing problems. Queen Kobra and her followers were recently seen in Jeff Lemire's JSA series and Dan Slott's Superman Unlimited. A futuristic Kobra was used in the Batman Beyond animated series, and the classic version has made it onto different animated shows, most notably Beware the Batman, voiced by Matthew Lillard.
Example story: Kobra #6 (February 1977) "The Crack in the World Conspiracy" by Martin Pasko, Mike Nasser and Joe Rubinstein

What has gone before: Presaging 1989, Kobra has caused the worst earthquake in San Francisco since 1906, and now Jonny Double confronts him on an unstable Golden Gate Bridge. I thought it was Kobra's brother at first, especially since "Double" might be something he'd call his twin, but no.

And while it's a bit weird to have the leader of an international secret society doing his own action, it has to be said that he's a bold mother-esssser. When he loses his wrist laser, he just tips himself and Jonny over the side!

After several kicks to the head, Jonny remembers the wrist gadget is on the bridge, so he swings himself up and uses it to destroy the earthquake machine. Cut to an airplane over Oregon, where Jason Burr (ah, finally, the twin!) is trying to convince the passengers that they're going to crash and not getting a reaction. That's because they're projections, but Kobra teleports in and he's NOT a projection (not unless a hologram could deliver an envelope). And all that keeps Jason from slicing his brother up with a scalpel is their "physical telepathy", which makes each feel the other's pain. Could killing one brother make the other die? Jay, my boy, you're never going to defeat Kobra with that attitude. In reality, it WAS a hologram, but Kobra has a teleporter that takes him back to his Ark from off the bridge, so I guess they beamed the envelope (containing proof that Kobra holds his girlfriend hostage) to the plane? Confusing. Kobra does whinge that he was pulled back a bit too late, and this is how he handles HR and the guy on duty:

After this, Johnny meets up with Randu Singh - yes, from the Demon comics - also a member of the Kobra-Busters, and they infiltrate a Kobra facility, and hack into its computer to find out why San Fran was targeted. They're detected, Kobra appears on a screen to gloat, and poison gas fills the room. But Johnny still has the laser bracelet, so they do escape. Kobra's plan was to damage undersea telephone cables so he could access them and "tap" global communications. They go looking for the Ark, which has a cloaking device.

That dang bracelet to the rescue again - its charge is enough to damage it. Double and Singh make short work of the cultists they encounter, but the main Kobra is another matter. Watch your eyes, Randu!

That is a MAJOR freakout from Kobra about having lost one of his bangles, but the heroes are tipped into the water before they can do anything more as the damaged Ark lifts off and... explodes! Yeah, no way anyone survived that. Randu is blind. Jason might be dead. Is this the end of the series? The word "Lazarus" in the next issue blurb tells a different story.

If Pasko didn't take his Kobra assignment seriously, it doesn't really show. It's an exciting enough superspy comic, with oddball heroes pulled from other comics desperate to stop the title threat (I'm reminded of the 90s Eclipso monthly series) and cool action beats. Kobra would prove its worth in later continuity even if it never really had a chance in the 70s' collapsing market, though I'm sure some readers erroneously thought it derivative after the 80s gave us G.I. Joe's Cobra.

Who's Next? A crystal princess.