Let's talk about Baroness. Finally! You can get a much more detailed rundown of Baroness' creation courtesy of Mark Sneddon. Here, I want to put it in the context of "The Revenge of Cobra," with the Baroness as the catalyst for all of Cobra. While Baroness didn't get a toy until Series 3 in 1984, she was essentially the second character created for Cobra — yes, before Destro and Major Bludd.
Tasked with turning a dozen random character profiles into a compelling narrative, Larry Hama was faced with a rather large problem: he had one bad guy. Cobra Commander. A guy with a metal faceplate. His subordinates? An army of similarly masked nobodies, indistinguishable from each other (because fascism, evil, etc.). So Larry Hama went a little rogue and created a new character, someone for Cobra Commander to interact with, someone with an actual face that artist Herb Trimpe could illustrate.