 Welcome to the final episode of our Slaughter's Marauders slash Python Patrol Month. Last week we looked at a Slaughter's Marauders vehicle. This week we will get back to Python Patrol. Python Patrol consisted entirely of reissued toys, with nothing new at all. Colors on the figures and vehicles were changed, usually for the worse. They all had a crisscross pattern on them, which was explained as a new technology that made them invisible to radar and infrared detection. How does this Pythonizing invisibility process work? Turns out it's all in the crisscross pattern. Like, look at this, I just painted this pattern on a t-shirt, yet it still works. Check this out. And now I'm invisible. Where am I? It's a mystery. Let's see if you can figure out how it works while I play the theme song. Visible hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. It's time for another vintage Python Patrol review, thanks to Chris Pierce from the YouTube show Comic Tropes for the title card image. We're building up to Jocan 2018 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is coming up in less than a month. Looking at both Slaughter's Marauders and Python Patrol means revisiting older toys. Like a lot of these late 80s subteams, all the toys were either straight reissues of old toys with new colors or heavily reused old parts. In the harshest light, this is a cynical way of artificially augmenting the roster while tricking kids into buying the same toys they already had. The practice of reissuing toys wasn't all bad, though. If a kid missed the opportunity to get a cool figure or vehicle that was discontinued, the reissues gave them a second chance. If you didn't have Duke or Flint, you could pick up the Tiger Force versions. If you missed out on the Televiper or Copperhead, you could pick up the Python Patrol versions. Also, while most of the color changes were ugly, some were not bad. I didn't want to end our theme month on a negative note, so I decided to look at a Python Patrol toy that I like. HCC788 presents the 1989 Python Patrol Conquest. This is the 1989 Python Patrol Conquest, and right off the bat, we've gotten something wrong. This vehicle isn't really called the Python Patrol Conquest. According to the box, it's just the Conquest. It's confusing to call it that, though. The vehicle is based on is the Conquest X-30. Most collectors call it the Python Patrol Conquest or the Python Conquest to distinguish it from the original. It was first available in 1989 and was also available in 1990. It was discontinued for 1991. It was part of the Python Patrol subset, which was a section of Cobra, GI Joe's enemy. All the Python Patrol toys were reissues of older toys redone in different colors. It included six figures and three vehicles. All the figures and vehicles had a lattice pattern painted over them. There was an in-universe reason for the recoloring and the pattern. These new uniforms and vehicles are Pythonized, meaning they have been made invisible to electronic detection. They are radar, infrared, and heat shielded. In the TV commercials, Python Patrol was directly opposed to Tiger Force. Now I need questions. In the cartoon series, they fought Sergeant Slaughter's Marauders. That makes sense because that sub-team came out the same year. In the comic book, they just fought against the regular GI Joe team. They didn't have a counterpart sub-team. The Python Patrol Conquest was a reissue of the 1986 GI Joe Conquest X-30. The X-30 was a unique-looking aircraft with its wings angled forward rather than back. The Conquest X-30 came with a pilot, Slipstream. The Python Patrol Conquest did not include an action figure. The mold for the Python Patrol version is essentially the same except for the date stamp. The date stamp on the original Conquest X-30 says copyright 1986 Hasbro, Inc., Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The Python Patrol Conquest still says copyright 1986. They didn't change the date, but now it says Made in Brazil. Thanks to longtime friend of the show Byron Kellogg for helping me replace some parts on my Conquest. You may remember from my review that a cat had chewed one of the missiles. Thanks for helping me restore this Byron. The Conquest X-30 was designed by Guy Cassaday, the Hasbro toy designer who also created the Rolling Thunder. I'd say Mr. Cassaday's design instincts are pretty good. As strange as the Conquest looks, it is based on a real jet, the Grumman X-29. The X-29 was an experimental jet that first flew in 1984. The resemblance to the Conquest is remarkable. The X-29 is a single-engine jet, but other than that, if you painted it gray and gave it sharp teeth, it would be a dead ringer for the Conquest. The Python Patrol version has that lattice pattern that's so familiar. One interesting thing about the pattern on the vehicles, though, is that it's a negative pattern. The lines are the base plastic color. They've been masked off, and the paint is sprayed in the in-between spaces. It's not all one color, either. It alternates between black and silver. Whatever you may think of Python Patrol, this paint job required special effort and expense. Let's take a look at the parts and the features of the Python Patrol Conquest. This will be a rehash of the parts and features of the Conquest X-30, but let's do it anyway. Up here in front, we have a black nose cone made of a slightly softer plastic. That is essentially the same as the nose cone for the original Conquest. If there's any difference at all, the nose cone on the Python Patrol version is a bit more glossy, and the Conquest X-30's nose cone is a bit duller. We have a long fuselage that comes to a point. It makes the front of the jet look like a spear. It's a very aggressive design. Up here on top, we have some weapons molded in. The blueprints call these top-mounted, double-fang, 25-millimeter cannons. These remind me of the machine guns on old World War II fighter planes, the kind that the pilot would operate and would shoot through the propeller blades. Around and behind those top cannons, we have some embellishments. We have two evil eye stickers. I think those are supposed to look like snake eyes. Not G.I. Joe's snake eyes, but the eyes of snakes. These eyes are similar to the original Conquest X-30, which also had eye stickers. They're not the same, though. The Python Patrol version does not keep the shark teeth, but I think they kept the eyes because it's still supposed to mimic an animal. This lattice pattern is supposed to look like snake skin. Behind the cannons, we have the Cobra Air Corps emblem. I love this design. It's the basic Cobra emblem with bat wings. This Cobra Air Corps emblem first popped up on the 1984 Cobra Rattler. It was used on a few other Cobra aircraft, like the 1986 Firebat. I think it should have been put on everything Cobra had that could fly. Moving back, we have a canopy, a clear canopy. It's hinged at the back. There's a tab at the front. Pull up at the front to open. It has a couple prongs on the side to help keep it lined up. Opening up, the canopy reveals the cockpit. It's a single-seater. There is no backpack or seat belt. This can cause a figure to slide around a bit in there. There's also no joystick or other obvious control yoke. All this is exactly the same as the X-30. Who should pilot this jet? You could use Python Patrol Copperhead, like the animated series did, but Copperhead is a swamp fighter, not a pilot. Also, his colors clash with the colors of the jet, and that is pretty ugly. You could use Destro, like the first appearance in the comic book series, but Destro is not a member of Python Patrol, and I'd like to see Destro in an Iron Grenadiers vehicle instead. The Python Conquest appeared in an issue of the Special Missions comic book series. It was piloted by the Stratoviper, the pilot of the 1986 Cobra Night Raven. The Stratovipers Red, Gray, Black and Silver colors actually match up fairly well with the Python Patrol Conquest. Of course, the Stratovipers were not official members of Python Patrol, but I think they look pretty good in this jet. On both sides of the canopy, we have horizontal, stabilizing front canards. They are black, exactly the same as the Conquest X-30, and they fall out way too easily. They do not clip in in any way, so if you move this vehicle around very much at all, these will just pop out. I'm sure a lot of these stabilizing canards popped out during play, and were lost forever in backyards. Next, we have the forward swept wings, the most important part of the Conquest. This is its innovation. Instead of having the usual back swept wings, the wings look like they are reaching forward to capture prey. Like the rest of the jet, it's a very aggressive design. Under the wings, we have four yellow missiles. The blueprints call these AIM-12 retipped light sparrow air-to-air missiles. They're named after the real world AIM-7 sparrow, but they don't look like that real world weapon. They are long with a narrow point at the front. They have wide wings about two thirds of the way back. They slot into the wings of the aircraft with these standard dumbbell shaped pegs. These are nearly identical to the missiles on the Conquest X-30. If there's any difference at all, the Conquest X-30 missiles are very slightly more orange yellow, and the missiles on the Python Conquest are very slightly brighter yellow. In addition to the four missiles, we have two of what the blueprints call Mark III Pyke IRGB drop tanks. These are fuel tanks. They're actually two parts. It's got a cap at the end. These look like bombs, and they could easily be used as bombs. They also fit the same size dumbbell peg, so you could switch the missiles and the drop tanks around if you wanted to. Again, this is almost identical to the original Conquest X-30. The drop tanks on the Python Patrol Conquest are true gray. The drop tanks on the Conquest X-30 are blue gray. While we have the jet flipped upside down, we can see the intake vent. It's squared off and has a grill in front of it. That looks pretty cool, and this is a good time to talk about the landing gear. The landing gear is manually operated. There is no mechanism like on the GI Joe Skystriker. To lower the landing gear, you simply pull the front gear down, and then the back gear, you pull that down too toward the back. Then you move the wheels apart. They are geared, so they will move in unison. We have rubber tires, which is nice. That's always a nice bonus. On the front gear, though, the rubber tires spin around a fixed hub. The wheels themselves do not spin. I like the way the Conquest looks resting on its landing gear. It has a majestic quality to it, as the X-30 did. It looks good on a shelf, and unlike the Skystriker, lowering the landing gear does not expand the footprint of the jet. So it's easier to store on a shelf or on the deck of the USS Flag. To close the landing gear, we just reverse the process, fold up the front gear, and then squeeze the back wheels together, and then fold those up. Both the front and back landing gear have covers, so they don't break up the smooth lines of the jet. Getting back to the top of the jet, we have a removable engine cover. With a convenient tab, just pull toward the back to remove, and we have some engine detail. This is all exactly the same as the X-30, of course, but it was pretty great on the X-30, and it's pretty great here. On the back, we have some fins. They are angled. They are black, and each one has the Python Patrol logo on it. They are, as far as I can tell, identical to the black fins on the original Conquest X-30. These fins look really good, but unfortunately, they don't stay on very well. They do not clip in, they just slot in on these long slots, and unfortunately, they don't slot in very well. You will frequently have these fall out on you. Between those fins, we have another engine cover. This one is larger. It has a couple raised tabs at the back. Just pull up and forward to remove it to reveal more engine detail. This engine detail is just great. I love all the engine detail on the original X-30. I love it here. This is just a really special part of this vehicle, and it's nice to see it carried over to the Python Patrol version. At the back, we have lower fins that are angled downward, opposed to the upward angle of the top fins. It gives the back of the jet a nice X shape. The X-Men would love to have this. So would Luke Skywalker. Similarly in the back, we have the jet engines. They are yellow, the same color as the missiles. They are not round, which you would expect for jet engines. They are squared off, and I like that. They match the shape of the rear of the vehicle. I want you to notice something about the overall shape of the conquest. It starts out round in the front, and it ends up rectangular in the back. And the transition from front to back is subtle. It's a lovely piece of design. I have to commend the designer. Comparing the conquest with other jets, it was smaller than the primary aircraft of GI Joe. The GI Joe Sky Striker is much bigger, almost twice as big. It also had more features. It was about the same size as the 1984 Cobra Rattler. In fact, it might be slightly bigger. The Rattler was more of a ground attack plane than a fighter jet. It is much smaller than the 1986 Cobra Knight Raven. The Knight Raven was more in the Sky Striker's size class. Unfortunately, I don't have the Knight Raven here to give you a size comparison, because my Knight Raven is on display in my office. The smaller size works to the advantage of the conquest. It's lighter and easier to play with than the Sky Striker. It's easier to store, too, because of the Sky Striker's sweep wing mechanism. With the landing gear down, the wings are always out. That's not an issue with the conquest. I still prefer the Sky Striker, but the conquest is a really cool jet. When the conquest X-30 was first introduced, the emphasis was on maneuverability. With the Python Patrol conquest, though, the emphasis was on stealth. For that reason, its rival on the GI Joe team would not be the original X-30. It would be the Phantom X-19 stealth fighter. Unfortunately, you can see neither the stealth fighter nor me on your screen, because we are both just too stealthy. Looking at GI Joe Media, the Python Patrol conquest appeared with the rest of Python Patrol in the animated episode Operation Dragonfire Day 4. That's the Deak era. The animated series most people remember is the Sunbow series from the 80s. After the Sunbow series was cancelled, Deak took over. The insider joke was that DIC stood for Do It Cheaply. You could say there was a decline in quality. The Operation Dragonfire mini-series wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It had its weird moments, though. The Pythonizing process that created Python Patrol had supernatural origins. Cobra first used the Dragonfire energy to create ape soldiers. Later, they used it to give vehicles and uniforms animal properties. This somehow made them invisible to radar. Yeah, sometimes cartoons can be weird. The radar invisibility was played up more in the comic book series published by Marvel Comics. Python Patrol was introduced in issue number 88. The comic book had the Pythonizing process invented by Dr. Meinbender. It also explains how Cobra had a vehicle that was originally issued to GI Joe. They bought it. GI Joe and Cobra vehicles were being sold to other countries, and Cobra ended up with a GI Joe jet. The other Python Patrol vehicles are shown in that issue with their crisscross pattern, but the conquest doesn't look any different. The Python conquest is seen again in issue number 100. It's a little surprising they came back that late after they were introduced. I thought they had been forgotten about. The conquest has its true Python Patrol look in that issue. The anti-radar Python technology was used to good effect. Zirana commanded a squad of Python Patrol to get close enough to GI Joe's headquarters to activate a hypnotic trigger they had implanted in the minds of Clutch and Rock and Roll. It has a final appearance in special missions number 28, an issue that focused on a big epic aerial battle. It would have been easy for Larry Hama to just forget about Python Patrol after the intro issue, but it kind of makes sense that he kept it around. The idea of making vehicles invisible to electronic detection is a really good idea. Stealth technology was coming into its own in the late 80s. It culminated in the B-2 stealth bomber and the F-117 stealth fighter. Pythonizing makes more sense for vehicles than uniforms. In the comic book, one of the Python vipers even says, lying down behind a nice big rock would make me just as invisible. A radar invisible jet, though, that's revolutionary. That's something GI Joe would really have to worry about. Looking at the Python Patrol Conquest overall... Hang on a minute, let me switch off the invisibility shield. Cut. Movie magic. Looking at the Python Patrol Conquest overall, I'll call it a middle-tier vehicle. I love the Conquest X-30. I like the Python Patrol version. Whether you like this vehicle or not depends on what you think of the paint job. If you like the Python Patrol color scheme, then you'll dig this. If you don't, then you won't. The change to Python Patrol colors is the only real difference from the original issue. I accept this color scheme, though I prefer the original. I understand the effect they were trying to get. It does kind of look like snakeskin. They could have chosen worse colors considering the colors on the Python Patrol figures. The downsides are the same as with the X-30. The fins, both the small front ones and the bigger back ones, fall off way too easily. Since the Python Patrol Conquest didn't come with a pilot, it's not exactly clear who should fly it. They didn't bother to give us a pilot in Python Patrol, even as a carded figure. Seriously, the figure selection in Python Patrol is random. They just use whatever molds they had on the shelf. I like it with the Stratoviper. The colors don't exactly match up, but they're pretty close. If you have an extra Stratoviper lying around, drop them in your Python Patrol Conquest and see if you like the look. You may have expected me to dislike everything in Python Patrol. There are some figures and vehicles I can tolerate. I didn't want all of my Python Patrol reviews this month to be negative. I wanted to show you something I like in that series. When we get to reviewing the other figures, though, you'll see why Python Patrol is not universally loved. That was my review of the Python Patrol Conquest. I hope you enjoyed it, and I need to digress just for a moment. For longtime fans and collectors of GI Joe, there may be some reluctance to go to this year's Jocon. Fund Publications, the company that runs the convention, has made some questionable decisions in the past and has turned a lot of people off. I want you to know I understand that. I don't work for them. I don't represent the convention, and I'm not an apologist for them. I've been asking you to come to the convention if you can. It's not because I want to pile up big profits for the organizers. It's because it's our last chance to come together for an official convention. It's because I want to see you. If you're unable to set aside your differences with the organizers, that's fine. I won't try to persuade you otherwise. It's looking like next year there will be an opportunity to get together for an unofficial event. If you're not at the final Jocon, please know that I will miss you. I wish I had the opportunity to meet you. These conventions have become a chance to see old friends and make new friends, and be immersed in this thing that we love. If we can't meet there, I hope we will meet elsewhere. If you have a minute, please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Make sure you hit that bell icon so you get notices of new videos. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter, and funding for this channel is provided through Patreon, so check that out for some special perks for patrons. My website, hcc788.com, catalogs my video reviews. Remember, only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe. And now I must disappear. I will reappear next week with another vintage G.I. Joe toy review. I will see you then. Magic!