In the days of the original Sky Patrol, Airwave was not my favorite, to be honest. I never liked the Motor Viper figure all that much anyway, and the parts didn’t do Airwave any favors. Sort of skinny arms and a weirdly over-designed uniform left me pretty cool and indifferent. I’m happy to say any potential issues with the vintage Motor Viper were rectified with the modern update in a big way.
Where the original Airwave was scrawny and unexciting, this update is packed with detail, bulk, and an interesting parts build. Like the original, he wears the Motor Viper vest, but in this case that vest is covering Pursuit of COBRA Skydive parts which give the figure a nice heft and design flair that the original lacked in my view.
Using the vintage Airwave as a template, this figure is colored in various shades of brown with camouflage, all set off with the right amount of silver trim and it all works really nicely. The figure looks like a modern update to Airwave, but has enough new twists to still feel unique and apart from simply being a new version of the original. This is a great way to do an update.
Accessories
Like Airborne, Airwave is one of the figures that does not come with a jetpack and in fact, his backpack is just like Airborne’s. He also comes with an assault rifle (though a different one than the other figure), a pistol, a version of Firefly’s walkie talkie (which makes sense for an audio specialist, I suppose) and the same helmet that came with Pursuit of COBRA Ashiko. All of the accessories work nicely for the figure, and while this newer helmet isn’t quite as nice as the vintage version, it works okay.
Airwave is another great Sky Patrol member, and is in fact, not just an homage to the original, but a drastic improvement to it, which doesn’t happen every day. Nice work!
Check out the video review for the Sky Patrol half of the boxed set below!
Sky Patrol Airwave
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
3.3
Summary
It’s not often that I find myself preferring a modern update over the vintage original, but the Collectors Club managed it here. Thinking outside the box, while retaining some nice connections to the past, this updated Airwave looks pretty awesome. The accessories are good, not great, and the paint deco compliments the vintage look without totally mirroring it. I’m good with that.
Here in 2016 copyright trickery with character names is a common occurrence, though one that Hasbro usually resolves with a “SGT”, “CAPT”, or “AUTOBOT” precursor. Or they just throw the code name in quotes within the character’s file name. Back in 1990, though, characters with similar names (or the same name as the case may be) seemed pretty strange. That was definitely the case with me when Sky Patrol debuted and my favorite figure in the subteam happened to share a codename with a pretty familiar character from 1983.
But this clearly wasn’t Franklin Talltree.
Poor Franklin seems to be in the midst of these kinds of weird naming issues. First, this Sky Patrol name steal, then, with the 2016 convention set, a new “Air Raid” comes along, which stole the name from the previous Rise of Cobra “Air Raid” who happened to be named…
Franklin Talltree.
Talk about an identity crisis.
Anyway. For this modern update to the venerable Sgt. Six (as I called him in my own little G.I. Joe stories) we get a pretty spectacular looking combination of really interesting parts. A brand new head sculpt tops the figure, though as what will be a running complaint throughout, I would have thought a removable helmet could have been squeezed in here somewhere. Evident from the first glance at the head (and a fact that the Collectors Club
even backed up) they designed this head with some future use cases in mind (namely Scoop) but honestly, I would have appreciated it far more if they could have worked out the helmet actually coming off.
Beyond that minor complaint, this figure hits all the right notes. Retaliation Firefly’s torso, 25th Anniversary Lift Ticket’s arms, and Shock Trooper’s legs all form a very nice base for the figure, looking unique and interesting. Several different textures are used, but blend nicely, looking reminiscent of the vintage version, but with plenty of modern twists. Articulation is excellent, and the look of the figure is, well…among the best of this year’s Convention set, to be sure.
Airborne’s paint scheme is pretty spectacular as well. With very tightly applied urban camouflage, he has the same spirit of the 1990 version, but applied to the figure in a much cleaner, more modern way, giving us an update to Airborne that is terrific all around. His colors are immediately evocative of the previous version of the figure, but far from repetitive.
Accessories
The Collectors Club, for whatever reason, split the Sky Patrol figures so three of them come with jet packs and three of them do not. Airborne is one of the latter, coming with a military backpack instead of the cooler looking jetpack, but still nicely equipped. He also has an assault rifle, knife, satchel (totally not a man purse) and the shoulder harness comes off as well.
Airborne is very nice. Great parts combinations, a nice looking new head sculpt, and immaculately developed camouflage all come together to form a great update to the classic Sky Patrol character. Great start to this thing.
Check out the video review for the Sky Patrol half of the boxed set below!
Sky Patrol Airborne
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
4
Summary
With a unique combination of parts and fantastic new urban camouflage deco, Sky Patrol Airborne is an excellent entry into the G.I. Joe Collectors Club’s long and illustrious group of Convention exclusive figures. While I wish he had a jetpack and his helmet was removable, the figure is still an excellent one with a unique look and full of personality.
Less than a month after reviewing the Figure Subscription Service version of Billy, I’m back with a review of another long-overdue action figure release in the form of Pythona, the evil Cobra La assassin!
I can honestly say I wasn’t sure this day would ever come…I figured Pythona was too obscure for Hasbro to produce, and would be too costly for the Collectors Club, and would be forever stuck in some weird limbo of never-produced action figures.
I’m very happy to say that I was wrong, and equally happy to say that despite cost and tooling limitations, the Collectors Club might just have nailed this one. Check out my full review over at the G.I. Joe Collectors Club review page, or the direct link below.
Is this real life? Only two weeks ago I got done posting my review for Billy, a figure G.I. Joe fans had been waiting for for nearly thirty years. Now here we are taking a look at Pythona, Cobra La’s notorious infiltrator and assassin, a character who made her debut in 1987 and just barely received treatment in plastic form.
My history with Pythona is a weird one. While I actually enjoy the 1987 G.I. Joe animated movie more than most other people I know, at the time of its original airing, I absolutely hated Pythona. I still remember watching cartoons after school as I always did, when an advertisement for G.I. Joe: The Movie came on. Completely out of the blue, not something I knew was coming at all (back in those innocent pre-Internet days) and I was immediately enraptured. I’d already seen Transformers: The Movie and was still living off that high, and my mind went crazy with all the possible angles they could take in a G.I. Joe movie with the same production values.
The opening sequence blew my 13 year old mind, and afterwards, the entire infiltration scene with the Terror Drome was absolutely amazing. A dark cloaked figure tearing through the COBRA ranks, burning dudes with acid, tearing open walls with nasty claws and being just a general bad ass. Again, my mind went crazy considering who this could possibly be and what awesome character was doing all of this cool stuff.
When it was revealed to be Pythona, my initial reaction was pretty much… “who?” Here we had COBRA the most nefarious terrorist organization in the world essentially decimated by one person, and it was someone I’d never heard of and someone I couldn’t own as an action figure. Back then, and still to this day, my love for G.I. Joe and many toy brands is tightly focused on how the surrounding mythology supports the characters, and here was someone who had zero action figures I could play with to live out these incredible adventures happening on screen. It kinda made me mad.
My opinion softened over the years, and I’ve grown to really appreciate Cobra La and Pythona, and she became a figure that I really and truly wanted almost above all others. Her and Billy pretty much stood atop a drastically shrinking mountain of G.I. Joe and Cobra characters who never got action figures, and now within the span of a month, both of those check boxes have been checked.
I’ve said many times throughout the years that I didn’t think the Club would ever do Pythona simply because they wouldn’t be able to do her “right”. The texture of her costume would require significant new tooling and would be prohibitively expensive, but thankfully last year I was proven wrong when the Club announced that she would be the 2016 incentive figure. Now, when I heard they would be mostly mimicking the pattern of her uniform with paint, I was pretty dubious as to how well it would work. I’ve seen plenty of customizers try that over the years (myself included) with iffy results.
Holy crap was I proven wrong.
Now, the Club did invest in new tooling here, going with a new head sculpt, new hands, and what looks like a possible new upper torso for Pythona, but they went with paint for all the shaped circles and ridges in the uniform and it works spectacularly well.
Pythona herself is a mixture of existing parts for the legs and arms, with the Reactive Armor Scarlett lower torso, but the new upper torso, new head, and new hands go an incredibly way towards making her a very unique and deserved update to the missing Cobra La member. Her head is a gorgeous sculpt and features a removable ponytail so you can tuck the cloak’s hood up over her head, a little touch that is really awesome. The ponytail does have a tendency to fall out of her head, but the look of the figure is terrific, and that feature is a welcome one.
Her slim build and impressive articulation allow for all sorts of great poses and movements, allowing us to put her in all sorts of great “infiltration” positions. The newly sculpted hands are terrific, too, and while she can’t really hold anything, the trade off of those long fingers and fingernails is well worth it.
I’m happy to say her paint applications are nearly perfect as well, with dozens of those shaped circles all throughout the paint of her body, very closely matching the color pallet of the animated model and managing to look extremely realistic, even though the mold of the figure isn’t textured to match. Color changes are subtle throughout and excellently applied, really bringing the figure to life nicely. I can’t think of too many complaints at all when looking at the figure’s build, paint, and articulation.
Accessories
I will admit there isn’t much here as far as accessories go, though I suppose Pythona doesn’t need much. She comes with a great cloak, which may be a newly developed soft good, and it works nicely, fitting over the figure, with the hood coming up tightly around the head (once the ponytail is removed). It adds some great aesthetic to the figure and in some ways I’m really glad Pythona was made now instead of 1987, because I seriously doubt the same effect could have been maintained back then.
She also comes with a foot stand and the same tentacle accessory that Nemesis Immortal came with several years ago. It somewhat replicates one of her nasty hand-held weapons, so it seems like an okay choice.
I had my doubts that we’d ever see Pythona as an action figure, and even if we did see her, I suspected the end result would be less than ideal. I was proven 100% wrong on both counts, and I’m exceedingly pleased with this figure, and am now firmly in the “Modern Era Cobra La please” camp. Like with Pythona, I can’t really think of any way Golobulus or the Royal Guard could be done without some significant new tooling, but maybe, like Pythona, the Collectors Club will find a way to surprise me. Considering the news from JoeCon that their relationship with Hasbro has been extended until at least 2018, that would be a terrific capper to their illustrious convention career.
Video Review
Pythona
Character
Sculpt
Articulation
Paint Deco
Accessories
4.5
Summary
I never thought we’d get a Pythona figure, and certainly never thought we’d get a GREAT Pythona figure but I’m happy to report that the G.I. Joe Collectors Club has proven me wrong on both counts. This version of the missing Cobra La warrior is a spectacular release with lots of great play value and will work well in displays alongside other modern era figures as well. Great work!
