2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

Posted on July 11, 2023 by mwnekoman

2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

Filler week! I have some good memories of Valor vs. Venom, but not so many that it’s really worth talking about the VvV Viper sculpt again after I already wrote about the red one, and this guy’s pack-mate, the Tele-Viper (Python Patrol) on another occasion. Yet, here I am, because I ran out of time this week, and I have a couple of old photos of this guy anyways.

I completely ignored GI Joe in 2004. Spy Troops garnered my interest for a bit thanks to it’s fun designs and cool gimmicks, but this was lost with Valor vs. Venom. I had a lot of toys I wanted that year, between getting every last Gundam product I could find at retail and trying to save some out from Transformers Energon, GI Joe didn’t have much of a chance, especially for toys I considered a somewhat pitiful showing. The Valor vs. Venom story line of DNA altered Cobras, plus many of the goofy characters like Coil Crusher and Venomous Maximus, drove me away primarily, but the drab and often boring Joes did nothing to help.

Years later though, I was thirsty for anything GI Joe I could get, and most of the ‘03 through ‘06 figures started to look more appealing, especially once people started dumping off their collections for change. Many of the aforementioned elements of VvV still didn’t appeal to me, but browsing YoJoe! for some hours revealed a number of toys I felt would be more at home in my collection. It also helped that the then current 25th Anniversary Viper was a pretty lackluster figure, so this older sculpt gained a stronger appeal for having normal wrists, and the ability to sit properly.

This Viper is a fun toy, and a good representation of the sculpt. For a guy wearing a helmet, his head is a little small, but the proportions are much more solid overall than what you typically see on releases from this era. He can’t get super-authentic tacti-cool real-military poses, but the feel of the figure is pretty similar to a classic o-ring from ARAH. Right now, I’d love it if they could just go back to selling figures like this at retail, as while GI Joe has put out some great collectibles since ‘08 or so, the New-Sculpt construction was the last time GI Joe was a good toy.

Like many New-Sculpt figures, this guy seems to suffer badly from the cracking-chest phenomena. All of mine have a small crack at the neck now, which I know is common to figures from this era. So far though, a lot of my Comic-Pack guys are still perfectly fine, and many of my other new-sculpts are fine too, so if I had to guess I’d say these are a little worse than average. Between figures commonly yellowing and the neck-cracks showing up, it’s really not fun to collect these any more, which is sad.

For accessories, you get possibly the three most generic parts that were in-use between 2003 to ‘06, that being an AK-47 (with bayonet), a G36 rifle, and a knife. What’s funny about these parts is that they were used so much, I can barely guess which figure first included them, but honestly, with so many uses, they were probably never intended as someone’s special gun to begin with. Why does a Viper include two rifles? An SMG or an explosive-launcher of some type would have been nicer than two guns that fill the same role.

No one does auctions anymore, so finding a few of these guys at a price they’re worth isn’t too easy. Still, even the dealers that only list BiN’s rarely bother asking for more than $8 for one of these guys. You’ll find them in lots and with the Python Tele-Viper often enough for around $20, too. There’s a lot I miss about figures like this one, but sadly it’s really not something worth paying that much money for. Mainly, that’s because there’s a good chance this figure will continue to age poorly and degrade, which they’ve proven to be doing at a much faster rate than the 80‘s figures that are twice their age.

2004 Viper (Version 13) Links:

Half the Battle

GeneralsJoes

1989 Python Viper

Posted on February 6, 2023 by mwnekoman

1989 Python Viper

Viper repaints are something I like; Python Patrol repaints are another thing I like. Naturally, I like the Python Viper a lot because of this, but that’s not much of a surprise. It’s not a figure that does anything particularly amazing, though at face value it’s probably the best Viper repaint ever made, which by extension makes it the best Python Patrol figure ever made too.

The Python Patrol as a whole, is a set that works best in harmony with each other, though not so much piecemeal. Each figure’s colors pulls off another in various ways, which makes oddball repaints like the Python Crimson Guard look much more reasonable when in the company of the Python Viper and Tele-Viper. I think that’s part of why some fans desire a requisite Python repaint for virtually every Cobra, since they have a nice aesthetic and represent an interesting idea, though not many figures outside of their group really match with them much.

I never got to read most of the Marvel comics until just recently, and the comic’s take on them as stealth units being deployed by Darklon in eastern Europe struck me as an interesting idea. In particular, I’ve always viewed them as Cobra’s jungle fighters, since that’s what almost everything else seems to pin them as, including the fact that they’re the Cobra analog to the Tiger Force. Besides that though, pairing them with Darklon and other contemporary Cobra’s is antithetical to my view of them as a harmonious set; it’s cool, but I still don’t think it looks as good in practice.

The Python Viper is very nice for several reasons. One is that his colors are mostly gray and black with some yellow details, which is pretty much the perfect ratio of drab to bright colors for a GI Joe figure. The brighter gray is also very nice for appreciating the sculpted details of the Viper mold, which are much easier to overlook on the original blue and black colors. Other than that, it’s cool because it’s different. That may sound dismissive, but army-builder repaints like the Python Patrol are usually a little superfluous like that.

You get the same rifle and backpack from the ‘86 Viper, just now in black. It’s a simple kit that works, and while the light-gray weapons were originally something I didn’t mind, the Viper rifle looks much more convincing in darker colors. I would like them even more if I actually owned some, though Python Patrol gear always runs up the price of a figure more than I feel like it’s worth. If given the choice, I’d rather have two Vipers with replacement guns than one that’s complete.

I feel like prices are faltering some on Python Patrol items, at least from the height of the post-covid market. Oddball auctions for Vipers are starting trend lower, though just a few months ago there were still tons that were hitting upwards of $40. Incomplete figures usually go for less than $20, which is a slightly more reasonable amount. I get the sneaking feeling the prices on the Python Patrol got pushed way up by that wave of post-covid speculators, and a lot of morons who were hoarding oddities as “investments”. I like these a lot, but I won’t be getting any more until prices come down.

1989 Python Viper Links:

2004 Tele-Viper (Python Patrol)

Posted on September 12, 2022 by mwnekoman

2004 Tele-Viper (Python Patrol)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a New-Sculpt era figure, though as always I know only a very, very small contingent of people still care about these. The modern attitude towards these figures seems to almost represent toy collectors in a nutshell, where the newest, coolest thing renders the old thing obsolete, because the new thing is superior and caters to contemporary trends and interest, only to be made dated and obsolete by the next new thing, which is superior, modern and everything you wanted until the next new thing… It’s an unending cycle of consumerism. With GI Joe, it’s especially pronounced since virtually no part of the brand has had staying-power since ARAH.

Which sort of leads into me implying that the Spy Troops Tele-Viper is actually a fantastic and underrated sculpt . It’s not. The toy has terrible proportions and soft-sculpting to an extent that actually looks worse than the ‘85 Tele-Viper, which is 19 years older than it. His arms are a pair of logs, he has no waist, and the head’s sort of small. It all makes for a figure that looks cheaper than it should be, but there’s still some charm to be had here; just not in the sculpt.

As a toy, the Tele-Viper (in this case, Python Patrol Tele-Viper) is pretty fun. It’s mainly for his parts, which I’ll get to below, but the toy is still playable and has the same basic charms ARAH figures did in the 80‘s. Comparatively, there aren’t very many 1/18 scale figures that are as fun to fiddle with, even to this day. Most of what you see today is collector targeted, making it expensive, fragile, and typically rather drab. Among this figure’s contemporaries, there’s barely anything to make note of besides some crumby The Corps! figures. Spin Master makes the new DC/Batman figures, and those are probably the only modern things I can think of that compare pretty well as toys.

This Python Patrol Tele-Viper has my favorite version of the Python Patrol color-scheme. It’s mostly gray, with a black and red grid pattern on a few bits, and some gold. It’s very drab and muted, but the poopy adult in me thinks it looks pretty good. The prior Spy Troops release of the mold had some pretty punchy colors between the purple and the bright, contrasting details, so a more muted figure is welcome for the repaint.

His parts are actually cool! I feel like I spend my accessories paragraph typically bitching about Sound-Attack tabs, Rock-Viper rifles, random Ninja Force parts with 80‘s figures and other such problems, but this toy has some okay gear. Included is a microphone, a walkie-talkie, a shoulder radio, a Streetsweeper shotgun, and a pistol. The easily lost microphone feels like an unwanted flashback to every lost mic in the past, but it looks nice on the figure either way. The walkie-talkie is extremely small and not as fun as Firefly’s classic part, but again, it looks okay, and is much better with a figure that has smaller hands.

The Streetsweeper is particularly odd as an inclusion, though I love it and am very glad it exists. In real life this is a somewhat obscure and odd weapon from the 80‘s, originally sold in Rhodesia as the Striker. The Rhodesia tie especially makes this gun interesting to me, since that’s where Major Bludd’s wanted for war crimes. It was later simplified into the Streetsweeper, with several important features removed when it was sold in the US. Because it’s extremely shitty, it found a better life as a prop-gun for movies and the like. The details only seem okay on the GI Joe version of this gun, but it’s nicely scaled and not even too scary for vintage hands; in particular, I used to give it to Motor Vipers a lot as a weapon they could ride with.

You don’t see these left to open pricing so much, but when you do, the figure might fetch $7 at best. It took 90‘s Joes thirty years to present much value on the market, so I’ll be curious if anyone starts to miss Valor vs Venom by 2032. To be honest, I still don’t think there’s that much 90‘s nostalgia, so I’m very doubtful we’ll ever see interest return to these 00‘s sculpts. In a broader sense, most of the nostalgia-driven culture we see today is really just escapism from the bleak reality that is life in the post-millennium. If better times ever come, you’ll probably not see this to such an obnoxious extent.

2004 Tele-Viper (Python Patrol):

GeneralsJoesReborn

Half the Battle

Streetsweeper at Forgotten Weapons

2003 Major Bludd (Python Patrol)

Posted on August 24, 2020 by mwnekoman

2003 Major Bludd (Python Patrol)

So in total, there’s been at least three very distinct color schemes that have represented the Python Patrol. The original vintage palette, a palette closer to the vintage vehicles from a 2003 6-pack, and a similar scheme to that, but with large amounts of gray used for New Sculpt figures. Truth be told, all three variants of the Python Patrol team colors are pretty good. Of the 2003 Pythons, I think this Major Bludd might be my favorite.

There’s a few curious things going on with this Major Bludd, namely that he’s newly made from ‘91 Zap’s body, and not an existing release like most of the Python Patrol. It’s a perfect body to use for a Major Bludd, given that details such as the shells on his chest or armor on his legs fits pretty well with the character’s original aesthetic. It’s also a rare example of Hasbro using a mold in a genuinely creative and new way, something they rarely did in the 2000‘s.

I like the colors used on this set, which includes this Major Bludd. My favorite Python Patrol colors would have to be the originals, but these are a pretty good alternative, plus they look visually interesting. The figure is mainly black with a red diamond pattern across the black areas, and some more bright red and gold for details. Despite being 2000‘s figures, these Pythons look in place with the vintage Python Patrol vehicles, because the colors are so similar. Heck, I’d go as far as to say that these Python Patrol colors are better than the originals, but those figures I prefer just for being eye-catching and fun looking.

The parts here aren’t very good, but not for the usual reasons, surprisingly enough. This figure opted to retain a few of the original parts from ‘91 Zap, his bazooka and hand-cannon, but they don’t work very well here. That’s mainly because you don’t get the muzzle for the bazooka, and the cannon is meant for Zap’s backpack, which you don’t get. Normally Hasbro would screw vintage sculpts during the 2000‘s by not including the original parts, although with this release, they gave you that: only half of them!

Despite my love for Python Patrol, it’s honestly almost a shame that this figure came out in this sub-team. I say that because the truth is, I think this might be one of the best Major Bludd toys besides Chinese Major Bludd. If we could’ve gotten him in normal colors in some way, I think this would be a go-to Bludd for many collectors. As it stands, the figure is very nice, but easy to ignore since his identity is lost among a sea of Python Patrol releases.

These figures aren’t too common, but surprisingly, aren’t too expensive either. Python Patrol Major Bludd’s seem to trend around $10, complete or incomplete. It’s likely because a lot of people bought this set for army-building, creating a surplus of unneeded Bludds. On that end, it was pretty lousy of Hasbro to put Major Bludd in an otherwise perfect set for army-building. On the other hand, it’s probably the nicest figure from the set, so in ways I’m glad they took a risk on it.

2003 Major Bludd (Python Patrol) Links:

Python Patrol Night Viper (Black Major Customs)

Posted on February 11, 2019 by mwnekoman

Python Patrol Night Viper

The 1989 Night Viper is a fantastic figure, probably one of the best in all of ARAH. Last year The Black Major got around to doing several runs out of the mold with the Alley Viper customs as well, so today I’ll have a look at the Python Patrol take on the mold.

Featuring the Night Viper in the Python Patrol seems oddly natural despite them both coming out in the same year. Almost like a what-if scenario that a second year of Python Patrol toys came out in 1990 and they featured some of the ‘89 Cobras in that subset. For that reason, this seems like a natural and very reasonable repaint.

Across the board, the quality of the Night Viper customs is quite good. They’re easily able to hold their guns, and the joints on mine have all been nice and tight. The paint masks are also very crisp and good looking.

The palette here seems largely based on the one used for Python Copperhead and the Python Troopers. Given, there’s a large focus here on the green and yellow pattern with a handful of details in black and red, in contrast to the others I mentioned featuring more black. I think this was a wise choice, as these are the most eye-catching colors of the sub-group, and they look good here.

Seemingly however, it’s incredibly hard for the factory custom producers to perfectly match the colors of the vintage Python Patrol, and that’s evident on this Night Viper. The yellow is fairly close, but the green is too bright. It’s the opposite of the TBM Python Troopers who had a near perfect green and a yellow that was too dull. With the way these figures are produced, I imagine it’s quite difficult getting exact color matches on so many colors, so this is understandable.

Python Patrol Night Viper Black Major Customs TBM bootleg gi joe Alley Viper ARAH vintage o-ring

For accessories, you get the standard Night Viper backpack and gun in black, while the visor and scope have been changed to a bright red. A gray gun might’ve been nicer, but overall I like the colors here a good bit. I think the black parts prevent the neons on the figure from looking overbearing, while the visor and scope break up the green and black around the head well.

Price wise, these run about the same $15 to $25 most customs go for. For that same price, there’s hordes of other custom Night Vipers to be had, so it’s really all just about how much appeal you find in the colors of any one example. I think the Python Patrol colors on this one were ambitious, and more visually interesting than some of the other variations out there. But others will be off-put by the lack of compatibility with the vintage Pythons, so it really all comes down to preference.

Python Patrol Night Viper Links:

Cobra Island

Diorama by Dreadnok Dread

Black Major Custom Python Troopers

Posted on June 18, 2018 by mwnekoman

Black Major Custom Python Troopers

The world of custom/bootleg GI Joes has been pretty amazing in the past couple of years. The Black Major, in particular, produced some amazing work and even brought back the classic Cobra Trooper mold for a few new designs. I was really impressed by all of the new Black Major Cobra Troopers, but as Python Patrol is my favorite Cobra sub-team, I chose these to look at first.

I’m a huge Python Patrol fan. Sure, a few of the vintage figures were a little on the strange side (The Python Guard), but making a new sub-team out of all of the classic Cobra army builders and giving them jungle themed colors was one of Hasbro’s better repaint ideas for the time. On their own, a few of them can be a tad gaudy, but they function well when teamed with each other. Cobras from different eras could sometimes look a little awkward together, but the uniform colors of these help them avoid that.

In terms of quality, these are probably some of the best and most solid feeling Black Major figures to date. The plastic feels really close to the vintage plastic, and the joints on all of mine are very solid too. Generally I’m not too picky when it comes to the quality on custom figures, but these are extremely well made feeling.

The color pattern used on these Black Major custom Python Troopers is familiar and unique all at the same time. Overall, they’re most similar to Python Copperhead, but they have a lot less black on them. There’s quite a focus here on the green shades of the figure, and it finds a nice blend between somewhat realistic jungle colors and the Python Patrol’s neon tones. I do notice the yellow seems a little dull on these, and while I’m not sure as to if that was or wasn’t intentional, it goes along well with giving them that vintage charm, minus a bit of the neon.

Another thing I like a lot about the most recent TBM Troopers is the accessories. While anyone who’s collected a few of these should have plenty of dragunovs by now, at some point he started including AK47‘s and Viper backpacks too, giving the trooper a more well rounded selection of accessories. I’m hugely appreciative to have a pile of the Cobra Officer’s AK47 lying around, as it’s a fantastic looking accessory that’s unfortunately hard to find.

The after market prices on these were somewhat interesting to see, now that the supply of them has mostly dried up. From what I can tell, they go for around $12 to $15 at the moment, like most other recent custom Cobras. The thing is, they don’t really show up for sale all that often, since these aren’t produced in great numbers as you might expect. I think the saturation of figures is keeping the prices lower for now, as there’s so much to chose from I think certain figures just get missed.

Python Patrol Copperhead

Posted on September 6, 2017 by mwnekoman

Among the more strange repaint ideas Hasbro came up with during ARAH, Python Patrol Copperhead was one of the most unusual. An oddball vehicle driver from the early years of the line, revisited in new colors for the Python Patrol. Personally, I’m really charmed by oddball repaints like Python Patrol Copperhead, and as a figure I think he has some strong qualities. At the same time, he’s also somewhat flawed.

Copperhead is a cool character. A gambler who fights to pay off his debts to Cobra, it’s an interesting choice that helps flesh out the organization and break away from the generic radicals and Mary Sues there were a lot of. Despite this however, he’s never been very prevalent in too much of the GI Joe mythos. According to Half the Battle, Copperhead had a measly two minutes of screen time in the Sunbow episodes, and appeared for a little more than four minutes in Operation Dragonfire. With all that said, it certainly made him an obscure choice for a character that Hasbro could bring back.

The figure is rather colorful and attractive. A few of the Python Patrol figures didn’t receive flattering interpretations this pallete (such as the Python Guard), but thankfully Copperhead is mostly green and black with some yellow and red details. There are some issues with his deco, however. Noticeably, there’s no Cobra symbol on this version of the figure, which just seems somewhat strange to me. Second, his waist. His waist is a solid, unpainted piece of yellow plastic. It certainly looks odd and sadly is a mar on an otherwise great looking figure. It seems understandable that budget constraints might’ve stopped them from painting this piece, but it would’ve been better if at least it wasn’t yellow.

Unlike V1 Copperhead, Python Patrol Copperhead includes some parts. He included both the m-16 and backpack from V1 Leatherneck in black. The backpack is a nice sculpt and I enjoy it’s inclusion with Copperhead, however, the M-16 is a piece I don’t enjoy so much. The sculpt has always felt overly bulky to me, and the grip is also really long and looks weird. On the brightside, at least it’s a real gun he can hold well.

On another interesting note about this figure: his filecard is slightly rewritten. Originally, it was “presumed that Copperhead is native to or otherwise intimately familiar with the Florida Everglades.”. For Python Copperhead, they changed it to the “rain forests of the Amazon basin”. This version also explicitly states he is indebted to Cobra and not simply working for them to pay a different debt, though amusingly one could assume this to mean he’s actually racked up more debts between figure releases. Either way, these small filecard revisions really showed how much care Hasbro was putting into line and characters at the time.

These days Python Copperheads can go for a lot. For a complete figure they range between $12 and $18, which seems like a little more than I paid for mine, but the market is pretty dry at the moment so that could be why. Despite that I think this is a pretty good figure, I think one’s enjoyment of him is entirely dependant on what you think of the Python Patrol. If you love the Python Patrol (like I do), he’s a must have. Howver if you dislike them, the figure doesn’t provide much over the original.

Python Patrol Copperhead Links:

Yo Joe!

Forgotten Figures

3D Joes

The Viper Pit

Tag Archives: Python Patrol

2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

2004 Viper (Python Patrol), Valor VS. Venom

2004 Viper (Version 13) Links:

1989 Python Viper

1989 Python Viper

1989 Python Viper Links:

2004 Tele-Viper (Python Patrol)

2004 Tele-Viper (Python Patrol)

2004 Tele-Viper (Python Patrol):

2003 Major Bludd (Python Patrol)

2003 Major Bludd (Python Patrol)

2003 Major Bludd (Python Patrol) Links:

Python Patrol Night Viper (Black Major Customs)

Python Patrol Night Viper

Python Patrol Night Viper Links:

Black Major Custom Python Troopers

Black Major Custom Python Troopers

Python Patrol Copperhead

Python Patrol Copperhead Links: