Pythona

I have never seen the G.I. Joe movie.  It was not aired in my local market back in 1987.  In fact, I only learned about it from some friends who lived down the street.  They came back from being out of town and excitedly told me about this crazy movie.  It had real movie stars.  And, it had some weird bugs that turned Cobra Commander into a lizard.  The entire thing was completely unbelievable.  Their devotion to the bit made me think this "movie" was real.  But, in the back of my head, I still thought it was just a practical joke.

Eventually, the movie aired on a local station.  I saw that there were famous performers who starred in it.  But, it was late 1987 and I was pretty much done with Joe.  So, I didn't watch it.  And, in the ensuing 38 years, I've never had interest in rectifying this situation.  I was raised on the comic and my focus on Joe was related to the comic world.  I watched the G.I. Joe mini-series starting in 1983.  But, I didn't really remember any of them.  I watched the daily cartoon when it debuted.  But, again, it didn't really stick.  (And, the one time I tried to watch an episode as an adult, I didn't even last 5 minutes before turning it off.  It's bad.)  The cartoon was kind of an in-and-out experience where I watched it, but didn't care about it.  I have more recollections of the Transformers cartoon than I do the Joe version.  

All that is to say, I really have no background on Pythona.  My only experience with her was from other collectors who made customs or talked about her.  But, frankly, she wasn't a force in the early days of online collectordom.  Cartoon fans were largely drummed out of the community back in the 1990's in favor of comic universe focus.  I mentioned to a friend a few weeks ago that I really do wonder what might have happened had the club not decided to attack the cartoon focused Zartan's Domain website back in the 1990's.  It was the largest and most popular G.I. Joe site of the time.  But, some cretins did a whole bunch of, frankly, illegal stuff to harass the site's owner and, eventually, get him to close down the site.  With it gone, the collector focus turned almost 100% to the comic continuity.  Eventually, this manifested with the Comic Pack toys in the mid '00's.  I do believe that cartoon designs would have garnered more of Hasbro attention had their not been a concerted effort to relegate the cartoon to second tier status.  Just another example of the long history of Joe fans getting screwed over by a few people who happened to have Hasbro's ear.

That brings us to this figure, though.  Super7 pretty much has the Joe license because the owner loved the cartoon and the Joe movie.  And, from the ReAction days, the line has always been heavily cartoon favored with a few comic homages tossed in.  So, seeing Pythona isn't, really, a surprise.  The Joe fanbase has, mostly, moved on from the comic vs. cartoon schism of the early days.  Good figure ideas appear everywhere.  But, the cartoon has been eking out popularity gains for nearly two decades, now.  There were some figures in the anniversary era that touched on the animation.  But, Super7's foray into action figures has given the cartoon the representation it missed from the first twenty years of this century.

Personally, I don't much care for the ReAction+ figures.  The human heads look weird and don't mesh with vintage figures.  But, the non-humans are pretty solid.  The overall smoothness and lack of raised details really limits the figures.  But, the colors are spectacular.  All of which adds up to a Pythona figure that looks really nice.  Pythona's design is, by its very nature, smooth and absent of details.  So, Super7's sculpting limitations aren't in play.  Her colors are eye-popping.  And, they are well captured here.  And, Pythona's not supposed to be human.  So, the odd shaping and overblown size of her head work in her favor.  In short, this looks like a good figure.

And, it's likely to be the next Super7 figure I buy.  Normally, I'd have saved up all this bloviating for her profile.  But, there's no guarantee I'll find her at retail.  I'm not going to pay shipping on a $25 figure.  So, I'm going to be dependent upon my local Target store carrying this wave.  I don't much go to Target any more.  I've been 1 time this year to pick up the Star Wars retro pack.  So, I'm not likely to stumble across her on a routine trip to the store.  (All of this assumes, of course, that this wave will even be available at retail.....)  So, there's no guarantee I'll acquire Pythona.  Which, would kind of be a shame.  She's weird and colorful in a way that really appeals to me.  My extent of her usage would be some photos along with the Power Commandos.  But, that's a better fate than most figures I've acquired in the last decade.  The upside is that I'm content with not owning the figure.  She was not a part of the G.I. Joe I ever knew.  So, I have no attachment that would send me spiraling to buy one by any means necessary.  Even though I suspect that she'll find some decent after market appreciation after she's sold out, I'm OK with missing her.  I'd prefer not to, of course.  So, we'll see how things play out over the next few weeks and if she ever shows up via an avenue I'm willing to take to acquire her.