Conquest X-30

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The G.I. Joe Conquest X-30 is a fictional military aircraft from the toy, comic and cartoon series, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero from Hasbro.

First introduced in the 1986 run of the toyline, the Conquest is a forward-swept wing jet fighter. Its basic appearance is based on Grumman X-29 plane. The blueprint that came with the toy indicates it is armed with twin 25mm guns, four Light Sparrow air-to-air missiles and two drop tanks. The plane came with the G.I. Joe action figure Slipstream. Hasbro marketed it as the Joe Team’s counterpart to Cobra’s Night Raven. The Conquest is one of the most popular aircraft from the series. Like most of the jet aircraft featured in G.I. Joe, the toy is rather underscale relative to its action figure, which is made most obvious from the size of its cockpit.

The mold for the toy is eventually reused for the 1989 Python Conquest as part of the Python Patrol subset. It was later released again as the Conquest X-30 in 1998 with a different color scheme and bundled with a different character, fellow G.I. Joe pilot Ace. And once more in 2003, again with a different color scheme and Slipstream back as the pilot.

In the G.I. Joe comics series published by Marvel, the Conquest first appeared in issue #54 where it squared off against the Cobra Firebat. It would not be until G.I. Joe: Special Missions #5 that it would fight against the Night Raven. Slipstream would continue using the Conquest X-30 until 1989 when Darklonia managed to purchase several surplus Conquests. Cobra then used these Conquests in an experimental procedure that rendered the aircraft undetectable by radar. It became the primary fighting jet of the Python Patrol Cobra subgroup.

The Conquest X-30 is featured heavily in the second season of the G.I. Joe animated series. It replaced the Skystriker as the Joe Team’s primary fighting aircraft. Unlike the comics, the cartoon had squadrons of X-30s and every qualified G.I. Joe member may pilot them.