G.I. Joe thread - 09/13/2024: Pulsecon - Dreadnoks, Dogs and Cereal

electricidad

Active member
Citizen
I went into Target yesterday. Boom. There they were. At least six TF Outbacks next to six PP BATs. I then found five PP Vipers next to the MOTU overfill shelf (at the Dubuque Target, that’s right next to the WWE and AEW figures).

It was weird, almost dreamlike, finding these guys in the wild. I grabbed two BATs and one Viper. Never really got into Python Patrol, but I’m not going to pass this up. I didn’t think to count the Outbacks, but I left four each of the Cobras.

Then I found a clearance ML Quake for $7. Yesterday was a fine, fine day. All because I volunteered to drop off the dog and pick her up for her PetSmart grooming appointment. She’s a good dog.
 

electricidad

Active member
Citizen
09A5D750-75B0-4E0B-B767-FE20D555BD4C.jpeg

Only added three new members to my Joes Classified team in 2022. Of them, Spirit is easily my favorite. Great accessories, a sculpt that invokes the original figure, and the ability to carry everything he came with. Fantastic.


3C7A4FC3-0910-4B83-9878-11ED4A73C830.jpeg

But 2022 is totally the year of Cobra. They took some big swings and kept knocking it out of the park. Mindbender, the Crimson Twins, and Crock Master were all perfect. I think the figure I liked least was Alley Viper. The vest really hinders midsection poseability.

My top Cobra of 2022: the BATs, with the Crimson Guard as a close second. I liked the possibility of switching out the BAT heads for battle damage.

So much to like this year. The Cobra Officer was great, as was the Blue Ninja pack (and those alt heads! Yes!). The Viper three pack was so good, too. I wish I’d grabbed more. This was a great year for Cobra.
 

Dake

Well-known member
Citizen
Somewhat out of the blue (never heard of the manufacturer before) comes what may be the best looking, wearable Cobra Commander mask I've ever seen! All the ones I've seen to date all look way too rounded and out of proportion - more like the original action figure's. Assuming this is as sturdy as Hasbro's offerings, this seems pretty great. I guess I'll know around March.

4ebc6f96-341d-4c34-9afc-888e81030ff8.jpg


fe842347-4b84-4f67-b42a-51c7cd090fb8.jpg
 
Last edited:

electricidad

Active member
Citizen
New release dates for TF Duke, TF Bazooka, TF Recondo and Python Patrol Officer: Friday, Jan. 13. Just got the emails.
 

ZacWilliam1

Well-known member
Citizen
Was watching a retro commercial compilation and I love the contrast between the counterpart Tigerforce and Python Patrol concepts.

Tiger Force commercial - "We captured a bunch of cobra vehicles, let's work hard to paint them with a distinct color scheme and press them into service of a new unit presumably as a cost savings measure."

Python Patrol commercial - "Woo! We invented a ray gun that can infuse things with the "essence" of animals and give them snappy new decos, let's magically zap everything real snake-y up in here!"


-ZacWilliam, it just sum's up their differing ethos very well. As someone once said G.I.Joe is basically "The US Armed Forces VS the Legion of Doom."
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
Speaking of the Python Patrol, a new leak has revealed another Target exclusive for the coming year (even though the existing ones have been sparse):
Python Crimson Guard!
This one really excites me. As a little one who missed the golden years of the brand (by virtue of not being born), the repaint teams were my first chance to get a LOT of the classic characters still being featured on the cartoon (still in syndication). My first (and sometimes, only) iterations of Duke, Sgt Slaughter, Crimson Guard, Bazooka and Copperhead, came from those repaint teams.
So this one really hits in the nostalgia for me.

Given this appears to be a boxed sample, it could be a late spring item.

 

Stepwise

Not Crew.
Citizen
"By virtue of not being born"

Oh, that hurts. I'd shake my cane at you, but I can't remember where I put the blasted thing.
 

Lobjob

Well-known member
Citizen
Alley Viper. Python Patrol Crimson Guard and the neon green/gray Firefly were three of my most loved figures. Sometimes they make it hard for me to tell myself "you have Python Patrol Crimson Guard at home."
 

Haywire

Collecter of Gobots and Godzilla
Citizen
Green/Gray Battle Corps Firefly was the best. My brothers and I used to have him flying around on a Green Goblin-like glider thing made from an Exo-Squad backpack, and the dude could make a bomb out of anything. Totally threw the Joes for a loop most of the time. It's amazing we didn't let Cobra win more often...
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
"By virtue of not being born"

Oh, that hurts. I'd shake my cane at you, but I can't remember where I put the blasted thing.
Lol, I‘m one of those in-betweeners: I am JUST old enough to have grown up on the “backside” of the preak of the 80s brands, but young enough to have missed a lot of what become “core franchise staples” by being a couple years too young.
 

Dake

Well-known member
Citizen
Apparently Gilroy talked about the real reason for GI Joe Renegades cancelation...

“We had a second season where literally Cobra Commander was Osama bin Laden, who’s basically on the run full on […] They were terrorists…Then the Joes were brought back to be special agents for the government who were hunting down Cobra terrorists so, it was going to be really fun. We had … really fun stories for it, but this, c’est la vie.”

The issue was that the 2009 live-action film “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” had a similar plot and a corresponding toy line. Gilroy tells /Film that they did ask Hasbro about it. He says, “We were like, ‘Wait a second. You guys can’t do that. That’s what…’ And they’re like going, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.'” Combining that with the Hasbro rule that said you couldn’t have that many different toy lines around the same time meant that the animated series was canceled in favor of the film, which didn’t exactly set the box office on fire with a worldwide take of $302 million.

Even more of a slap in the face was that this was all happening right before the release of “The Avengers,” which led one executive to ask Gilroy, “Can you make all of the Joes into Avengers?” The executive also asked if Snake Eyes could be more like Wolverine or if Roadblock could be more like the Hulk. Gilroy says:

“And I think they were thinking, like, ‘Oh, right, we’re going to give Duke a bow, so he’ll be like Iron Man and Hawkeye.’ All those weird things, where the toys come first and then you write your story after.”

It sounds more like they axed it for some of the same reasons they did Animated and Classics (minus the wacky Avengers connection).
 

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Ooooo!

Captain America - Roadblock, cuz he can block stuff

Iron Man - Captain Gridiron, cuz iron

Thor - Gung Ho, cuz unusual name

Hawkeye - Snake Eyes, cuz eyes

Hulk - Shipwreck, cuz "Hulk SMASH!" catch phrase can be "Ship WRECK!"

Black Widow - Scarlet, cuz color.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
Over the past week or so, wave 2 of the Target Special Teams have started to hit retail (Bazooka, Recondo, Cobra Trooper), and today I just got the notification for my preorder on the Tiger Force guys shipping soon from Hasbro Pulse. In addition, during an unboxing stream for the HasLab Skystriker, Hasbro let slip that Helix and a troop builder pack for GI Joe (aka, the greenshirts) is on the way.
Entertainment Earth‘s Drop Zone has a strong hint that February 14 with feature some new GI Joe preorders, so we should be getting news of a fan stream or something in the coming week or so. Or we’ll just get a drop on Valentine’s Day.
Apparently Gilroy talked about the real reason for GI Joe Renegades cancelation...



It sounds more like they axed it for some of the same reasons they did Animated and Classics (minus the wacky Avengers connection).
Some of that really doesn’t jive with prior explanations, or even Hasbro’s own business at the time. I don’t know if there is some context missing or just faulty memory at play here. Renegades was still in production when the film came out, the show didn’t premiere until nearly a year and half AFTER the film’s release.
I think Renegades was just caught up in the aftermath of the first film’s lackluster performance. Indications from what I recall was that Hasbro and Paramount had initially “fast tracked” the sequel (whose story was VERY similar to Renegades), leading to Hasbro being worried about the two being too similar. Then the first film hit, underperformed (both as a film and a toy line), and that sequel’s progress stalled out after Renegades had already been cancelled. I firmly believe Hasbro EXPECTED GI Joe to do well enough to justify a two line structure like what Transformers got (with Classics/Universe/Generations running alongside a media tie in line), but when that didn’t happen…they basically salvaged what they could from the abandoned, first iteration, of Pursuit of Cobra.

But in terms of the superhero angle…I think that may have been a failure in communication. The last time GI Joe was a really viable mainstream property was in the early 2000s, where it seemed the design group DID take the angle of “superheroes without super powers” in terms of GI Joe product and fiction design. Maybe the exec wanted something like what Gilroy thought, or maybe they just wanted each character to have more distinctive look with a more defined role in the overall brand.
Today, Stalker has been largely relegated to being a “pre tool” or retool, depending, of Snake Eyes. It is expected they would share the same base design because that’s how the first toys were. But in the 2000s, Stalker was a bespoke character with bespoke look that was wholly unique from Snake Eyes or Grunt.
I think THAT Is, perhaps, what the exec was thinking about. And within that realm, most of GI Joe‘s central characters DO fit into many of the archetypes the Avengers ended up being:
Snake Eyes - Wolverine/Winter Soldier (badass with a secret past)
Duke- Captain America (all American stoic hero)
Roadblock- Hulk (gentle giant with big guns)
Scarlett- Black Widow (super spy with crossbow weapon)
Gung Ho- Thor (strong, but dim, heavy weapons with big personality)
Flint- Iron Man (secondary leader, sarcastic but skilled)
Lady Jaye- Captain Marvel (Frontline heroine)
Beachhead- War Machine (Serious counterpoint to Flint)
Stalker- Falcon (charismatic friend to Duke)
And GI Joe has the assorted specialists which fall into the likes of Ant-Man or Wasp as being prominent but not necessarily always present except for needed missions.

I maintain that the biggest failing of the brand since 2008 has been the inability to “let go” of the hardcore realism angle that has permeated the existing fandom and really embrace the fun side of GI Joe. Hell, regardless of scale, if I were making a “kids angle” GI Joe toy line, every one of them would have Nerf inspired sci-fi blasters, not replications of existing real world weapons. Major Bludd is probably my favorite Classified BECAUSE they embraced the cyborg angle and gave him that sweet oversized revolver he’s got.
 

Lobjob

Well-known member
Citizen
We got to a wonderful point where the joes were basically space marines or CIA special forces and were fighting a skull faced predator man and a firefly who had a xenomorph helmet.

If only that had genuinely continued.
 

Steevy Maximus

Well known pompous pontificator
Citizen
We got to a wonderful point where the joes were basically space marines or CIA special forces and were fighting a skull faced predator man and a firefly who had a xenomorph helmet.

If only that had genuinely continued.
We would have gotten ninjas and zombies (and zombie ninjas!).
 


Top Bottom