G.I. Joe thread - 07/25/2024: Haslab Rattler, Road Pig, Raptor and more (2024)

TriBlurr said:

You forgot Kamakura

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Kamakura was the most interesting thing they've shown in YEARS. It was wonderful to see them pull from beyond the 80s that wasn't a variation of a character from the 80s. The Crimson Guard was looking solid, probably the best iterations since Sideshow's.

A solid showing, and the live show was well done. It's just a bit sad to me that I find it hard to muster too much excitement for the brand at the moment given the current overall direction. I've been doing "this" for over 20 years, and it still feels like, for all the lips service they've done, GI Joe still plays it EXCEPTIONALLY safe. The fact Kamakura is the most exciting thing we've seen in years is somewhat sad.
Which is sad given how well Transformers has done to keep me engaged these past few years.

The designs have gone from reimagined to faithful recreations it seems.

Which is more boring, but I cannot say that the Python Patrol Officer isn't a beautiful thing. He hits all the right nostalgia buttons for me.

Confuzor said:

Agreed. I think I liked the reimagining element better but seems most Joe fans didn't like that direction. While its a bit disappointing, I'm glad they're able to course correct and keep the fans buying.

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Feels too much like what happened with GI Joe 25th to me. Started the same way with some soft reimaginings (Zartan and Buzzer, in particular)…then transitioned to straight remakes. Or remakes of remakes given how crap the majority of the first year offerings were in the line.

I see what they’re trying to do…and I’ve seen how this goes based on prior years. The only real benefit at the moment is that the pace of 6” figures is slow enough that it will take a couple of years before they check off enough major characters for the broader consumer interest to start fizzling out.

Catering to Joefans has ALWAYS been a short term solution. And I refuse to believe it is the ONLY solution viable.

Lobjob said:

With the resurgence of O rings, I wish they'd give us new designs using that classical template. Reissues have their place, but man would I love to see it.

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Even then, a LOT of the reissues have not been terribly original selections. A majority of what we’ve seen were heavily used in the first reissue/refresh phase in the late 90s and early 2000s. “New” isn’t very likely in this overall toy climate (GI Joe or otherwise), but I feel there were more compelling options. I complained in the Collab thread about the inclusion of Baroness over a reissue of Destro with Megatron. The original Destro mold hasn’t been seen in a Hasbro product since 1986, where as the Baroness was pretty heavily used in the aforementioned era of reissues.
The decision to NOT include the v2 Snake Eyes with Storm Shadow is completely baffling to me.
That said, I AM a sucker for cartoon repaints, and at least they do something different with the figures.

And it’s worth remembering that Hasbro does’t have the original molds for ANYTHING anymore. All these are newly created molds for these old toys (like the Beast Wars reissues), so there really isn’t any real “restrictions” on what Hasbro could have done.

Within that context, there are a TON of designs and figures from 94/95 that never saw full production that would be HIGHLY desired by multiple levels of Joe fans. Imagine a Battle Corps Rangers series: Flint and Dr Mindbender, Footloose and Baroness, Duke and Frostbite. Maybe do a Sure Fire/Shipwreck for a deeper cut. There’s also Ninja Commandos for that matter.
But they would require more effort and don’t have the easy mass market appeal of remaking the early years.

Watching the original cartoon, and it bugs me when the Joes are interacting with their families, they're addressed by their codenames. It's not all the time, but it's noticeable when Dusty's mom calls him 'Dusty' not Ronald, when Airborne's brother cries 'Airborne' and not Franklin. Hell, it would've made a nice touch in "The Movie" if Falcon said Conrad; both in the emotional scenes (court marshal and

Coma scene) and to just disrespect Duke early in the movie.

I never really bothered with their real names when I was a kid, but I notice that now.

Lobjob said:

Every older vehicle I have tried can fit most "modern" joes good enough. Granted, they may not look like they are enjoying themselves, but they should work.

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They can scrunch into most excepting the smaller vehicles: the FANG, original VAMPs, things like that.

So like the other Hasbro Properties they have Renegade did a dump of Card/Board/ and Role Plying game info for what they have coming for Joe.

Like mentioned in the Pulse Stream GI Joe Mission Critical is a Miniature Board game system. It's using their "Guardian system" so it will be compatible with their PR Heroes of the Grid game. So if anything to go by like that, it will be a base hub in the middle and four location tiles to fight off Cobra forces from inciting panic. Zords from HotG are replaced by vehicles and artillery deck cards that will have three available at a time that will be usable one time for a variable cost of defeated Cobra troopers instead of Zords that stick around after defeating 6 foot soldier types. Cover Girl and Gung Ho are two of the playable Joes. Major Blood and Dr. Mindbender shown as Cobra Operatives to fight. Special Preorder bonus figure of Snake-Eyes in his classic pose from his first card art.

The Deck Building Game is getting a Small box expansion called "Shadow of the Serpent" adding in Serpentor and Hawk to the Larger Base set needed to play one of the Small Box sets. And another expansion called Coldsnap that involves the Dreadnoks and the Weather Dominator is slated for fall.

The RPG is set to launch later this month and had a bunch of new stuff to supplement it.

A Joe Miniatures pack, which are smaller than the Mission Critical ones designed to fit 1 inch square map tiles. Gray and unpainted figures included are Airtight, Bazooka,
Cover Girl, Duke, Gung Ho, Jinx, Lady Jaye, Mutt & Junkyard, Rock ‘N Roll, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, and Stalker.

A GM Screen with a level 2 adventure called the Emerald Oubliette. Jungle locale adventure.

A new Adventure book for Joes level 3-6 called Operation Cold Iron to play after the adventure in the cold. Sounds like it'll have some stats for some colder based vehicles like the Snow Cat.

Cobra based sourcebook is coming. as well as Cobra Dice and bag to counter the Joe themed ones already up for order.

And Later there is a Joe Character Journal coming. Each of the Hasbro themed RPG games will have these coming but each are fancy extended character Sheets. Though it sounds like they may make it look like the old school file cards inside.

Background: As noted in the 'Post Pictures' thread, I had the idea of getting a MASS Device to go with future HISS Megatron and my plan was derailed by ebay prices, especially right now with a lot of other stuff taking up my money. So I improvised with some weaponizers and spare parts.

Walmart's got a cool helicopter set for 25 bucks.

Wave 3 of Ultimates is fantastic looking.

Classified hasn't tempted me enough to start collecting an entirely new scale but these sure have been.

So good.