Very cool, Sakai is a legend. I don't read UY, but I've never heard anything that wasn't positive. I had Atkins do a joe commission for me many years ago when he first started doing joe comics. It took 3-4 years to get to the top of the queue, but it was worth it. It's Flint and Ace in that IDW gallery I linked. He seems like a great guy.
Stan Sakai and his creation Usagi Yojimbo are both top notch, creator and comic. Atkins is very slow on commissions, it’s a running joke on the Starjoes podcast that he co-stars on. Now that he is teaching at SCAD, I am sure he is even slower. Lol
The Gage Cobra series was awesome. I can see why people would drop the Dixon run. As much as I like it, the fact that you had to follow it across three titles toward the end made it a chore to read from month to month. That's part of the reason I'm doing the custom bind, to get it in an easy to read order.
Not to try to do anybody’s job for them but I honestly think redeveloping G.I.Joe away from strictly war toys is fairly easy. You just emphasize everything else about them and keep the clearly military guys to a minimum. Call the line/media tie-in “Yo Joe” or just emphasize “Real American Heroes” with a tiny “G.I.Joe”. Duke, Flint, Lady Jaye all are going to skew military themed. But Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, BATS, etc. are more generally sci-fi/action. I guess Sigma Six tried to go more super-hero but I think it was probably too far in a single direction and didn’t have nostalgia cross appeal. You could basically make them super-heroes by having them leave the government in the pilot/setup for a new line. They’re still career military types but more freelance like the A-Team. And I’m not thinking tights so much as the whole MCU Captain America style. Base all the looks on prior looks. Hawk in a variation on his 90s Jetpack look. Maybe Snake Eyes going back to his blue and grey more or less but with the more iconic ninja visor. Flint in something that blends Eco Force and original. Basically all you have to do is make them unsanctioned vigilantes, make them a 50/50 cross between 84 and 93. Focus on the ninjas, cloning, Fred series Crimson Guard, all the weird stuff in Springfield, Bond villain schemes. Maybe develop Cobra-La, The Headmen. Instead of Greatest Hits of the early line, play up all the stuff that usually gets downplayed. But you don’t really have to go against the property’s history to make them not war toys. Just play up everything else about their history. Might actually be interesting if Joe was more like Cobra. Flashier. Brighter colors. Illegal and unsanctioned. Criminals in flashy costumes with deep pockets funding them out to save the world from greedy criminals out to conquer it. Comics could flesh out the deeper idea of what happens when the Joe team abandons the government and basically becomes just like Cobra but heroic. Might be fun to flirt with how far that goes. Hawk and Flint finding themselves blackmailing politicians, building a weather dominator, acting more and more like Cobra. Obviously in a few years you wind up back to basics but it’d be kind of fun to see Joe operate and dress like Cobra and be just as antagonistic to all the world governments. Not with Cobra in power either (that’s been done) but as these warring vigilante groups. One trying to protect people (while being hunted by law enforcement and the military for actual crimes they’re committing) and the other trying to take over. And you could always do a hard pivot at the end with Hawk pleading guilty to treason in exchange for pardons and reinstatement. But all very A-Team.
Actually, you raise some great points, particularly about failing to differentiate Joe and Cobra. I think it would be interesting to embrace that but maybe the solution is to not have the two groups be enemies at all. You just open with the idea G.I.Joe and Cobra fought for years. Some mysterious and terrible stuff happened. Now Hawk is the new Cobra Commander and half the Cobra leadership is ex-Joes. There aren’t two sides. G.I.Joe is gone. There’s just a semi-reformed Cobra that six or seven Joes have taken over and are trying to use for good against Destro, Headman, Ironblood, etc. Scarlet runs the Crimson Guard. The ninjas answer to Snake Eyes. Flint runs the troopers. Lady Jaye is the head Viper. If there’s not a strong difference, maybe lean into that by having Joe and Cobra teamed up against the world.
That was pretty much the entire plot of Renegades, outlaws on the run. And cobra was as more an evil corporation than terrorist group. It worked ok for a cartoon, but it really limited the cast to the main few plus some cameos. I fail to see what's broken about Joe that it needs revamping. They're an eclectic group of special ops military operators undertaking various missions to thwart a subversive, terrorist organization that isn't tied to a particular set of politics, religion, or geography. It's already pretty vague about both sides. They could skew things one way or another without breaking the franchise. But the main theme of the franchise is basic good vs evil, and the films almost seemed to lose that thread somehow. They made CC and destro pseudo-sympathetic characters and the joes were somewhat bland. Thus there was mostly just big fight scenes between two similar groups using high-tech sci-fi weaponry. The distinction between the groups was blurred to the point that you frequently had to remind yourself why you were supposed to care who won. If any new media just focuses on military specialists stopping terrorists, makes clear distinctions between the two, and develops some compelling characters, I'll be happy. This is not the same as a 2-hr sci-fi circle jerk action scene full of "clever" one-liners. Ugh.
Hmmm, why does this sound familiar? Oh right, because Hasbro tried this same exact approach. G.I.Joe Renegades was about a team of Joes who were distanced from the greater military because of reasons and acted against the law while fighting the massive Pharmaceutical company known as Arbco AKA COBRA. In fact Retaliation the movie borrowed heavily from this plot idea. If it failed back then, what makes you think a variation of this idea would work any better now?
I think Renegades would have worked out had it been A. not on the Hub and B. promoted with its own toyline instead of snuck into the generic "GIJoe" toys with minimal branding. It's like they were sorry they made it...which was unfortunate because it was almost Beast Wars level writing and character development. But it was too "not GIJoe" for Joe fans and "too GIJoe" for not-Joe fans on a network no one was watching anyway.
Because it’s less about being criminals and more about basically doubling up on Cobra. Everybody loves Cobra. So maybe if you go full Cobra to the horror of the Joes as they do it? So Hawk and Duke and so on are making neon clone armies and brainwashing people. They have to blow up the Lincoln Memorial and unleash super-viruses and hold kids hostage to save the world. Basically, they have to operate just like Cobra to fight Cobra. And at the end of the day, either you make a take like this work when it really shouldn’t (see: Tom Taylor’s Injustice) or it gets ignored/retconned anyway. As for “it’s not broke, don’t fix it”, I’m starting under the assumption that it’s got to be broken if Hasbro let it all disappear from retail this long.
Funny, I don't recall bringing up the old trope of it not being broken so don't fix-it. I was stating that your idea feels entirely similar to past attempts. Going double-Cobra or whatever is just an edgelord story trope and I'm pretty sure nobody in the general audiences would be remotely interested in a story about G.I.Joe members doing evil shit in order to combat a greater evil that is Cobra. Hell, if that were the case I think Hasbro would have attempted it sooner. The reason why G.I.Joe hasn't been at retail for so long is not just because of the digital media and comic series made to sell the notion, but because of two films that affected the line so negatively and so poorly that retailers are no longer willing to support this kind of toyline. They see sales figures on the decline because of failing cross promotional media and they choose to ignore it. Wal-Mart has huge buying power, they can dictate anything. They refused to stock G.I.Joe after the utter flop that was Retaliation and so Hasbro has been leaning away from the franchise at Retail. They are giving it a break similar to other IPs of the past in order to approach it at a new and more refreshing angle, all while letting the stigma of G.I.Joe not selling well to fade from the general public's mindset. A huge problem with Joe is that it has always been a military toyline, but it has always stood well despite the whole real-world political fiasco we dare not discuss. G.I.Joe as a brand has staying power, it has been around in some form or another since the 60s, but perhaps the characters of the 80s are no longer as viable as they once were. Hell bring back Flagg and just ignore Hawk, Duke, Roadblock and the rest, make a team using the 90's characters or something and have them step up. Make a new villain or something. I don't know really, I don't pretend to know what would work, but I know what I don't want to see. And edgelord anti-heroes fighting terrorists is decidedly not one of them. It's why I ditched IDW's comic series early on with all their gritty dark edgy reboot crap.
I was the one that said Joe wasn't broken, and I stand by that. The problem is that the films had little to do with the franchise's core appeal but still got their stink all over it. The films were broken with their starship troopers nonsense. The fact that hasbro doesn't know what to do with it says more about hasbro than it does Joe. The 25th line sold so well they couldn't keep it in stock. And then they raised the price to $10 and started churning out shitty movie figs that WM got stuck with by the truckload. I fail to see how that makes Joe broken. It just means that the people who make the decisions at hasbro and in the retail space clearly don't understand the market for the product.
The best adapted screenplays (and thus films) are ones that remain true to the source material. Nacho’s executive summary of the 80s GIJoe/Cobra brand and paradigm encapsulates the core of why this theme means so much to all of us. Despite all the iterations and creative nuances, the brand is special operatives battling a terrorist organization in a war of good vs. evil. That’s the foundation for a good trilogy but then use the Marvel comics run for inspiration on stories. I begin to think that the series would be best adapted to a 10-episode per season series on Netflix/Amazon Prime/Hulu than films. Much more opportunity for character development and likely a lower development budget.
There was second reason as well, though. Hasbro and Paramount failed to communicate with each other, specifically in relation to Paramount's last minute attempt to salvage the film by re-shooting some scenes and avoiding other bigger tentpole releases. This resulted in the infamous incident where the film was pushed to a Spring date while product was being stocked on the shelf in the previous summer. Hasbro tried to reach out to vendors to tell them to take the product off the shelf, but it was too late. Wave 1 hit pretty...what was it...eight months ahead of the movie? Planograms took the product off the shelf during the holidays and, IIRC, only Target put product back out when the movie hit. Potential pallet drops and shippers for the holidays were apparently canceled. And after everything was said and done, prices were INCREASED on the toys while vehicles with figures were "kneecapped" and turned off even the most ardent GIJoe toy fan. It was the perfect storm of logistical hell that seemed to doom this franchise that was motoring along just fine only a year before with modern era figures mixing RoC and RAH styling and some truly great vehicle updates (except for the Skystriker).
Uh, what's wrong with the Skystriker? Or were you just saying it wasn't updated for modern aesthetics?
Renegades was cool in my opinion, much more so than ROC or Retaliation. I understand it's live action vs cartoon, but to me anyway, Joes were tailor-made and meant for a toon universe as opposed to flesh and blood..... I understand that the brand can't be super viable without a successful big budget movie, but to me, they just don't translate that well onto the big screen...... On the other hand, the next Snake Eyes themed movie might be Joe's best shot at a great movie if it is done right with great character development and a good story.... Anyway, any Joe movie hopefully means toys, and that's what I'm looking forward to the most. Oh, and if Hasbro ever reads any of the boards (not the slightest chance most likely), please make the Renegades Coyote, that would be epic and I could die an angry, whoops, I mean happy old man.....
There was just no reason to tie the wing sweep function to the landing gear. I guess the original had that - but that's like saying we should make modern GIJoe figures without arm swivels because the original ones didn't have them. Also, it bugged me that the cockpit didn't accommodate two figures. I don't know the overall reaction but most of my friends into Joe didn't care for the update either.
I think basically the only way to get attention for a comic book or nostalgia property in general is to aim for the worst premise possible and try to do it well. Superior Spider-man worked. Secret Wars (Hickman's) worked. Hydra Cap... didn't work but it got headlines. Injustice surprisingly worked. Doomsday Clock... kind works, actually. Star Trek vs. Transformers? It kind of worked and it did it by taking arguably the version of that which you'd expect the most resistance to, pairing the campiest versions of both. If the premise doesn't troll, I'm not sure it sells. I expect Transformers/Ghostbusters to outperform the much more subdued IDW Transformers reboot. You kind of have to offend with the premise and make up for it by doing a deliberately bad premise well. But you don't want a WEAK premise. You want a STRONG, BAD premise that trolls, that demands attention. And then you sell it on the execution.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Hasbro was re-using the older molds and modifying them for the new scale once the 25th hit, so the Skystriker uses modified parts from the original 3 3/4 inch mold. Or am I thinking early pre-modern era when they were making those newer jointed o-ring figures from 2002-2005 ish? Either way this might explain why the play features are there and why you can't fit more than one character into the cockpit, even using a new sculpted element for the Cockpit area I'd doubt you could fit two of the new scale figures into the Skystriker since they are closer to 4 inch tall figures or 1/18 scale. Either way I'm highly impressed with the scale of the Skystriker mold and am pleased that I managed to get the 30th vehicle. It's one of the only ones I managed to get and it makes me wonder if a Haslab Flagg would be possible in this era. I couldn't get behind the Sail Barge because I wasn't working at the time, but now that I'm fully employed and earning more I'd be willing to contribute to a Flagg in scale with that new Skystriker jet. Have no clue where'd I stick the fucker, but I'd pay 900$ tops in paid installments if available for a decent looking modern Flagg.
