Alright, this was posted by Major Flint at HissTank a few days before the GI Joe Classified 6" scale announcement. It's a summary of what Bobby Vala said during a Joe podcast. I've been reading differing things from people who would be in the know. In 1 month we should know for sure. But in the meantime, here's what Vala said before the announcement: To sum up what we know so far: Classified 6" line figures have an MSRP of $19.99 6 figures per case Case pack for wave 1 is Snake Eyes x 2, 1 of everyone else(Destro, Roadblock, Scarlett, Duke) 4 waves so far with the roster for all 4 to be revealed at Toy Fair Jazwares is working on something for GI Joe but what that is exactly isn't known just yet. Might be revealed next week at Nuremberg Toy Fair There are some electronic Joe toys in development by Hasbro Given that the casepack, line name, MSRP and wave count so far has been leaked, I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro gives an exclusive 1st look at the line possibly 1-2 weeks before Toy Fair. Rumors so far: Jazwares' work on GI Joe may be on drones and/or RC vehicles If Jazwares is indeed working on figures it might actually just be weapons and accessories for figures Snake Eyes origin Movie figures in the Classified 6" line are said to possibly start in wave 2 This year is supposed to be good for the brand, for both 6" and 3.75-4" fans. For Classified or the Snake Eyes movie line(if there is a separate line), 1 of them is said to hit retail in July @Jtprime17 have you noticed any listings for Joes on the way? @Mr. Chaos have your sources mentioned anything? @Dorksidetoys do you think diehard GI Joe fans will be happy with what we get this year? @Phamduc and @oku any word from Vietnam/China for new GI Joe toys? Damn sifting for news brings back memories. It's crazy how things have changed through the years.
It'll be huge bummer if this line doesn't pan out to match our admittedly high expectations. Just have to wait and see, I guess.
Personally, I think Vala might be just downplaying it to temper expectations. Not that I blame him. On a (semi) related note, the Dorkside toys account on Fwoosh has probably already seen what is coming. They teased that "The Fwoosh will probably crash..".
@Shin Densetsu It's going to be interesting to see what happens here. Like someone else mentioned on another board I'm on... yes Vala still has contacts in Hasbro but that doesn't mean that he's privy to everything that's going on. Plus a couple of others "in the know" since the announcement of Classified have mentioned that fans will be excited. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this pans out. At this point, it's probably best to temper expectations a little though. For Joe, it's definitely Sgt. Slaughter. I love the character for some reason but I'm well aware that Hasbro would have to jump through some licensing hoops to get him done in the 6" line. Cobra... probably Cesspool just because he's such a late line character from the original toyline and Echo Warriors weren't well received from what I remember. I was never a fan of the color change gimmick, but the idea of one of the members of Cobra being an echo terrorist was pretty damned cool. I don't need the rest of the Echo Warriors subline, but I would love to get Cesspool.
If this line turns out to be garbage, there still is the 80s 3.75 line to buy if you do not own already, troop building, restoring ( for those who enjoy), buying mint on card pieces, etc... For those of us that own everything, Joe is basically done, unless you want to buy thos $700 statues.
Yeah I know nothing about Hasbro’s inner workings but isn’t Vala pretty anti-Hasbro at this point? He’s been pretty aggressive against the CEO on social media. Not that I think he’s lying or anything but it seems sort of awkward.
There's that too. He was very bitter when he left and hasn't exactly been silent about it on social media. Again, I'm sure he's still got his contacts in Hasbro since you don't stop being friends with people just because you don't work somewhere anymore, but that said it's hard to say what he's actually privy to or what his contact is actually privy to. He also said these things before the "announcement" so I'd say it could easily be a case of him not being privy to the information. Toyfair will certainly be interesting. There's also the fact that he's essentially making what would be a directly competing line with his Valaverse offerings as well. Despite my love of GI Joe, I have zero interest in those because they essentially look like GI Joe character rip-offs.
I've looked into the Sgt Slaughter wrestling figures and the one that looks like did on GIJoe is too big. Almost 7" tall so he wouldn't fit in. Would be funny if who ever makes the WWF figures did a one off of him in the 6" scale knowing Joe collectors would buy the crap out if even if it does not mention GI Joe anywhere on the package. Hey, they are just releasing a figure of a wrestler they have the rights to.
He was probably privy to stuff before management changed. I'm not even sure if there is a brand manager for GI Joe after Mark Weber left. Hasbro also sometimes has designs left over from years before and almost 5 years ago, there seemed to be a good chance we were getting a 6" series. Could these new figures actually be based on old designs? I'm not sure who, from the old Joe teams are left at Hasbro. Warden moved to Transformers almost 10 years ago, Boss Fight Studio became their own thing, not sure what Stall and Depriest are up to.
Do you know who is working the Marvel line? Seems like Hasbro probably has designers who are familiar with Joe? Whoever is making Marvel characters as obscure as White Rabbit has probably heard of Snake-Eyes.
As I’ve said before, I’ve seen many designers over the years say that “management doesn’t get it” and “hates the brand” and “shoots down all proposals”. And as often as not, it’s that the management was shooting down the proposals and discouraging talk about the brand because they were developing something with ANOTHER designer and keeping that one designer out of the loop because that exec would get bombarded with proposals for that one property if they opened them up to all their designers. Vala doesn’t work for Hasbro. He’s a competitor and one Hasbro is supposedly pissed at for poaching their lapses trademarks. It depends IMHO. If these are Marvel Legends scale then 6 feet tall is 6.5 inches as a figure. ML are 1:11. Sgt. Slaughter is 6 foot 5 inches tall. That works out to 7 inches on the dot.
Diehards probably won't be happy, but I'm expecting people to come around. Change is hard, I love SW and I was on the fence when 6" Black Series came out. But when we got them in stock and I got Darth Maul in my hand I was hooked. It was just a far better representation of that character than any 3.75 could deliver. I have to be guarded about what I say. You might not think this based on EE leaking these out last week, but Hasbro kinda frowns on retailers revealing details about product lines before they do. Any retailer who has these up now has gotten info from EE and there a very good chance that the details they have are not accurate. I've been in this business for almost 10 yrs and I've never been more excited about Toyfair, that said I think it's best to temper expectations just a bit. Also unless a trailer drop during the Super Bowl, it's probably unrealistic to expect reveals of movie stuff.
