G.I.Joe

[Soundwarp]

"Yo Joe"

After spotting a new member that expressed an interest in Joe's thought i'd start o thread. I personally LOVED it as a kid, i wish that they were as popular as TF's are right now so i could have a sub collection like Griffin does with the MOTU.

So post away peeps!

[GoktimusPrime]

I'm not really a G.I. Joe fan, but I was talking to Lord Zed about the current G.I. Joe line and he was telling me about how Hasbro is far more focussed and dedicated to G.I. Joe than Transformers. It appears that Hasbro shows G.I. Joe a similar level of dedication to collectors that Takara does toward Transformers.

When Aaron Archer first took the helm of Hasbro's Boys' Toys dept he stated in interviews that he was personally a G.I. Joe fan and that he had grown up playing with G.I. Joe - he also admitted that he was not a fan of Transformers and never had any real interest in Transformers as a youngling.

Now I don't have a problem with Archer growing up with G.I. Joe and preferring to be a G.I. Joe fan. What I do have a problem with is the fact that Archer seems to be very focused when it comes to his beloved G.I. Joe but notoriously unfocused when it comes to Transformers! We've all noted time and time again that Archer/Hasbro often don't seem to be paying attention when it comes to Transformers, and Lord Zed pointed out to me that the kind of glaring mistakes (and other things that generally irk fans) that Archer makes with Transformers he never makes with Transformers. On top of that, Archer does a lot of really cool things with G.I. Joes that specifically appeal to hardcore G.I. Joe fans/collectors, like apparently there was a blue variant of the new Baroness figure - representing the fact that Baroness was frequently coloured blue in the Marvel comics during the 1980s/90s instead of black like the original toy and in the cartoon (IMO Baroness was a lot hotter in the comics than the cartoon ). This is something we often see Takara do with stuff like the e-Hobby exclusives!!

So what gets me is that Archer demonstrates that he and Hasbro ARE capable and willing to cater for collectors/fans! It's just that they don't choose to do so for Transformers! They'll do it for Star Wars - which is understandable because of the massive fanbase - but G.I.Joe, which Lord Zed conceded has a much, much smaller fanbase than Transforemrs - receives more focused attention from Archer!

Why? We could think of no other reason than Archer putting in his personal bias for G.I. Joe - in other words, favouritism. (-_-)

Again, I have no problem with Archer making the G.I. Joe line more fan/collector focused - what I do have a problem is with the fact that he isn't this focused with Transformers. Transformers, in Lord Zed and my observation - appears to have a larger and stronger fanbase than G.I. Joe yet it receives far less focused attention from Hasbro.

And I have a suspicion that the live action G.I. Joe movie was something that Archer pushed for whereas the Transformers movie was something that was spawned largely on the franchise's own merits.

Archer's favouritistic treatment toward G.I. Joe reeks of personal bias and just makes him look unprofessional. Professionally he should be regarding all of Hasbro's lines on equal terms and equal focused attention.

[TheDirtyDigger]

I read that GI Joe was based on Nick Fury and SHIELD. That's cool.

[springah]

I read that GI Joe was based on Nick Fury and SHIELD. That's cool.

Hahaha, damn straight.

http://www.latinoreview.com/news/exc...joe-movie-3764

(well not really, but sort of)

[Paulbot]

Never owned a single GIJOE toy and never interested in doing so.

But I loved the comic. I bought many issues of the UK TF comic in which I'd already read the US TF story it reprinted, but I wanted to follow the backup GI JOE story. The period from around GIJOE US 45 - 75 had some fantastic stories.

[griffin]

Thanks to the various crossovers with TFs and all the backup strips in the UK Marvel comic, I am a bit of a fan of GI Joe as well. Just not enough to start buying any of the toys (unless I suddenly had millions and there were no more TFs to buy), but I did collect the GI Joe comics, both old and new series.
Never saw the cartoon though, which I think was like TFs, in that the comics had the deeper, more complex stories.

[GoktimusPrime]

My brother and I only owned a relatively small amount of G.I. Joe figures - but my brother was like Paulbot, avid collector of the comics, which I read off him.

[Rampage]

i turfed the last of my gi joe vehicles not long ago as they were in terrible shape

H.A.V.O.C
Conquest X-30
Snow Cat
Devil Fish

the only fig i have left is Monkeywrench

others i had a s kid were:

B.A.T v1
Cobra Commander v3
Leatherface v1
Dr. Mindbender v1
Sgt Slaughter v2
Techno-Viper v1 (still have his back pack & claw weapon)
Destro v2

[Lord_Zed]

Cobra!!!

I am a casual collector of G.I Joe. And have a quite a few figures, perhaps I should count at some point. Being small figures there cheaper than transformers so I often aquire many in a small amount of time, or when I'm at the collectors fair and I can't find any TF's. I recall Toy's R Us stocked one of the recent lines not so long ago, and sold them of for a few dollars for 2. needless to say my collection almost doubled in size.

I first started collecting Joe's or more specifically Cobras (I have more Cobra's than Joes) around the time of the 4th or 5th year. I started with the B.A.T and the robot like ones, as a kid I loved how they had so many accessories compared to other figures out on the market. I became cemented as a Gi Joe fan because of the comic, I hate the cartoon but the comic is great, In fact though I'm still more of a TF fan, I do prefer Larry Hama's writing style to even Simon Furmans, however I find transformers a more exciting concept.

My interest in GI Joe goes up and down, even more so than my interest in TF's but at the moment it's on the up, thanks to a relatively decent comic arc, and the newest line of 25th anniversary G.I. Joes. These are like the classics of GI Joe remakes of the original popular figures but with modern sculpting. As I was discussing with Goktimus (as mentioned above) the newest line of Joes is far more focused than I've seen before in either the Joe or Transformers. The original 6 figure giftpack sets had pictures of original box art, comic covers, toys and cartoon stills and a sound device that played the first line of the theme song.

Now while I agree this is more attention to detail than Hasbro has ever given the Transformers, I must also point out that the previous G.I. Joe lines suffered from much of the same lack of attention as Transformers. In fact there are quite a few names that were reused for completely new characters, so now there are 2 Long Range's in the Gijoe universe, both in the same team but each is a different person, with a different file name. there were also a number of uninspired repaints, badly moulded out of proportion figures and horrible colour choices. So GIJoe has had it's Armada too. While it does seem likely that Archer is favouring Gijoe with this new line, it could still be the 25th anniversary tag line making him sit up and pay attention. We wont know for sure till we see what Hasbro does with the Transformers 25th anniversary.

As for GIjoes fandom, It seems to do pretty well in the states, that have JOECON or something like it, which has exclusive mutifigure packs and what not much like Botcon. I don't know about fan groups in Australia, one toy line fan community is enough for me.

Original Firefly


25th anniversary Firefly

[Soundwarp]

This thread could get dangerous for my wallet.