G.I. Joe State of the Union JoeCon 2015 Edition
It has been sometime since I have felt a good positive vibe for G.I. Joe and it’s core group of fans. With all the ups and downs that we in the G.I. Joe fandom endure, it has been very hard for all of us to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and the respect for the brand that we all expect as collectors. After this weekend I really feel we are finally going to get the solid commitment to G.I. Joe that we have been waiting for.
To bring everybody up to speed on the current overlords of G.I. Joe, we will first need to start with Derryl DePriest: A long time G.I. Joe fan with a collection that would shock any G.I. Joe fan. He is a dedicated player, knows his G.I. Joe history, and has done a lot of work for the collecting community, tracking down lost tools (toy molds) that were at first thought to be extinct, along with constantly pushing for MORE surrounding the G.I.Joe Brand as a whole. He gets a lot of respect from me just on the effort he puts into his work, and I know he wants G.I. Joe to succeed.
Next up is G.I. Joe Brand Manager Mark Weber who is fresh off of the Transformers Generations line, coming from a brand that has proven itself time and time again to be a winner, Transformers. I had a very in depth conversation with Mark and I can tell you we are lucky to have him. Not only is he a life long collector of 3 3/4 he knows his G.I.Joe and reads up on his comics. It was nice to see a G.I. Joe brand manager who could keep up with me on IDW comics.
Now that we know who controls our fate over the G.I. Joe brand let’s breakdown all the information that I could gather, and put it all into what I think we are going to see in the future for the G.I. Joe brand. I was able to talk to both Mark and Derryl on a very real level. I didn’t hold back at all, the line of questioning was at times respectfully aggressive, and I feel because of that we received some real answers.
To understand what it looks like Hasbro is about to do with G.I. Joe you must first examine what has been going on with the Transformers Brand and how that has been working out for the collectors. First off, Transformers fans are reading IDW comics religiously, and enjoying the awesome benefits of doing so. Not only does IDW listen to what the fans want, they are also getting a ton of product including new characters made into new Transformers toys that directly tie into the comics books. IDW lives off of the feedback and keeps improving Transformers comics, keeps growing the fan base, and helping that brand become even stronger with fan driven product that also has kids appeal. It’s one of the BEST CASE SCENARIOS that we could hope for the G.I. Joe Brand.
The problem is the G.I. Joe toy collecting community is NOT reading G.I.Joe comics. I was shocked to see how many people at JoeCon 2015 have never read G.I. Joe Cobra, or are not reading G.I. Joe comics at all. This is a huge problem, especially now, knowing that Hasbro is shifting gears to bring kids back to the brand. The best chance we have of getting G.I. Joe content, new characters, toys connected to good content, that we as adult collectors will enjoy is IDW G.I. Joe comics. You can expect a renewed effort from HISSTANK.com to get people reading again! I really think this is the only way we will receive the level of story telling we expect from the G.I. Joe brand. All these awesome Marvel movies we are getting were at one time awesome comic books. If you want the G.I. Joe brand to be strong, it’s going to start with the G.I. Joe comics.
So this brings us to the Movie – Cartoon cycle that Hasbro uses to keep the fan base engaged. A new G.I. Joe movie is on it’s way and will most likely kick off the new cycle. Not much was said on that front, but they did hint to some of the rumors out there about G.I. Joe 3 may have some truth to them. It could be the rumor that D.J. Caruso will be the next director, or that awful idea of including Matt Trackker into a G.I. Joe film. Nothing was confirmed but the fact that G.I. Joe 3 is in the works.
The one thing that was clear at the Hasbro G.I. Joe booth is that kids engagement will now be the main focus for the G.I. Joe brand as it should be. What this means for most of the core base, 40ish year old toy collectors, is be ready for change, because it’s not going to be what we want on a G.I. Joe Resolute scale. I don’t think we will ever see that level of G.I. Joe again in cartoon form. The next cartoon series and direction is going to be kids focused and marketed to them, not us. This is some of the best news we could have expected to hear out of JoeCon 2015. If kids start to buy into G.I. Joe, all those closed doors will open up for the G.I. Joe brand. Hasbro is going to face huge obstacles on how that is done, and I wish them the best of luck on that front.
Where does the G.I. Joe Club fit into all of this? Well it looks like Hasbro has surrendered the rights to do the rest of ARAH to the Collectors Club. If your looking to continue to collect the figures that come from ARAH the Club is going to be the main outlet for those Characters and Vehicles. If Hasbro wanted to continue doing ARAH at retail they just had a huge opportunity to offer us a chunk of what was missing from your ARAH collection, but they have chosen to produce what was in the Hasbro G.I.Joe case at JoeCon 2015 over old school classics. To me this was the best option Hasbro had to still have ARAH figures available to the core G.I.Joe collecting base.
To round all of this up is not easy, Hasbro is going to make that effort to ignite the G.I. Joe brand again. G.I. Joe has the potential to gain back the respect it deserves. We all have a chance in the collecting community to be a part of that trip, but it all hinges on the ability for Hasbro to deliver a G.I. Joe Movie that keeps up with all of it’s competition: Star Wars, Marvel Movies, Transformers, DC – Batman and a host of other pop culture titans that will be releasing films over the next 10 years, right along side any potential G.I. Joe film.
We as fans are going to need to adjust and let the kids G.I. Joe programming be what it is. Most likely we are not going to like it, and that’s fine because it’s not going to be produced for us. Same goes for some of the toys that will show up for that kids direction. The pay off comes down the line when the G.I. Joe team gets a much larger budget to produce G.I. Joe items that are aimed directly at the core collector market. My best example would be the Transformers Masterpiece Series, Transformers Generations, Black Series 6″ Star Wars and Marvel Legends with Build-A-Figures. All have large collector base followings, with kids focused product sitting along side of what we look at as collector driven product.
Bottom line is G.I. Joe is far from finished at mass retail. ARAH will still be around via the G.I. Joe Collectors Club. And fresh new ideas are going to flow into the G.I. Joe Brand. How Hasbro gets to that middle ground that they have achieved with their other brands like Transformers is yet to be seen. Lets hope and pray it’s a smash hit and there is a new school generation of G.I. Joe collectors that crashes the G.I. Joe brand.
We hope everybody enjoyed HISSTANK.com’s coverage of JoeCon 2015. We worked very hard to bring you up to the minute information from the showroom floor and panel rooms, for all of you that could not make it out to the show. We hope all of you take the time to sound off on the HISSTANK.com forums and let us know how you feel about our JoeCon 2015 State of the Union write up. See you after the jump!
DESTRO says
G.I. Joe State of the Union JoeCon 2015 Edition
G.I. Joe State of the Union JoeCon 2015 Edition - HissTank.com
My take on the future of the brand. It's a little long but worth the read.
Sayajin says
If the club is going to be the main outlet for ARAH then I guess it's finally time to join. I'm curious as to how they will decide on what new products to release. I like how Matty Collector utilized a pre-order goal system. Might be good to try that out.
MFJayman says
Well the bit about doubling down on the kid focus has me excited and hopeful. This was the sort of news, or hints, I most wanted to hear from JoeCon.
Yes, let the Club carry on the Modern Era project of updates. Hasbro's done pretty much all it can with that Era. Time to move on.
Yojoe77 says
This certainly would make sense as to why we got so many arah figures from FSS 3 and 4.
Enigmatic says
Couldn't agree more. Although I hate to say it, but 5POA could be more prevalent to attract kids. I wish the show isn't like the new TF show. I enjoyed Renegades a lot, and that Coyote would be sweet to get!
SmokeBellew says
I have a feeling this is where I finally unass this horse. A very large part of the fun for me has always been reliving a bit of my childhood through my collecting, and that means these toys must remain toys. To me, these always have been, and always will be, toys. The club pricing and method of procurement makes them "collectibles." I have no interest in collectibles. I don't do memberships. I don't do clubs. I don't do Hummels or Franklin Mint or "Rare Edition" book clubs either. It just ain't me. Besides, I've never cared much for any of the club's offerings, but I freely admit my view of them could be heavily skewed by the price and whole collectible-thing. So, while I understand and have no intrinsic problem with the club or the pricing or the method of procurement (as collectibles), it just isn't for me.
Having said that, I'm genuinely happy Hasbro will be re-thinking the property for kids first and I'm also glad you old-timers will have the club to feed your brand of nostalgic need. I may not be a super-fan or even an active participant in the brand anymore, but I still have a soft spot for it and I like the idea of it continuing on to enthrall future generations. Just as it's time I finally swing the rest of my leg over the pommel, it's probably time Hasbro puts our tired old nag out to pasture. The future's unwritten...I hope Hasbro fills a few pages of it with wonderful new chapters for G.I. Joe.
zbs says
I see great things to come with Gi Joe for both Kids and collectors. This is great news and I'm very happy to here that Hasbro is going to try and get the kids back in to this. I love gi Joe and can't wait to see what Hasbro has to offer.
SubZero says
If it's true that Hasbro is moving away from ARAH, then, thank you. It's about time the brand moves forward and into the future instead of being stuck in the past.
I like diversity in my GI Joe, I won't read comics but I would love a fun kids show to watch with my son. I think too much of our GI Joe universe is too serious to bring in the younger crowd. I support anything to bring in more fans.
JediJones says
I'm not sure the dividing line is going to be that cut and dry between the club's lines and Hasbro's lines. It just seems for whatever reason the Hasbro designers didn't look at any unmade ARAH characters for this year's lineup and seem a little reluctant to dig into characters who haven't already been released, although this will be the first retail release of Chuckles since 1987. The SDCC item clearly is aimed at collectors because of its venue, but all it does is add repaints that look indistinguishable from this year's retail releases. Bit of a difference from the days of Jinx and Slaughter. At the same time, they're aiming all of the repacks this year directly at what they think collectors are hunting for. The Blowtorch and Croc are also a collector grail of sorts. And Chuckles is based on IDW, a definite nod to collectors.
The next FSS has 4 or 5 ARAH figures that could've made sense as retail releases, but that's still not a majority. And really only Pathfinder and Law and Order would've been slam-dunks at retail. Given the past FSSes, that's on par with what they've been doing. It's even less heavy hitters than FSS 3 and on par with FSS 2. The club wouldn't have wanted to make the FSS completely obscure, so they would've argued they needed some semi-prominent characters even though the DIC era is about the only place they have left to look for prominence. Billy and Pythona simply would never have made it at retail no matter the collector interest.
I definitely could see the kid product and collector product existing side-by-side at retail, like the Marvel mashers vs. the Legends.
I mentioned the Lego movie to Mark and asked him if they'd ever do G.I. Joe animation that animated the figures the same way. He kind of looked surprised and then said there's always Robot Chicken. I think it's a good idea for animation though. Make a solid line of figures and then animate them in toy form in more kid-focused adventures that show off what the toys can do. I don't know if it's affordable on a TV budget or not, but it seems like it would be fun to watch for adults too. And it would be much more fun than the movies, which are like trying to market a toy line to Die Hard, Mission Impossible or James Bond. The Joe movies are not made as the kind of movies that translate well into toys. If they kept all the color to the characters the way the Marvel movies do, then maybe, but the producers don't seem interested in that at all. The red ninja scene was the most toyetic scene in the movie, and Hasbro didn't even get that ninja figure out.
Mark did also say that the delay of Retaliation was devastating to the brand and they still haven't recovered from it. I think the movies have really been solely responsible for destroying a promising toy line relaunch at retail. They've done nothing but damage to the brand, as well as filling our collection with lots of crappy toys. It'd really be better if they had performed so poorly that there were no plans to make another one. Then maybe Hasbro would realize they need to step up a different campaign into high gear instead of constantly putting a real marketing push on hold for the next movie.
24bluebeetle says
I live in Canada , so buying anything from the club tends to cost a foretune....not in exchange(which is currently bad), but in shipping costs. I have found it easier to buy the FSS I have( a very selective few...by cost), through online sales.
As for the toyline, I am OK for it going towards the kids( I was one when I loved/love this toyline). So what if we will be more selective about what GI Joe toys we will buy, as long as we are given an option at all.
With the GI Joe comic books, I have several points against IDW's format of publishing.
1) They print their comics in Korea...??? This pisses me off to NOOOO end...as I live in a country that has a slightly troubled logging industry( as I'm sure the USA has troubles with as well). We also have many people out of quality work in the last decade, a better printing industry might help the overall economy with a small shot in the arm. Seems to me if you market something towards a Western world market...you would have a better time selling stuff to the western world market, if you would keep the dollars circulating in the same said market.
I refuse to buy any IDW product on these grounds, and I did buy the 1st ten issues of the GI Joe A.R.A.H. larry Hama book untill I reaad where they were published( I even think I may have enjoyed them).
2) IDW publishes way too many joe books at one time. I have a decent regular job, but that doesn't mean I can or want to buy 3 GI Joe books a month. If they put out 1 book a month, and combined the stories from 3 separate storylines in 1 book, maybe it would be worth buying...maybe, if for me, the 1st IDW qualm didn't exsist. Heck, to stress my point...I am a way bigger Deadpool fan than I am of GI Joe( which I love to death), and even with Deadpool, I buy just 1 of his books per month( and those are generally way better than any of the GI Joe books).
3) I was going to go into another, but the 1st 2 rants against IDW have sapped my legermain abilities for now
Keep reading: G.I. Joe State of the Union JoeCon 2015 Edition - Page 2
Not a member yet? Join HissTank Now!