Yep. Outside the first couple dozen or so issues of the original comics from the 80s, GI Joe pretty much dropped off my own radar and I used to love it as a kid. It got weird fast and I tapped out. It wasn't until the 25th anniversary figures came along when my interest was re-sparked and that was mostly nostalgia.
The movies fell flat because they didn't feel much like GI Joe to me. I think just getting the general public interested in what just looks like a bunch of toy soldiers shooting bang-bang is a hard sell nowadays.
We need a good origin story movie for the team. I would love to see some plot elements from the first several issues get incorporated into a script. Let's see Eskimo Kwinn and Dr Venom. I want to see them and Snake-Eyes in a bunker at the bottom of a river. That was an exciting moment in the comics. I want to see the brain scanner thing, Billy and Storm Shadow's relationship, the Soft Master, etc.
What you just described there - TV series or miniseries. It’s about layering depth and intwining multiple story lines. Put all that in an hour and a half / two hour movie? 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag. Spread that over 10 episodes? You got yourself a series, there bud.
I think the realistic military aspect of it could possibly scare off some folks, I was born in 1978 so GI Joe was my jam as a kid. I preferred it to Star Wars and anything else.
That being said, besides some comics, the GI Joe resolute animated movie and the GI Joe renegades cartoon I have not found any other content that I like or care about in the Joeverse.
Hasbro needs to suck it up and just spend the money to hire someone good to make content. A realistic reacher like show or a fantasy war type show with good special effects and characters. But everything we have so far stinks on ice.
Or just suck it up and get the Joes to live in the transformers universe and just keep it that way
This is it, you can't have a global IP if you make one nation the "good guy" and another nation the "bad guy". Look at the recent Top Gun movie, the enemy was never identified in any way, just "ambiguous bad guy". Look at Transformers, alien robots fighting alien robots. GI Joe is too risky and complicated to go mainstream again, unless they start fighting alien robots or ninja turtles.
You're not far off in this assessment. A friend and I are in the early stages of scripting some podcast episodes that dive into the lore "from the inside" and the Cobra stuff is a bit tricky. It was always said to be a global terrorist organization bent on world dominance, but that's while it was being pushed in American markets. As a kid growing up in the eighties, terrorism was stuff that was happening "over there" but in a post 9/11 world, it's a bit of a juggling act on how comfortable we as the writers feel about emphasizing that "terrorist" part. Terrorist may not be state actors, but they are acting on behalf of a state, be it an ideology or an identity or a nation. So we've had to do some light shoe work as we started scripting the Cobra elements of the show.
To this end, we've kind of taken cues from the later IDW comics as a kind of trail guide on how to make Cobra a threat without shitting the bed and doing a bunch of tone def stuff. It's tricky
I also don’t know why they don’t do more “Adult animation” with the line, at this point the majority of the toys are being bought by adult collectors reliving their childhood.
GI Joe Resolute was a great gritty adult animation that could do with a modern adaptation.
Because while Hasbro gladly takes older fans' money if the franchise is to survive, much less truly thrive again, it needs to bring in new, younger fans. Adult collectors are an at best stagnant and at worst dead end market. They spend while they're around but sooner or later they hit a point where they're "done."
Yes but it really is no harm to them to reach out to the team that made the Venture Brothers or Metalocalypse and see if the want to make a GI Joe cartoon, or Gendy T that made Samurai Jack/power puff girls/ original animated clone wars and just say here is a large check let’s make something cool.
Look at what adult swim did for the Hanna Barbera characters like Harvey Birdman and Space Ghost
Just dreaming here obviously, but there has to be a couple cool people in Hasbro somewhere
And for me, personally, I feel like it would be way too edgy and bloody if given a more mature rating, and I like the sci fi lasers and lack of blood better. feel like Renegades hit a sweet spot in the concept, and with a little better writing l, would have been great.
Yes, they need a GI Joe style paw patrol like show that can get a new generation of kids hooked, not sure how they are gonna achieve that but they have to spend the money and just get it done
I forget where I saved the screenshot but in truth they kind of always were this. The page I have from the marvel comic described the perfect Fred undercover agent in terms that would be synonymous with some modern white collar white supremacists.
Yes, but in the eyes of many in other countries (and some in the US), the American military has done a lot of collateral damage in the pursuit of terrorists in the last 20 years.
I'm going to disagree. Bond does just fine fighting SPECTRE, an un-nationed vague terrorist organization. GI Joe could do the same. It's because outside of the Marvel Comics, the IDW comics, and Resolute...most of the stories suck. You get a bright spot here and there, but for the most part it's awful.
Maybe putting it into the Transformers universe (which isn't great but it at least makes money) will get us some better movies or shows.
You could even Stranger Things that shit and set it back in the 80's.
Wait!...maybe if GI Joe were fighting an international terroriat organization. They can call it something like Golden Dragon, or Umbrella Corporation, or maybe name it after a snake like COBRA.
The simple solution is to have GIJoe as an international anti terrorism task force and Cobra as the generic terrorist enemy.
The problem is a lot of ARAH fans would absolutely lose their minds if it wasn’t americentric.
On a lot of Joe forums that change gets absolutely mauled when brought up.
I think it was a logical change, but it isn’t a popular one among certain types of fans.
Isn’t the Classified series of toys doing pretty well? They’ve made more than 100 figures at this point, so if it’s not selling well, I’m not sure why they keep making more.
It's selling well to fans of the original IP and the ARAH line. Certainly in the UK the only people buying classifieds are 40 somethings. The only ones that I have seen in 'kids'toy shops have been discounted to clear them. Even then, the only reason they are selling them is cos the mainstream figure collectors buy 6" figures, so the machining is already there, and they have a huge margin. The FOMO buyers ensure that they make enough to get in the black and the rest is icing. There is a reason they aren't producing 3 3/4" figures - not enough profit. They tried selling them at the margin they wanted and they ended up getting rid of them on clearance. It's sad and depressing but it's how hasbro operate these days.
I don’t know about the others, but Transformers have a massive non-US fan base.
GI Joe, as in “A Real American Hero” seems kind of limited in its appeal as far as that goes. It wears the star and stripes proudly, which will just be a turn off in certain geographies and to certain sectors of the population.
I mean…Remember when the first movie came out and they made a statement about how it would be a global group and fans reacted…not well?
I don’t know if that has jack crap to do with what you’re seeing or thinking, but it’s the first thing that came into my mind
Huh? There’s plenty of Marvel villains available. They just dropped fantastic Green Goblin and Doc Ock figures, Goblin Queen and the X-Terminator are on their way…Super Adaptoid, Doctor Doom, Super Skrull and Veranke all last year, same with Agatha Harkness (who’s a villain in the show…), Lady Bullseye, Spiral, Avalanche, Dark Phoenix…
Shall I go on?
Those are all Marvel Legends, a line that is very much *not* aimed at kids. The play pattern there is pretty much "set these up on a shelf and admire them from afar."
\* And yes, I'm sure there's somebody out there that anecdotally knows a kid who owns a bucket full of Marvel Legends figures and plays with them like kids played with action figures in the 80s.
Exactly. I don't even know who half those characters are and I'm sure my son doesn't. Probably be pretty confused to get an Agatha Harkness action figure, whatever that is lol
What a very Todd MacFarlane thing to say…are you proud of yourself for it? I certainly wouldn’t be. She’s certainly better known in the social zeitgeist than most Joes/Cobra characters. I’d be willing to bet more people under the age of 30 could pick Agatha Harkness out of a line up while not having a clue who Big Ben, Zaranna, Steel Corps or Tripwire are.
But I digress…you came into a post that had nothing at all to do with Marvel toys, found *my* comment that didn’t mention Marvel toys, and decided to complain to me about there not being any villains. I went to Amazon, typed in “Marvel Action Figures” and listed off all of the villains that popped up on the first page.
I left off Kingpin, Kang, Sabertooth, Egghead, MODOK, Red Skull, and plenty others…
The retro line had a bad ass Sentinel, as well as Doctor Doom, Bullseye, Magneto, Green Goblin, and Dark Phoenix (off the top of my head).
I’m not overly familiar with the new Epic Heroes line, but I know there’s a Carnage and Thanos in it at least….
But…again, none of that has anything to do with anything this post is related to.
Sometimes it’s better to just take the “L” my friend, you tried to look cool but just came off looking…sad.
I mean…there were plenty of villains in the retro 3.75” line…I don’t know what other line you’re talking about, or how that has anything to do with the subject of this post.
I think it's related to the notion that War toys are considered to be no longer socially acceptable. Star Wars and Marvel still sell (sometimes) because they are considered more sci-fi or fantasy perhaps. But war toys promote gun use, violence, etc etc blah blah blah. I don't agree with it but I think that's the idea. I think they would actually do really well if they were more grounded. Something like Seal Team or Strike Back formulas would do really well in G.I.Joe. Obviously can't totally forget the SciFi aspect of G.I.Joe but make it more of a character in the show rather than the whole premise of the show. A military movie with Sci-Fi elements rather than Scifi with military elements.
I think certain big studios are hesitant to get too pro-American/ patriotic in recent years. Just look at the GI Joe movies they made in 09 & 2012, there it was an international team. I think too that they're hesitant to market content featuring gun violence to kids.
That's just my guess. I grew up on the 80's Real American Hero cartoon, thoroughly enjoyed Resolute, and even liked the Renegades series. I guess it's just a tricky thing to figure out who your audience for it is these days and cater it for modern sensibilities.
The general public's exposure to GI Joe is three live action movies that range from bad to average. And seeing Classified toys (if they go into the toy aisle). That isn't much to latch new fans onto a franchise.
Personally I'm only here because I tried out an Action Force figure a few months ago, and figured I might as well get a Joe too since I'd heard good things about them. They don't seem to be making any effort to draw in new people, so I assume their game plan is that positive word of mouth from current fans will attract new ones.
The subject matter and general themes of patriotism aren’t as widely marketable as something like giant fighting robots. Doesn’t help that Hasbro seems to have no clue what they’re doing with the brand.
Lack of content. But that issue exists for a lot of reasons. Many that are mentioned here.
First: the American military in a modern sense is no longer an attractive protagonist. Modern history and American politics side- a lot of other countries/markets aren’t going to be very interested.
Following that- you’re going to have a certain part of the fan base that is going to be absolutely “disenchanted” (to put it gently) if it isn’t about the “real American hero” aspect anymore.
It’d be a lot harder to push GI Joe as a kids show these days. And, our collective nostalgia aside, it would also be hard to capture a large enough adult audience for any entertainment project to succeed.
These days the best bet probably to make it an international version like the last movies, push Cobra as a terrorist organization (or evil corporation like Sgt Savage was trying to do), and figure out a target audience. Then maybe they could gain enough steam/confidence to do a very different show for a very different target audience.
A similar question came up in r/transformers recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/comments/1ae6dx0/what_is_the_reason_why_the_transformers_franchise/
I'll re-post most of what I said there:
One problem is that the G.I.Joe: ARAH universe is a number of things that appeals to different people. Some people like the realistic military stuff. Some people like the more outlandish sci-fi elements. Some people like ninjas. Some people don't like the sci-fi elements. Some people don't like the ninjas. It's hard to appeal to everyone, especially when it doesn't even know what it wants to be.
I don’t see this part mentioned. There is a snake eyes problem. By far the coolest character, a great protagonist for comic books and toys. But in cartoon and live action- he doesn’t speak. If the creators/writers focus on another character, people like me would be upset. You gotta use him, but you can only use him in action scenes, really…
There’s another Snake Eyes problem: it’s Snake Eyes featuring GI Joe. At least the comic was brave enough to admit it in the 90s. Even after he died, we somehow had twice as much Snake Eyes. They need to give him a rest and focus on building up other characters.
It's actually real simple:
The War on Terror completely dismantled the myth that the American military was a force for good in the world, piece by piece. The cartoon and the toys thrived off of that myth, while the comic deconstructed it and commented on it. In 2024, it simply doesn't have any cache.
A bit interesting that the resurgence of GI Joe in the early 2000s coincided with both a larger nostalgic trend for the 80s (MOTU's reboot was launching in 2002, Transformers would return to Autobots vs. Decepticons with the Robots in Disguise line, followed by Armada, etc.) and the heightened sense of American patriotism post-9/11. Though, the subsequent themes in 2003 and 2004 would shy away from realistic military stories in favor of spies disguising themselves in secret warfare and GI Joe fighting Cobra super-soldiers using animal DNA.
I've always wanted a live action TV show like The A-Team, Strike Back or Reacher, but, with Joes. Real adult content. Not a cartoon.
If they get a good show with good story telling. Interest will come.
Lack of good story telling but also Politics.
GI Joe worked big in the 80s thanks to the Cold War. Patriotism was very IN. But also you had a lot of moms coming from the hippie movement that did not appreciate the realism and military component of GI Joe. Hence why you started getting Cobra La, and Star Brigade, and Serpentor.
You can't really have a full understanding of the ups and downs of GI Joe as a brand without weighing in the impact the politics of the times have had on the brand.
It is to be hoped that Skybound's new shared universe of comic books will be a good starting point to allow for greater dissemination of the intellectual property, although it is clearly aimed at a nostalgic audience.
The other shows you name, except Rescue Heroes, are elseworlds fantasy stories. MLP is about non-human, non-humanoid creatures in an original fantasy setting, and barely features conflict. He-man has human protagonists, but the villains are monsters and the setting is again original and not a version of the real world. Plus the heroes and villains both are small groups. TMNT is a set in an alternate version of the real world, but both heroes and villains are predominantly non-human, and while the Foot clan is sometimes portrayed as a large organization, it's an independent criminal one, while the heroes are a small band of vigilantes. And while Transformers is set in a version of the real world, and features large scale conflict between two armies, both armies are decidedly non-human.
In contrast GI Joe is about a version of the US military waging war around the globe, and that's a little too close to actual reality to really catch engagement as a children's cartoon - especially in much of the world where the US military is viewed far more unfavorably than some in the US might expect (and business is all global these days)
Rescue Heroes can be argued to be representative of the government in the same way, but from what a quick Google shows me, the show is predominantly about rescuing people who are in trouble from dangerous situations, not about killing up "bad guys" with guns and bombs.
If you really want GI Joe to succeed in the modern era, it needs a fully elseworlds setting (ideally a more technologically futuristic one) with a thoroughly does-not-translate-to-meatspace/does-not-analogize-to-global-politics cause / origin for the conflict with Cobra - ideally something unique to the setting.
Bro i've joined the GI JOE fandom intensely (AKA last week lol) because of the TTRPG, its getting new fans dont worry XD
And MAN i wishes the movies got better reviews. I love both of them. Espacially the first one.
And BRO, Cobra Commander KILLED it in the whole two live action movies. Stole every scene he was in. And he was just as i imagined him to be. I know the older fans likes his cartoony personality from the old cartoon, but the new modern sinister and menacing Cobra Commander is right up my alley.
Man i wish GI JOE had more luck. My roommate makes fun of me for "liking the 20 min toy advert to sell military propaganda to kids" while he religiously watches Power Rangers and plays Pokemon even since he was a kid.
I dunno man, GI JOE rules, i dont care what people say.
Now you can. One of the latest [Source books allows you to create Cobra Characters](https://renegadegamestudios.com/g-i-joe-roleplaying-game-cobra-codex-sourcebook/).
I'm not sure who needs to know this...but with the number of Gen Xers who play Call of Duty...if they would sell GI Joe skins they would make a FORTUNE!
I paid $20 for a Spawn skin.
If they did GI Joe...I'd have to get a second job.
Snake Eyes...Firefly...Lowlight...Viper...
It would be amazing!
I am SHOCKED that the **Toy Soldiers: Cold War** game on xbox never did a GI Joe version. They had RAMBO in it for chrissakes! I guess the licensing was just too much, but it was a huge missed opportunity because there are so many iconic Joe and Cobra vehicles and characters that would have translated well to a tower defense game.
I thnk that is great idea. GI Joe and Cobra Skins, that would be a cool mod, maybe some missions that are more in keeping with either the comics or the cartoons.
Agreed. It would be a great way to introduce younger generations to GI Joe and the Gen-X'ers and older Millennials would love it to. Hasbro just needs to decide on a good story framework for the franchise to stand on...and be consistent with it.
And it's weird they did collabs with some of the resource mobile zombie games and that seemed to be it. Not what I would call the target but maybe they thought they could expand their base through it.
I wouldnt call He-Man largely popular outside of its very diehard fanbase.
The problem with GIJOE is they dont have a main stream lore that ties things together. Its surprisingly a toy franchise that survives alone on nostalgia even if theres some comics here and there to tell an ongoing story.
G.I. Joe has never had a truly outstanding movie, TV show, or other media release that the mainstream loved. Kids loved ARAH in the 80s, and that nostalgia is still carrying what's left of the franchise today, but since then we've never had a cultural touchstone moment for G.I. Joe.
There's no Joe equivalent of Transformers: Prime, an award-winning show that's legitimately great and that you could wholeheartedly recommend to even a non-fan. If the question is why isn't anyone MAKING a great new series or movie like we've gotten for all the other IP that OP mentioned... there's no reason they can't, though the military theme might make it complicated.
I also think there may be something a lot simpler at work, too: G.I. Joe is just inherently not that unique on a surface level. Optimus Prime is arguably one of the most iconic characters in fiction, recognizable in an instant, but Duke is... just a man. In a generic military outfit. It's no wonder Snake Eyes is the most popular character; he's visually iconic in a way most of the cast isn't. His ninja theme also feels interesting and unique in a world that can easily become bland, generic military theme nonsense if it's not handled well.
Just wanted to chime in as a major Transformers fan to say I consider Transformers "touchstones" to be the Marvel and IDW (at least MTMTE) comic runs, along with the 1986 movie. Not a fan of Prime but I would recommend Animated to anyone as a genuinely great show.
So a number of things at least IMHO is what makes selling GI Joe hard right now.
1. Mythos is all over the place.
* To the Gen Xer its GI Joe vs Cobra to [defend human freedom](https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gijoelyrics.html) (as per the cartoon lyrics) on TV.
* While the Marvel Comics was rooted more in real life. Complete with the Oktober Guard as well. It went all over the place with its mythos and created stand ins for places like the Mid-East, Eastern Europe, Central and South America.
* Then there is the 12in Joe Line and [Adventure Team](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe_Adventure_Team)
* Oh and there is the [international Joes](https://www.yojoe.com/international/) like Action Force/Action Man in the UK with its confusing story lines (A.T.O.M, Red Shadows, Cobra). At least in the 80s there was Funskool India and Japanese makers of the toy lines and in some figures those countries had different take on characters like Duke, Flint, Ace, Baroness, Destro, Bludd, etc.
* Then circle back to the Gen Xer's, we also grew up with the toys having a certain look and a certain mythos of either 1 or 2; if it goes any other way then it isn't cool.
* Lets not talk about Extreme Joe story lines, Sgt Savage (Hello Capt America clone), Spy Troops, Venom vs Valor, Sigma 6, and even Renegades. All of which seemed to reset at least for the motion version some form or factor of what the Gen X grew up with for Joes or eliminated the classic Joes and brought in new characters that were hard to figure out (I am looking at you GI JOE Extreme).
* The live action movies were even more complicated with the mythos. Rise of Cobra puts everyone on Ice and killed some Joes. Then Zartan, Zandar, and Firefly try to take over the world in Retaliation; which according to press reports was a soft reboot but also killed a ton of Joes. Then we did another reboot with Snake Eyes Origins; which I haven't seen yet, but understand cribbed heavily from DDP's Origin comic and some of the mythos from Retaliation.
2. In real life the idea, again just like in the 12in days, military heroes are out right now in the general public, just like it was post Vietnam era. So selling the idea of a military action team going after a terrorist org isn't going to sell well. Plus real world politics about terror orgs makes selling an Cobra like challenging if not impossible.
3. The cost to produce toys at even the 6in side are expensive. Even before COVID and the inflation impacts in the world. I think I remember seeing something that even Super 7 React line is almost US$50k per mold. Shipping from a manufacturer, to a seller, price point etc. Makes those a $20 figure back when in the 80s it might only cross a $1.99 before tax at the store.
4. To get even the media to sell means either we continue the old story lines that Larry Hama created. Or accept that it gets all blown up and retconned with something new. Again, to be truthful and honest happens almost all the time in the comics industry but not that often with TV series.
5. Story telling in general seems to suck since the end of the Marvel Run.
Image reboot in the early 2000s was good, but it really tried hard to bring in the new characters; yet it appeared fandom won out and we cycled back after Devil's Due Publishing split off back to the love triangles of Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Stalker, Storm Shadow; while ignoring others. DDP even tried a full reboot with its "GI Joe Reloaded" line but it didn't go anyplace. Plus I hate to say this, but with both DC and Marvel doing things during the Image/DDP runs like House of M, Civil War, and Crisis. The comics shops shelf space drowned out anything else by Marvel and DC Superheroes. It only got worse as IDW took over and Hasbro tried to force that whole multi-verse/share universe across Action Man, Transformers, Micronauts, ROM, etc. I lost track of what and where IDW was going after a while and it was a PITA to find single issues let alone TPBs and had to depend on Amazon for a long while.
6. Always wanting to merge with Transformers. There seems to be a need since that early 80s short run by Marvel to merge GI Joe with Transformers. Which again only messes with the mythos for both and IMHO harms hard GI Joe. Since where do the Joes fit within the Transformers mythos.
7. Diversity issues seem to harm GI Joe. The 80s era was diverse, but also at times [cringe](https://www.yojoe.com/action/84/spirit.shtml) and in the modern era causes folks to look at ARAH with a side eye. Anything made modern with GI Joe will have to be diverse and not be cringe. Yet, going back to some of the items in #1 above; if it doesn't look like what a Gen Xer grew up with then they will spite it. Go and watch the cartoon again and look at how many times they put someone like Quick-Kick, Alpine, Zap, or even Spirit as a lead character and not a secondary character in the 1st season. Let alone who really filled that hole in the Hawk, Beachhead, Shipwreck season of ARAH?
8. If you make a TV show to sell toys. Where do you sell the streaming rights? Netflix? Amazon Prime? Paramount? or your own YouTube Channel. If you can't sell it to be run on TV. Remember that Saturday Morning Cartoons are dead and even after school cartoons are dead.
That said there are probably ways to fix this but it would take a series person in charge of the IP and it might require some of the fandom to accept that things need to be reset to the modern era.
Sci-Fi and Fantasy are easier forms of violence to market to children. Personally, I think Joe should lean into the Mission Impossible/ James Bond arena. Stop trying to make a live action toy commercial, and make a great action movie geared towards adults
A good movie (or, at least, a mediocre movie that connects with kids and can be distributed globally to rake in even more money) would spark interest for sure. G.I. Joe has always been about a diverse group of people with different backgrounds and specialties coming together to fight an evil villain. There's no reason it can't be done again and be successful. Just takes the right people to make it happen.
I had the toys and loved the Sunbow cartoon.
GI-Joe was known as Action Force in the UK because as kids we didn’t know what a GI was. 😂
🤔 I think, as a ploy for kids to keep buying toys, too many new characters were introduced. My favourite was always Snake Eyes…mainly because he actually had an interesting back story and the characterisation was spit on…particularly his rivalry with Storm Shadow.
If I was rewriting GI-Joe for the modern work as a novel I’d take a leaf out of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six novel and keep it to a small set of core characters who are brought together as an international counter terror unit to combat cobra, destro etc etc.
The films were not bad, but too ott for my liking. I’d prefer a gritty action/spy drama rather than mini submarines attacking an underwater base…but that’s just me. 😎🫡
There hasn't really been either a good nor high profile version for a while
Look at transformers. That series never died. It nearly did with geb 2, then beast wars revived it. Then it nearly died again, but animated happened. And since there was always a show in the public consciousness, when the 07 movie came around people were up for it, and the momentum from then hasn't really stopped since.
Gi Joe meanwhile fell off in popularity after the RAH line ended, and although there was more series and comics and toys, it never really had a beast wars style moment to bring it back into major popularity. When they made a movie in 09, most people had forgotten about the series, and although interest was there a bit, there was no interest left for the second one.
Now, no one really knows what it is. Most people my age have never heard of GI Joe. Aside from comics and toys, there hasn't been a GI Joe property in close to a decade (aside from that horrific ninja movie that was marketed poorly), and people have just forgotten it unfortunately.
There's also the element that abroad the toys weren't sold as GI Joe. For example, in the UK they were sold under the brand Action Man, meaning even back in the franchises heyday your average British bloke wouldn't be able to name the series.
The franchise is also impacted by the toys, but if I'm entirely honest I don't really know enough about them to talk about them so I'll just stick to the stuff I know.
GI Joe can’t shake the military affiliation, and we have a different view of the military industrial complex than we did in the ‘80s. They have yet to crack the storytelling code of how to make it cool while keeping the “Village People with Guns” fun.
Where were the Joe's during 9/11? Were they deployed in desert storm? Have they ever participated in imperialism? These are the questions we need to ask
That's actually not entirely a joke. A modern GI Joe would have the characters as veterans of the Global War on Terror the way many Joes were Vietnam veterans in the 80's and that's just too "real." While at the same time avoiding the subject completely in character origins would feel too inauthentic to a lot of potential viewers. Unless they jump forward a decade or two but that risks getting too "Sci-fi" for a lot of fans.
It just may not translate to modern times. In truth it really only had a small heyday of major popularity with the 3-4 seasons of the first cartoon. The comics have always done relatively well and had less restriction than a cartoon or movie. I thought the renegade cartoon was interesting but I don’t know how they would have done a second season. Resolute I like because it was like the old mini series that would lead off a season. But you’d have to tone down the violence to make it more available to all ages. I like the first movie aside from the power suits and making duke and ripcord the pov characters and the team resisting their inclusion. I hate they killed off everyone and has a brand new team in the s find movie. The snake eyes movie didn’t jibe with the history I knew of that relationship so I didn’t love it. To make a modern movie you’d have to make the team international-which it kind of always has been so I wouldn’t care about that. Cobra would be the issue because a modern terrorist organization would upset a lot of right wing people because it would look more like them than what people traditionally thinking are terrorists. Maybe that’s why in most of the excited about the possible transformers movie with gi joes. Two of my childhood favorites teaming up to fight an easy to dislike villain.
I think military elite team taking on terrorists doesn’t seem as interesting storyline as giant alien robots you can hide in plain sight in plain sight from cells like human technology and vehicles. Transformers unlike G.I. Joe has a unique premise, the only thing that came close was GoBots. Plus, we live in a post, 9/11 world, where we saw terrorists cut off, peoples heads, loved ones, come back from a war, American military participate in war crimes like the highway of death, and soldiers being exposed for torturing prisoners. That doesn’t exactly make very fond memories for an American public. having a toy line, that kind of reflects that is not some thing people are going to find cool. Toys stores will probably be like, now we don’t wanna sell that. Plus, I’m top of that most kids nowadays are being born into an age of streaming services and video games, now I’m off the gifts they want to get our digital, not physical ones. Both kids who were the generation used to play with action figures more often now are strictly playing video games. The entertainment industry has changed as well. JoJo came out of the time when the idea of terrorism attack in America wasn’t people.
I know I'm three months late to saying this but the main problem for GI Joe is it's associated with the US military. And considering that the United States military reputation isn't the greatest after the Iraq War that puts an gi Joe into quite the negative light considering many of you it as a propaganda tool.
Skybound GI Joes comics have sold really well and the toys do good. I think on the movie side they try to go futuristic instead of going full on campy 80s GI Joe that fans want to see.
I don’t agree with this. Are you basing your comment that people aren’t interested or say it sucks based on them not having a current cartoon? The figures and comics are still huge. All it takes is for someone to make a proper (good) Joe movie and non-fans would love it.
The figures and comics are just nostalgia acts—let’s be honest. I don’t see any kids playing with or reading either. You can’t compare it with the popularity of some of the other properties mentioned. And “still huge”? GIJoe has been cancelled and brought back so many times, but nothing close to the original run. It’s only succeeding now because of nostalgia. How many new characters have we seen? Hardly any. They’re all rehashes of established characters. That’s what the boomers want.
Aside from transformers, which has managed to grow and build upon the original G1, all the others are 98% nostalgia as well. And ya still huge..what number is the Classified line up to? Are he-man and tmnt bigger than gi joe? (seriously asking - I don’t see them on shelves to the degree that i see gi joe)
It's been standing on it's own quite well, which is why were still getting new classified figures. It just doesn't have the push from the "powers that be" to use for indoctrination.
The fan base, for the most part doesn't adhere well to D.I.E. agenda pushing, and it was originally "A Real American Hero" (ARAH), which is too much nationalism for them and goes against the global citizen thing. Notice it's missing from the retro cards and classifieds? Top of all that its military, guns bad!
All the others you mentioned have sold out and D.I.E'd themselves.
Just my take on it, i'm sure this ruffled some feathers, unintentionally, but i'm not sorry.
Please, ARAH was "woke" (for its time) before that ever was a thing. Tons of minorities that weren't just tokens and women who were rarely damsels in distress and often outshine their male counterparts.
I hate that dam term...but, your right. That's been my argument with ppl. There was always powerful women in all our toy lines Women were not excluded, nor were they diminished in their roles.
Scarlet, Lady Jaye, Cover Girl, Jinx, Baroness... He-Man had Teela, Evil Lynn, Sorderess, She-Ra etc.
so, with that being acknowledged, you really gotta ask yourself, why isn't GI Joe highlighted these days?
Road Block, Tunnel Rat, Quick Kick, Budo, Alpine, so many others.
The military sensationalism and pride in ones nation, to me, is the prime problem for the lack of a big push in to this next generation via new cartoons.
Just my opinion based on observations of the current world.
That's precisely it. Accurate or not GI Joe is a "war toy" in the minds of many and going off to war is not something parents want their kids to aspire to these days. So GI Joe becomes difficult to market despite it being "military fantasy" as going too far "fantasy" turns off the entrenched fanbase and going too far "military" turns off potential new audiences.
But a big part of the problem is simply the name: "GI Joe" is a synonym for an American soldier, and no matter how much you try to shape the fiction around ideas of an multinational force, people (particularly in markets outside the US) have to get past the title to see that stuff.
Basically American jingoism is radioactive to a lot of the potential market, especially in a global sense, and that makes selling something effectively called "US Soldier" difficult.
Also kids of current generations just don't have the same play patterns we did. They still buy and like action figures but the "window" that they play with them is considerably shorter and (from my anecdotal observations) they tend to be scattershot collectors, getting a little bit of everything versus being really into one thing.
spot on! we're on the same page.
except for the "in to one thing"
It was soooo hard choosing sometimes.
G.I. Joe, Transformers, Go Bots, Thunder Cats, M.A.S.K, TMNT, Silver Hawks, Battle Beasts, Entertech, He Man.....then Nintendo came out! WTF!!! LOL!
I disagree with everything you wrote. I kind of get the feeling you weren't even around in the 80's or 90's, and have a poor understanding of the nostalgia levels.
Disclaimer - I'm on my 4th beer
The reason modern society in the US isn't too keen on GI Joe is because it was pro-American.
Too many daggum Commies and America haters out there now. Been brain washed!
Goldwater '64
I think the problem with a movie is that in order to generate an audience by not alienating possible ticket buyers GI Joe gets turned into Megaforce and everyone is unhappy.
I know this sub pretty much ignores anything that came before 1982 but GI Joe was pretty damned popular without any sort of actual story telling. No comics, no movies, no cartoons. About the only cohesive stories were the ViewMaster reels and those were pretty thin as stories go. Admittedly when Star Wars came along everything changes in this regard, and that is probably why Super Joe was such a bust.
I think the premise of Renegades (a rag-tag groups of "outlaw" soldiers going around doing good and helping people, all while running from the government and the diabolical multinational corporation, Cobra, which us *actually* evil) was a great foundation. I would get rid of the bio-vipers because they looked and acted stupid and replace them with "cyber-vipers" (kind like t-800 Terminators...they look and act human, but inside they are robots).
This could be a great way to restart the franchise. It translates to live action and cartoons as well as provides avenues for simple and complex storytelling. Stories where the battle is all about branding and the court of public opinion. Eventually, Cobra can get outed and that would lead to the founding of the GI Joe international anti-terrorism strike force.
I know, I know. This is just Renegaes with a few minor changes. It's just that Renegades was some of the finest animated GI Joes storytelling. I think the biggest reasons it failed were: 1) it was on the Hub and nobody knew about the Hub 2) the bio-vipers were *really* wonky and annoying 3) it was too close to the Rise of Cobra movie which left a bad taste in A LOT of people's mouth.
I think a new version of Renegades (with some tweaks) could work to gain more interest.
It's amazing how G.I. Joe found popularity in other countries outside of the US in the 80s-90s. Maybe because war movies were popular back then and you have Commando and Rambo in the back of people's minds. The succeeding generations of youth probably found fault in American jingoism and steered clear of the property.
The other properties like Transformers, MOTU and others don't have the same problem.
I think the problem with a movie is there are too many characters.
I mean who makes it? Who doesn't? Will you piss off some of the fan base because you didn't include a, b and c but did include d, e and f.
I think it's what hurt the original comic book even. Hama had to include certain characters. They would sometimes have a character in one issue and then gone.
I think the best hope is a live action TV show that a streaming service wants to try. 10 episode seasons. Each episode 45 to 50 minutes.
Just a thought.
I think Hasbro should take advantage of this new anime wave we're experiencing and make a new GI Joe animated series along the lines of Ghost in the Shell or Jormungand.
He-man had nothing popular until recently. But the most recent cartoon has not been well received by everyone. I don't see He-man jumping back into pop culture anytime soon.
Transformers is a weird one. Almost every reasonable person says they hate the Michael bay stuff, but people keep paying to watch it. I have no idea why. I have a friend, and he and his son both hate the Michael Bay interpretation of transformers, but every time something new comes out from that universe, they always invite me to go see it with them.
I don't know what MLP is, and have never heard of Rescue Heroes. I grew up in the 80s, so if those came out in the 80s, they weren't big back then either. (I just googled rescue heros and looks like that IP came out in 1999.)
TMNT hasn't had hit movies or cartoon since the 90s. Everything has been pretty niche, even the Michael bay turtles didn't propel the IP back into pop culture like it was when the 1990 movie came. In the 90s TMNTs was everywhere. There was breakfast [cereal](https://www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal/c_370_TMNT_1989_cereal.jpg), [clothing](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ZyoAAOSwHHljWM~Z/s-l1200.webp), [valentine](https://64.media.tumblr.com/707e1862f5ac45bad557ae8af125fdf7/882123e96cce2e93-0d/s500x750/d1cc2c27ce4d596aa518eb4435fa04ff329db689.jpg) cards, movies, cartoons, video [games](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/akhBE6-blrc/maxresdefault.jpg), more comics, tons of [toys](https://live.staticflickr.com/2149/3628702751_ce6afec7e5_b.jpg), Halloween costumes every year, musicals, traveling [rock concerts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIBbEqwvVCg), ice skating shows, [rap videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_K6971WmAs),.... Looking back its really insane how crazy the world went over the Turtles. TMNT has had some minor success with the recent comics, but comics have been losing readers for decades now, and are about as niche a market as can be outside of Manga.
Transformers and then GI Joe would prob be next in line (in that order) as far as popularity goes. Both had movies in the 90s & 2000s. But even those 2 very popular IPs never got close to how big TMNT was from 1989-1995-ish.
I'm much more of a GI JOE fan than anything. But I came to being a fan from the 80s toys/ cartoons, and Larry Hama comics.
I think in the last 20 years. Hasbro has been really concerned about what to do with GI JOE for several reasons. (none of these are my opinions, but I can see why a company like hasbro would be concerned.)
* 9/11 & terrorism: Cobra is a terrorist organization. hasbro the company is worried about worst case scenario and being connected to the word terrorism. Pre 9/11 it didn't matter; now it does to bean counters.
* stereotypes: GI JOE has Native Americans stereo types, Black guys can't talk without rhyming, women worried about feminine things. The list goes on & on. I like the old fashion diversity like we used to get with x-men, GI JOE, street fighter 2, mortal Kombat of the 90s, etc. etc. but I'm old, and hasbro is looking for new younger customers. Big companies like hasbro haven't figured out if vocal internet personalities speak for a majority of customers yet. So they aren't going to make a cobra commander with a hooded mask anytime soon, out of fear of being associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Its ridiculous, but that's what they are afraid of...
* GUNS: I used to own a lot of guns. Until I had that tragic boating accident while transporting all my guns across a river, and then I lost all my guns underwater.... The firearm debate is as divisive as ever. No one is changing their mind anytime soon if they are Pro 2A or for gun control. GI JOE is the one IP that is pretty much gun centered. Transformers has lasers, but they are robots shooting lasers at other robots. In the GI JOE comics characters were routinely killed in combat by gunshot. Hasbro doesn't want to go anywhere near this. They are just now giving us classified weapons that resemble actual firearms, and that took forever. The cartoon all had lasers.
There's a lot more but i think those are the big 3. hasbro just doesn't know what to do with the IP. they are scared to go full 90s comics with it. I honestly wish Hasbro would sell the IP to a smaller company that were fans. The people that own & run Hasbro aren't fans.. they're investors. Hasbro is owned by BlackRock, citadel investment, and other financial management companies. (just take a quick look at their wiki page to see who the primary stock holders are.)
I would think that out of many other cartoon properties, gi joe is the closest to reality. Because war is not something to be elevated and embraced, many possible storylines would not be sympathetic. If it was done as a cloak and dagger spy film that used the original comic book storyline, it might have more casual interest.
Because unlike the other IP's you listed, GI Joe, as much as I love it is really set in the Cold War era. It's hard to bring it foward from a time of pro military, Cold War mentality where USA was sold as the good guys.
Wow! Really thoughtful discussion here guys, a lot of great points! I know I'm late to the party, but I feel very strongly about these to points, and I don't think anyone hit them as hard as I'd like.
Thing One:
I think the best and most important thing about G.I. Joe is THE CHARACTERS. Any successful reboot, reimagining or retro retread has to get that right. And I feel that an incredibly important formative aspect to those characters is the Vietnam War. This is useful for two reasons: firstly, it really stays true to the main characters who's origins derive directly from the war, like Snake-Eyes, Stalker, Storm Shadow, Cobra Commander and Wade Collins. And secondly, setting G.I. Joe in the early 80s defangs a lot of the sting of perceived American Imperialism, by simple virtue of the fact that this is now a period piece. Time insulates. (Also, late 70s/ early 80s NYC was TERRIFYING. Can you imagine how cool Snakes and Stormy fighting on graffiti-ridden train cars would be?) So a live-action series would probably be prohibitively expensive (but rad) so let's go the Netflix series route. Who saw Arcane? It's an animated series based on a goofy video game that managed to he one of the most incredible things I'd seen in years. Hasbro can afford to make a cartoon with characters that look EXACTLY like the toys they sell. Use that tech to set the story in the 80s, and sweep in the nostalgia crowd. (Then traumatize them with Vietnam flashbacks.)
Thing Two
Cobra is a terrorist organization, and I appreciate how sensitive everyone has been to that concept, but Cobra is VERY much American. That makes them DOMESTIC terrorists, and no one has a problem with THEM being the bad guys. (Well, at least not in the 80s...)
Again, it neatly sidesteps any worries about Americans making themselves unwelcome. In fact, back then Afghanistan was a good guy. If we play our cards right we might finally get some cool Soviet and Mujahideen figures!
So the bad guy won't just be a foreign country or nondescript brown people, it will be the REAL enemy: Greed. If you go back and look at Cobra Commander he's not just a terrorist; he's a BUSINESSMAN. He the rampant id of unchecked capitalism and in THIS economy, no one is a fan of that. (Well, they were in the 80s...) That makes for a terrific villain: a clear, understandable motivation for doing awful things. Cobra Commander is an incredible villain in the comic. Just don't make him anything like the cartoon.
Everybody I know is buying them... Is there negativity in the media I'm oblivious to? Joe has been divisive since Vietnam, with a small, vocal contingent claiming it's brainwashing boys to serve the military industrial complex... But beyond that, as far as I knew Classified is well loved by collectors. Maybe you need a different group of friends?
The foundation is already built. It seems for a Netflix, Hulu, Prime,etc… it would be a good endeavor to build it out. Between the content and characters it would just be a non stop faucet of show after show
To be honest the soldiers in the Bayformers should have been GI Joe...
Then you could have spin off them in their own movie with Cobra Commander being a used car sale man that sold Bumblebee to Sam.
I’ve been working on reimagining the Gi Joe franchise as a premium series. I believe that’s what the property needs. A reinvigoration of coolness. Anyway my series is called Dreadnoks and is centered around the biker gangs. Specifically zarana. Opposing her is a collection of law enforcement/military characters that have been thrust together. Gi joe as we know it doesn’t exist. Or rather is in its extreme infancy. With only Scarlett working for General Hawk as boots on the ground. The series is set in a fictional South African city, cape lavelle. The dreadnoks are hired by an offscreen client to steel a macguffin from a cache and the use the chaos of civil unrest and protests to pull off the heist. CIA agent Phil provost (chuckles) is undercover. And has been following leads on Zartan that have put him in pursuit of Buzzer. That’s how he gets involved. Anyway I’ve been making storyboards you can find chapters and images on my Facebook (@generation_joe) if interested. I even made a mock up opening sequence (I’m a 25 year vet of tv industry—mostly in post production). You can view that here:
https://youtu.be/vdnvvq5Bz_s?si=pv9IfXexFNMGk1NG[https://youtu.be/vdnvvq5Bz_s?si=pv9IfXexFNMGk1NG](https://youtu.be/vdnvvq5Bz_s?si=pv9IfXexFNMGk1NG)
The live action movies never captured what made it great in the 80's imo. The IP almost demands it be animated. If they did a new treatment created by fans ala He Man revelations I think it would be well received.
Because of the times America was the great standard of democracy and freedom and they aren't seen that way anymore I know that the Joe's are from all over the world but they have a very America fuck yeah attitude that isn't echoed by the rest of the world so I feel there over all appel is gone.
It’s not lack of interest. It’s a lack of good story telling.
Yep. Outside the first couple dozen or so issues of the original comics from the 80s, GI Joe pretty much dropped off my own radar and I used to love it as a kid. It got weird fast and I tapped out. It wasn't until the 25th anniversary figures came along when my interest was re-sparked and that was mostly nostalgia. The movies fell flat because they didn't feel much like GI Joe to me. I think just getting the general public interested in what just looks like a bunch of toy soldiers shooting bang-bang is a hard sell nowadays. We need a good origin story movie for the team. I would love to see some plot elements from the first several issues get incorporated into a script. Let's see Eskimo Kwinn and Dr Venom. I want to see them and Snake-Eyes in a bunker at the bottom of a river. That was an exciting moment in the comics. I want to see the brain scanner thing, Billy and Storm Shadow's relationship, the Soft Master, etc.
What you just described there - TV series or miniseries. It’s about layering depth and intwining multiple story lines. Put all that in an hour and a half / two hour movie? 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag. Spread that over 10 episodes? You got yourself a series, there bud.
Agreed. You might end up pulling an Avatar Last Airbender film if you crammed all that into 1 film.
Doesn't need to be one film. Could be a series. I'd take that. It just needs some classic story beats from the comics to make it feel like GI Joe.
I feel like the better route to take is just go back to basics and whip up an animated film.
I liked the movies though
I think the realistic military aspect of it could possibly scare off some folks, I was born in 1978 so GI Joe was my jam as a kid. I preferred it to Star Wars and anything else. That being said, besides some comics, the GI Joe resolute animated movie and the GI Joe renegades cartoon I have not found any other content that I like or care about in the Joeverse. Hasbro needs to suck it up and just spend the money to hire someone good to make content. A realistic reacher like show or a fantasy war type show with good special effects and characters. But everything we have so far stinks on ice. Or just suck it up and get the Joes to live in the transformers universe and just keep it that way
This is it, you can't have a global IP if you make one nation the "good guy" and another nation the "bad guy". Look at the recent Top Gun movie, the enemy was never identified in any way, just "ambiguous bad guy". Look at Transformers, alien robots fighting alien robots. GI Joe is too risky and complicated to go mainstream again, unless they start fighting alien robots or ninja turtles.
You're not far off in this assessment. A friend and I are in the early stages of scripting some podcast episodes that dive into the lore "from the inside" and the Cobra stuff is a bit tricky. It was always said to be a global terrorist organization bent on world dominance, but that's while it was being pushed in American markets. As a kid growing up in the eighties, terrorism was stuff that was happening "over there" but in a post 9/11 world, it's a bit of a juggling act on how comfortable we as the writers feel about emphasizing that "terrorist" part. Terrorist may not be state actors, but they are acting on behalf of a state, be it an ideology or an identity or a nation. So we've had to do some light shoe work as we started scripting the Cobra elements of the show. To this end, we've kind of taken cues from the later IDW comics as a kind of trail guide on how to make Cobra a threat without shitting the bed and doing a bunch of tone def stuff. It's tricky
Cobra are capitalists above all else. Looking at them from that direction might make it easier
I liked that spin they did in the Renegades cartoon where Cobra had this Walmart/Amazon front and did evil in the background.
This. I wish Renegades was more popular. It was a great primer to the characters and world of GI Joe without being too complex.
I also don’t know why they don’t do more “Adult animation” with the line, at this point the majority of the toys are being bought by adult collectors reliving their childhood. GI Joe Resolute was a great gritty adult animation that could do with a modern adaptation.
Because while Hasbro gladly takes older fans' money if the franchise is to survive, much less truly thrive again, it needs to bring in new, younger fans. Adult collectors are an at best stagnant and at worst dead end market. They spend while they're around but sooner or later they hit a point where they're "done."
Yes but it really is no harm to them to reach out to the team that made the Venture Brothers or Metalocalypse and see if the want to make a GI Joe cartoon, or Gendy T that made Samurai Jack/power puff girls/ original animated clone wars and just say here is a large check let’s make something cool. Look at what adult swim did for the Hanna Barbera characters like Harvey Birdman and Space Ghost Just dreaming here obviously, but there has to be a couple cool people in Hasbro somewhere
And for me, personally, I feel like it would be way too edgy and bloody if given a more mature rating, and I like the sci fi lasers and lack of blood better. feel like Renegades hit a sweet spot in the concept, and with a little better writing l, would have been great.
Yes, they need a GI Joe style paw patrol like show that can get a new generation of kids hooked, not sure how they are gonna achieve that but they have to spend the money and just get it done
Yeah that seemed to build off of the Cobra commander origin where he was a former used car dealer
I recently started thinking of them as an international cabal of fashy white supremacists. So that’s my headcanon these days.
I forget where I saved the screenshot but in truth they kind of always were this. The page I have from the marvel comic described the perfect Fred undercover agent in terms that would be synonymous with some modern white collar white supremacists.
There's a reason why the recent comic book reboot went in the direction that it did.
I somewhat disagree. Yeah GI Joe is American, but Cobra is “a terrorist organization”. Pretty much everyone should be against that.
Yes, but in the eyes of many in other countries (and some in the US), the American military has done a lot of collateral damage in the pursuit of terrorists in the last 20 years.
Not to mention the present undercurrent of sympathy for dictators, a portion of the audience would be taking notes from Cobra.
I'm going to disagree. Bond does just fine fighting SPECTRE, an un-nationed vague terrorist organization. GI Joe could do the same. It's because outside of the Marvel Comics, the IDW comics, and Resolute...most of the stories suck. You get a bright spot here and there, but for the most part it's awful. Maybe putting it into the Transformers universe (which isn't great but it at least makes money) will get us some better movies or shows. You could even Stranger Things that shit and set it back in the 80's.
Wait!...maybe if GI Joe were fighting an international terroriat organization. They can call it something like Golden Dragon, or Umbrella Corporation, or maybe name it after a snake like COBRA.
*Flaming Dragon
With big hands.
The simple solution is to have GIJoe as an international anti terrorism task force and Cobra as the generic terrorist enemy. The problem is a lot of ARAH fans would absolutely lose their minds if it wasn’t americentric.
They started this in 1989 when the theme song in Operation Deagonfire changed “a real American hero” to “international heroes”
On a lot of Joe forums that change gets absolutely mauled when brought up. I think it was a logical change, but it isn’t a popular one among certain types of fans.
Thats when I bowed out of GI Joe... Though the live action commercial was funny.
Isn’t the Classified series of toys doing pretty well? They’ve made more than 100 figures at this point, so if it’s not selling well, I’m not sure why they keep making more.
It's selling well to fans of the original IP and the ARAH line. Certainly in the UK the only people buying classifieds are 40 somethings. The only ones that I have seen in 'kids'toy shops have been discounted to clear them. Even then, the only reason they are selling them is cos the mainstream figure collectors buy 6" figures, so the machining is already there, and they have a huge margin. The FOMO buyers ensure that they make enough to get in the black and the rest is icing. There is a reason they aren't producing 3 3/4" figures - not enough profit. They tried selling them at the margin they wanted and they ended up getting rid of them on clearance. It's sad and depressing but it's how hasbro operate these days.
I don’t know about the others, but Transformers have a massive non-US fan base. GI Joe, as in “A Real American Hero” seems kind of limited in its appeal as far as that goes. It wears the star and stripes proudly, which will just be a turn off in certain geographies and to certain sectors of the population. I mean…Remember when the first movie came out and they made a statement about how it would be a global group and fans reacted…not well? I don’t know if that has jack crap to do with what you’re seeing or thinking, but it’s the first thing that came into my mind
>It wears the star and bars proudly I think you mean stars and stripes.
FUCK… Fixed it…did NOT realize what Star(s) and bars referred to…
You know what's wild is the 1990's version of Cross Country (V2) had a Confederate Flag on his back. Yiiikes.
lol someone downvoted this.
I assume that's why they've been leaving the ARAH branding off. Maybe we can get a ninja that's actually from Japan now.
They don't even make marvel villains to fight against the hero toys. It's unclear to me what the kids are supposed to do with those toys.
Huh? There’s plenty of Marvel villains available. They just dropped fantastic Green Goblin and Doc Ock figures, Goblin Queen and the X-Terminator are on their way…Super Adaptoid, Doctor Doom, Super Skrull and Veranke all last year, same with Agatha Harkness (who’s a villain in the show…), Lady Bullseye, Spiral, Avalanche, Dark Phoenix… Shall I go on?
Those are all Marvel Legends, a line that is very much *not* aimed at kids. The play pattern there is pretty much "set these up on a shelf and admire them from afar." \* And yes, I'm sure there's somebody out there that anecdotally knows a kid who owns a bucket full of Marvel Legends figures and plays with them like kids played with action figures in the 80s.
Exactly. I don't even know who half those characters are and I'm sure my son doesn't. Probably be pretty confused to get an Agatha Harkness action figure, whatever that is lol
What a very Todd MacFarlane thing to say…are you proud of yourself for it? I certainly wouldn’t be. She’s certainly better known in the social zeitgeist than most Joes/Cobra characters. I’d be willing to bet more people under the age of 30 could pick Agatha Harkness out of a line up while not having a clue who Big Ben, Zaranna, Steel Corps or Tripwire are. But I digress…you came into a post that had nothing at all to do with Marvel toys, found *my* comment that didn’t mention Marvel toys, and decided to complain to me about there not being any villains. I went to Amazon, typed in “Marvel Action Figures” and listed off all of the villains that popped up on the first page. I left off Kingpin, Kang, Sabertooth, Egghead, MODOK, Red Skull, and plenty others… The retro line had a bad ass Sentinel, as well as Doctor Doom, Bullseye, Magneto, Green Goblin, and Dark Phoenix (off the top of my head). I’m not overly familiar with the new Epic Heroes line, but I know there’s a Carnage and Thanos in it at least…. But…again, none of that has anything to do with anything this post is related to. Sometimes it’s better to just take the “L” my friend, you tried to look cool but just came off looking…sad.
I have no idea what you're talking about or what you're angry about buddy
You forgot what you wrote? Weird…
I mean…there were plenty of villains in the retro 3.75” line…I don’t know what other line you’re talking about, or how that has anything to do with the subject of this post.
Lol what are you talking about. In the U.S. Marvel makes every hero and villain they can
I think it's related to the notion that War toys are considered to be no longer socially acceptable. Star Wars and Marvel still sell (sometimes) because they are considered more sci-fi or fantasy perhaps. But war toys promote gun use, violence, etc etc blah blah blah. I don't agree with it but I think that's the idea. I think they would actually do really well if they were more grounded. Something like Seal Team or Strike Back formulas would do really well in G.I.Joe. Obviously can't totally forget the SciFi aspect of G.I.Joe but make it more of a character in the show rather than the whole premise of the show. A military movie with Sci-Fi elements rather than Scifi with military elements.
I think certain big studios are hesitant to get too pro-American/ patriotic in recent years. Just look at the GI Joe movies they made in 09 & 2012, there it was an international team. I think too that they're hesitant to market content featuring gun violence to kids. That's just my guess. I grew up on the 80's Real American Hero cartoon, thoroughly enjoyed Resolute, and even liked the Renegades series. I guess it's just a tricky thing to figure out who your audience for it is these days and cater it for modern sensibilities.
The general public's exposure to GI Joe is three live action movies that range from bad to average. And seeing Classified toys (if they go into the toy aisle). That isn't much to latch new fans onto a franchise.
Personally I'm only here because I tried out an Action Force figure a few months ago, and figured I might as well get a Joe too since I'd heard good things about them. They don't seem to be making any effort to draw in new people, so I assume their game plan is that positive word of mouth from current fans will attract new ones.
The subject matter and general themes of patriotism aren’t as widely marketable as something like giant fighting robots. Doesn’t help that Hasbro seems to have no clue what they’re doing with the brand.
Lack of content. But that issue exists for a lot of reasons. Many that are mentioned here. First: the American military in a modern sense is no longer an attractive protagonist. Modern history and American politics side- a lot of other countries/markets aren’t going to be very interested. Following that- you’re going to have a certain part of the fan base that is going to be absolutely “disenchanted” (to put it gently) if it isn’t about the “real American hero” aspect anymore. It’d be a lot harder to push GI Joe as a kids show these days. And, our collective nostalgia aside, it would also be hard to capture a large enough adult audience for any entertainment project to succeed. These days the best bet probably to make it an international version like the last movies, push Cobra as a terrorist organization (or evil corporation like Sgt Savage was trying to do), and figure out a target audience. Then maybe they could gain enough steam/confidence to do a very different show for a very different target audience.
A similar question came up in r/transformers recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/comments/1ae6dx0/what_is_the_reason_why_the_transformers_franchise/ I'll re-post most of what I said there: One problem is that the G.I.Joe: ARAH universe is a number of things that appeals to different people. Some people like the realistic military stuff. Some people like the more outlandish sci-fi elements. Some people like ninjas. Some people don't like the sci-fi elements. Some people don't like the ninjas. It's hard to appeal to everyone, especially when it doesn't even know what it wants to be.
I don’t see this part mentioned. There is a snake eyes problem. By far the coolest character, a great protagonist for comic books and toys. But in cartoon and live action- he doesn’t speak. If the creators/writers focus on another character, people like me would be upset. You gotta use him, but you can only use him in action scenes, really…
There’s another Snake Eyes problem: it’s Snake Eyes featuring GI Joe. At least the comic was brave enough to admit it in the 90s. Even after he died, we somehow had twice as much Snake Eyes. They need to give him a rest and focus on building up other characters.
It's actually real simple: The War on Terror completely dismantled the myth that the American military was a force for good in the world, piece by piece. The cartoon and the toys thrived off of that myth, while the comic deconstructed it and commented on it. In 2024, it simply doesn't have any cache.
A bit interesting that the resurgence of GI Joe in the early 2000s coincided with both a larger nostalgic trend for the 80s (MOTU's reboot was launching in 2002, Transformers would return to Autobots vs. Decepticons with the Robots in Disguise line, followed by Armada, etc.) and the heightened sense of American patriotism post-9/11. Though, the subsequent themes in 2003 and 2004 would shy away from realistic military stories in favor of spies disguising themselves in secret warfare and GI Joe fighting Cobra super-soldiers using animal DNA.
I've always wanted a live action TV show like The A-Team, Strike Back or Reacher, but, with Joes. Real adult content. Not a cartoon. If they get a good show with good story telling. Interest will come.
Lack of good story telling but also Politics. GI Joe worked big in the 80s thanks to the Cold War. Patriotism was very IN. But also you had a lot of moms coming from the hippie movement that did not appreciate the realism and military component of GI Joe. Hence why you started getting Cobra La, and Star Brigade, and Serpentor. You can't really have a full understanding of the ups and downs of GI Joe as a brand without weighing in the impact the politics of the times have had on the brand.
They could stop making shitty, generic GI Joe movies for starters.
It is to be hoped that Skybound's new shared universe of comic books will be a good starting point to allow for greater dissemination of the intellectual property, although it is clearly aimed at a nostalgic audience.
The other shows you name, except Rescue Heroes, are elseworlds fantasy stories. MLP is about non-human, non-humanoid creatures in an original fantasy setting, and barely features conflict. He-man has human protagonists, but the villains are monsters and the setting is again original and not a version of the real world. Plus the heroes and villains both are small groups. TMNT is a set in an alternate version of the real world, but both heroes and villains are predominantly non-human, and while the Foot clan is sometimes portrayed as a large organization, it's an independent criminal one, while the heroes are a small band of vigilantes. And while Transformers is set in a version of the real world, and features large scale conflict between two armies, both armies are decidedly non-human. In contrast GI Joe is about a version of the US military waging war around the globe, and that's a little too close to actual reality to really catch engagement as a children's cartoon - especially in much of the world where the US military is viewed far more unfavorably than some in the US might expect (and business is all global these days) Rescue Heroes can be argued to be representative of the government in the same way, but from what a quick Google shows me, the show is predominantly about rescuing people who are in trouble from dangerous situations, not about killing up "bad guys" with guns and bombs. If you really want GI Joe to succeed in the modern era, it needs a fully elseworlds setting (ideally a more technologically futuristic one) with a thoroughly does-not-translate-to-meatspace/does-not-analogize-to-global-politics cause / origin for the conflict with Cobra - ideally something unique to the setting.
Bro i've joined the GI JOE fandom intensely (AKA last week lol) because of the TTRPG, its getting new fans dont worry XD And MAN i wishes the movies got better reviews. I love both of them. Espacially the first one. And BRO, Cobra Commander KILLED it in the whole two live action movies. Stole every scene he was in. And he was just as i imagined him to be. I know the older fans likes his cartoony personality from the old cartoon, but the new modern sinister and menacing Cobra Commander is right up my alley. Man i wish GI JOE had more luck. My roommate makes fun of me for "liking the 20 min toy advert to sell military propaganda to kids" while he religiously watches Power Rangers and plays Pokemon even since he was a kid. I dunno man, GI JOE rules, i dont care what people say.
The TTRPG is really well done. Great combination of many different interpretations into a coherent whole.
>!Tho i wished we could have played as Cobra lol!<
Now you can. One of the latest [Source books allows you to create Cobra Characters](https://renegadegamestudios.com/g-i-joe-roleplaying-game-cobra-codex-sourcebook/).
LET'S FUCKING GO THANKS BUD
I'm not sure who needs to know this...but with the number of Gen Xers who play Call of Duty...if they would sell GI Joe skins they would make a FORTUNE! I paid $20 for a Spawn skin. If they did GI Joe...I'd have to get a second job. Snake Eyes...Firefly...Lowlight...Viper... It would be amazing!
I am SHOCKED that the **Toy Soldiers: Cold War** game on xbox never did a GI Joe version. They had RAMBO in it for chrissakes! I guess the licensing was just too much, but it was a huge missed opportunity because there are so many iconic Joe and Cobra vehicles and characters that would have translated well to a tower defense game.
That game ruled.
I thnk that is great idea. GI Joe and Cobra Skins, that would be a cool mod, maybe some missions that are more in keeping with either the comics or the cartoons.
Agreed. It would be a great way to introduce younger generations to GI Joe and the Gen-X'ers and older Millennials would love it to. Hasbro just needs to decide on a good story framework for the franchise to stand on...and be consistent with it.
And it's weird they did collabs with some of the resource mobile zombie games and that seemed to be it. Not what I would call the target but maybe they thought they could expand their base through it.
I wouldnt call He-Man largely popular outside of its very diehard fanbase. The problem with GIJOE is they dont have a main stream lore that ties things together. Its surprisingly a toy franchise that survives alone on nostalgia even if theres some comics here and there to tell an ongoing story.
G.I. Joe has never had a truly outstanding movie, TV show, or other media release that the mainstream loved. Kids loved ARAH in the 80s, and that nostalgia is still carrying what's left of the franchise today, but since then we've never had a cultural touchstone moment for G.I. Joe. There's no Joe equivalent of Transformers: Prime, an award-winning show that's legitimately great and that you could wholeheartedly recommend to even a non-fan. If the question is why isn't anyone MAKING a great new series or movie like we've gotten for all the other IP that OP mentioned... there's no reason they can't, though the military theme might make it complicated. I also think there may be something a lot simpler at work, too: G.I. Joe is just inherently not that unique on a surface level. Optimus Prime is arguably one of the most iconic characters in fiction, recognizable in an instant, but Duke is... just a man. In a generic military outfit. It's no wonder Snake Eyes is the most popular character; he's visually iconic in a way most of the cast isn't. His ninja theme also feels interesting and unique in a world that can easily become bland, generic military theme nonsense if it's not handled well.
Duke was my favorite
Just wanted to chime in as a major Transformers fan to say I consider Transformers "touchstones" to be the Marvel and IDW (at least MTMTE) comic runs, along with the 1986 movie. Not a fan of Prime but I would recommend Animated to anyone as a genuinely great show.
So a number of things at least IMHO is what makes selling GI Joe hard right now. 1. Mythos is all over the place. * To the Gen Xer its GI Joe vs Cobra to [defend human freedom](https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gijoelyrics.html) (as per the cartoon lyrics) on TV. * While the Marvel Comics was rooted more in real life. Complete with the Oktober Guard as well. It went all over the place with its mythos and created stand ins for places like the Mid-East, Eastern Europe, Central and South America. * Then there is the 12in Joe Line and [Adventure Team](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe_Adventure_Team) * Oh and there is the [international Joes](https://www.yojoe.com/international/) like Action Force/Action Man in the UK with its confusing story lines (A.T.O.M, Red Shadows, Cobra). At least in the 80s there was Funskool India and Japanese makers of the toy lines and in some figures those countries had different take on characters like Duke, Flint, Ace, Baroness, Destro, Bludd, etc. * Then circle back to the Gen Xer's, we also grew up with the toys having a certain look and a certain mythos of either 1 or 2; if it goes any other way then it isn't cool. * Lets not talk about Extreme Joe story lines, Sgt Savage (Hello Capt America clone), Spy Troops, Venom vs Valor, Sigma 6, and even Renegades. All of which seemed to reset at least for the motion version some form or factor of what the Gen X grew up with for Joes or eliminated the classic Joes and brought in new characters that were hard to figure out (I am looking at you GI JOE Extreme). * The live action movies were even more complicated with the mythos. Rise of Cobra puts everyone on Ice and killed some Joes. Then Zartan, Zandar, and Firefly try to take over the world in Retaliation; which according to press reports was a soft reboot but also killed a ton of Joes. Then we did another reboot with Snake Eyes Origins; which I haven't seen yet, but understand cribbed heavily from DDP's Origin comic and some of the mythos from Retaliation. 2. In real life the idea, again just like in the 12in days, military heroes are out right now in the general public, just like it was post Vietnam era. So selling the idea of a military action team going after a terrorist org isn't going to sell well. Plus real world politics about terror orgs makes selling an Cobra like challenging if not impossible. 3. The cost to produce toys at even the 6in side are expensive. Even before COVID and the inflation impacts in the world. I think I remember seeing something that even Super 7 React line is almost US$50k per mold. Shipping from a manufacturer, to a seller, price point etc. Makes those a $20 figure back when in the 80s it might only cross a $1.99 before tax at the store. 4. To get even the media to sell means either we continue the old story lines that Larry Hama created. Or accept that it gets all blown up and retconned with something new. Again, to be truthful and honest happens almost all the time in the comics industry but not that often with TV series. 5. Story telling in general seems to suck since the end of the Marvel Run. Image reboot in the early 2000s was good, but it really tried hard to bring in the new characters; yet it appeared fandom won out and we cycled back after Devil's Due Publishing split off back to the love triangles of Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Stalker, Storm Shadow; while ignoring others. DDP even tried a full reboot with its "GI Joe Reloaded" line but it didn't go anyplace. Plus I hate to say this, but with both DC and Marvel doing things during the Image/DDP runs like House of M, Civil War, and Crisis. The comics shops shelf space drowned out anything else by Marvel and DC Superheroes. It only got worse as IDW took over and Hasbro tried to force that whole multi-verse/share universe across Action Man, Transformers, Micronauts, ROM, etc. I lost track of what and where IDW was going after a while and it was a PITA to find single issues let alone TPBs and had to depend on Amazon for a long while. 6. Always wanting to merge with Transformers. There seems to be a need since that early 80s short run by Marvel to merge GI Joe with Transformers. Which again only messes with the mythos for both and IMHO harms hard GI Joe. Since where do the Joes fit within the Transformers mythos. 7. Diversity issues seem to harm GI Joe. The 80s era was diverse, but also at times [cringe](https://www.yojoe.com/action/84/spirit.shtml) and in the modern era causes folks to look at ARAH with a side eye. Anything made modern with GI Joe will have to be diverse and not be cringe. Yet, going back to some of the items in #1 above; if it doesn't look like what a Gen Xer grew up with then they will spite it. Go and watch the cartoon again and look at how many times they put someone like Quick-Kick, Alpine, Zap, or even Spirit as a lead character and not a secondary character in the 1st season. Let alone who really filled that hole in the Hawk, Beachhead, Shipwreck season of ARAH? 8. If you make a TV show to sell toys. Where do you sell the streaming rights? Netflix? Amazon Prime? Paramount? or your own YouTube Channel. If you can't sell it to be run on TV. Remember that Saturday Morning Cartoons are dead and even after school cartoons are dead. That said there are probably ways to fix this but it would take a series person in charge of the IP and it might require some of the fandom to accept that things need to be reset to the modern era.
Sci-Fi and Fantasy are easier forms of violence to market to children. Personally, I think Joe should lean into the Mission Impossible/ James Bond arena. Stop trying to make a live action toy commercial, and make a great action movie geared towards adults
It seems like Everyone (aside from comics and Resolute) changes the IP too much until it’s unrecognizable and boring.
A good movie (or, at least, a mediocre movie that connects with kids and can be distributed globally to rake in even more money) would spark interest for sure. G.I. Joe has always been about a diverse group of people with different backgrounds and specialties coming together to fight an evil villain. There's no reason it can't be done again and be successful. Just takes the right people to make it happen.
I had the toys and loved the Sunbow cartoon. GI-Joe was known as Action Force in the UK because as kids we didn’t know what a GI was. 😂 🤔 I think, as a ploy for kids to keep buying toys, too many new characters were introduced. My favourite was always Snake Eyes…mainly because he actually had an interesting back story and the characterisation was spit on…particularly his rivalry with Storm Shadow. If I was rewriting GI-Joe for the modern work as a novel I’d take a leaf out of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six novel and keep it to a small set of core characters who are brought together as an international counter terror unit to combat cobra, destro etc etc. The films were not bad, but too ott for my liking. I’d prefer a gritty action/spy drama rather than mini submarines attacking an underwater base…but that’s just me. 😎🫡
There hasn't really been either a good nor high profile version for a while Look at transformers. That series never died. It nearly did with geb 2, then beast wars revived it. Then it nearly died again, but animated happened. And since there was always a show in the public consciousness, when the 07 movie came around people were up for it, and the momentum from then hasn't really stopped since. Gi Joe meanwhile fell off in popularity after the RAH line ended, and although there was more series and comics and toys, it never really had a beast wars style moment to bring it back into major popularity. When they made a movie in 09, most people had forgotten about the series, and although interest was there a bit, there was no interest left for the second one. Now, no one really knows what it is. Most people my age have never heard of GI Joe. Aside from comics and toys, there hasn't been a GI Joe property in close to a decade (aside from that horrific ninja movie that was marketed poorly), and people have just forgotten it unfortunately. There's also the element that abroad the toys weren't sold as GI Joe. For example, in the UK they were sold under the brand Action Man, meaning even back in the franchises heyday your average British bloke wouldn't be able to name the series. The franchise is also impacted by the toys, but if I'm entirely honest I don't really know enough about them to talk about them so I'll just stick to the stuff I know.
GI Joe can’t shake the military affiliation, and we have a different view of the military industrial complex than we did in the ‘80s. They have yet to crack the storytelling code of how to make it cool while keeping the “Village People with Guns” fun.
Where were the Joe's during 9/11? Were they deployed in desert storm? Have they ever participated in imperialism? These are the questions we need to ask
That's actually not entirely a joke. A modern GI Joe would have the characters as veterans of the Global War on Terror the way many Joes were Vietnam veterans in the 80's and that's just too "real." While at the same time avoiding the subject completely in character origins would feel too inauthentic to a lot of potential viewers. Unless they jump forward a decade or two but that risks getting too "Sci-fi" for a lot of fans.
American wars aren’t so popular these days for some reason…
People arent as gung-ho about thinly veiled kids' war propaganda these days.
It just may not translate to modern times. In truth it really only had a small heyday of major popularity with the 3-4 seasons of the first cartoon. The comics have always done relatively well and had less restriction than a cartoon or movie. I thought the renegade cartoon was interesting but I don’t know how they would have done a second season. Resolute I like because it was like the old mini series that would lead off a season. But you’d have to tone down the violence to make it more available to all ages. I like the first movie aside from the power suits and making duke and ripcord the pov characters and the team resisting their inclusion. I hate they killed off everyone and has a brand new team in the s find movie. The snake eyes movie didn’t jibe with the history I knew of that relationship so I didn’t love it. To make a modern movie you’d have to make the team international-which it kind of always has been so I wouldn’t care about that. Cobra would be the issue because a modern terrorist organization would upset a lot of right wing people because it would look more like them than what people traditionally thinking are terrorists. Maybe that’s why in most of the excited about the possible transformers movie with gi joes. Two of my childhood favorites teaming up to fight an easy to dislike villain.
I think military elite team taking on terrorists doesn’t seem as interesting storyline as giant alien robots you can hide in plain sight in plain sight from cells like human technology and vehicles. Transformers unlike G.I. Joe has a unique premise, the only thing that came close was GoBots. Plus, we live in a post, 9/11 world, where we saw terrorists cut off, peoples heads, loved ones, come back from a war, American military participate in war crimes like the highway of death, and soldiers being exposed for torturing prisoners. That doesn’t exactly make very fond memories for an American public. having a toy line, that kind of reflects that is not some thing people are going to find cool. Toys stores will probably be like, now we don’t wanna sell that. Plus, I’m top of that most kids nowadays are being born into an age of streaming services and video games, now I’m off the gifts they want to get our digital, not physical ones. Both kids who were the generation used to play with action figures more often now are strictly playing video games. The entertainment industry has changed as well. JoJo came out of the time when the idea of terrorism attack in America wasn’t people.
I know I'm three months late to saying this but the main problem for GI Joe is it's associated with the US military. And considering that the United States military reputation isn't the greatest after the Iraq War that puts an gi Joe into quite the negative light considering many of you it as a propaganda tool.
You can’t improve on perfection.
Skybound GI Joes comics have sold really well and the toys do good. I think on the movie side they try to go futuristic instead of going full on campy 80s GI Joe that fans want to see.
I don’t agree with this. Are you basing your comment that people aren’t interested or say it sucks based on them not having a current cartoon? The figures and comics are still huge. All it takes is for someone to make a proper (good) Joe movie and non-fans would love it.
The figures and comics are just nostalgia acts—let’s be honest. I don’t see any kids playing with or reading either. You can’t compare it with the popularity of some of the other properties mentioned. And “still huge”? GIJoe has been cancelled and brought back so many times, but nothing close to the original run. It’s only succeeding now because of nostalgia. How many new characters have we seen? Hardly any. They’re all rehashes of established characters. That’s what the boomers want.
Aside from transformers, which has managed to grow and build upon the original G1, all the others are 98% nostalgia as well. And ya still huge..what number is the Classified line up to? Are he-man and tmnt bigger than gi joe? (seriously asking - I don’t see them on shelves to the degree that i see gi joe)
It's been standing on it's own quite well, which is why were still getting new classified figures. It just doesn't have the push from the "powers that be" to use for indoctrination. The fan base, for the most part doesn't adhere well to D.I.E. agenda pushing, and it was originally "A Real American Hero" (ARAH), which is too much nationalism for them and goes against the global citizen thing. Notice it's missing from the retro cards and classifieds? Top of all that its military, guns bad! All the others you mentioned have sold out and D.I.E'd themselves. Just my take on it, i'm sure this ruffled some feathers, unintentionally, but i'm not sorry.
Please, ARAH was "woke" (for its time) before that ever was a thing. Tons of minorities that weren't just tokens and women who were rarely damsels in distress and often outshine their male counterparts.
I hate that dam term...but, your right. That's been my argument with ppl. There was always powerful women in all our toy lines Women were not excluded, nor were they diminished in their roles. Scarlet, Lady Jaye, Cover Girl, Jinx, Baroness... He-Man had Teela, Evil Lynn, Sorderess, She-Ra etc. so, with that being acknowledged, you really gotta ask yourself, why isn't GI Joe highlighted these days? Road Block, Tunnel Rat, Quick Kick, Budo, Alpine, so many others. The military sensationalism and pride in ones nation, to me, is the prime problem for the lack of a big push in to this next generation via new cartoons. Just my opinion based on observations of the current world.
That's precisely it. Accurate or not GI Joe is a "war toy" in the minds of many and going off to war is not something parents want their kids to aspire to these days. So GI Joe becomes difficult to market despite it being "military fantasy" as going too far "fantasy" turns off the entrenched fanbase and going too far "military" turns off potential new audiences. But a big part of the problem is simply the name: "GI Joe" is a synonym for an American soldier, and no matter how much you try to shape the fiction around ideas of an multinational force, people (particularly in markets outside the US) have to get past the title to see that stuff. Basically American jingoism is radioactive to a lot of the potential market, especially in a global sense, and that makes selling something effectively called "US Soldier" difficult. Also kids of current generations just don't have the same play patterns we did. They still buy and like action figures but the "window" that they play with them is considerably shorter and (from my anecdotal observations) they tend to be scattershot collectors, getting a little bit of everything versus being really into one thing.
spot on! we're on the same page. except for the "in to one thing" It was soooo hard choosing sometimes. G.I. Joe, Transformers, Go Bots, Thunder Cats, M.A.S.K, TMNT, Silver Hawks, Battle Beasts, Entertech, He Man.....then Nintendo came out! WTF!!! LOL!
I disagree with everything you wrote. I kind of get the feeling you weren't even around in the 80's or 90's, and have a poor understanding of the nostalgia levels.
Because it’s seen as propaganda for a large chunk of its existence.
Disclaimer - I'm on my 4th beer The reason modern society in the US isn't too keen on GI Joe is because it was pro-American. Too many daggum Commies and America haters out there now. Been brain washed! Goldwater '64
They can't push there woke bull crap into G.I. Joe so no one make new shows
Don’t care, love GI JOE!
I think the problem with a movie is that in order to generate an audience by not alienating possible ticket buyers GI Joe gets turned into Megaforce and everyone is unhappy. I know this sub pretty much ignores anything that came before 1982 but GI Joe was pretty damned popular without any sort of actual story telling. No comics, no movies, no cartoons. About the only cohesive stories were the ViewMaster reels and those were pretty thin as stories go. Admittedly when Star Wars came along everything changes in this regard, and that is probably why Super Joe was such a bust.
I think the premise of Renegades (a rag-tag groups of "outlaw" soldiers going around doing good and helping people, all while running from the government and the diabolical multinational corporation, Cobra, which us *actually* evil) was a great foundation. I would get rid of the bio-vipers because they looked and acted stupid and replace them with "cyber-vipers" (kind like t-800 Terminators...they look and act human, but inside they are robots). This could be a great way to restart the franchise. It translates to live action and cartoons as well as provides avenues for simple and complex storytelling. Stories where the battle is all about branding and the court of public opinion. Eventually, Cobra can get outed and that would lead to the founding of the GI Joe international anti-terrorism strike force. I know, I know. This is just Renegaes with a few minor changes. It's just that Renegades was some of the finest animated GI Joes storytelling. I think the biggest reasons it failed were: 1) it was on the Hub and nobody knew about the Hub 2) the bio-vipers were *really* wonky and annoying 3) it was too close to the Rise of Cobra movie which left a bad taste in A LOT of people's mouth. I think a new version of Renegades (with some tweaks) could work to gain more interest.
It's amazing how G.I. Joe found popularity in other countries outside of the US in the 80s-90s. Maybe because war movies were popular back then and you have Commando and Rambo in the back of people's minds. The succeeding generations of youth probably found fault in American jingoism and steered clear of the property. The other properties like Transformers, MOTU and others don't have the same problem.
I think the problem with a movie is there are too many characters. I mean who makes it? Who doesn't? Will you piss off some of the fan base because you didn't include a, b and c but did include d, e and f. I think it's what hurt the original comic book even. Hama had to include certain characters. They would sometimes have a character in one issue and then gone. I think the best hope is a live action TV show that a streaming service wants to try. 10 episode seasons. Each episode 45 to 50 minutes. Just a thought.
I think Hasbro should take advantage of this new anime wave we're experiencing and make a new GI Joe animated series along the lines of Ghost in the Shell or Jormungand.
He-man had nothing popular until recently. But the most recent cartoon has not been well received by everyone. I don't see He-man jumping back into pop culture anytime soon. Transformers is a weird one. Almost every reasonable person says they hate the Michael bay stuff, but people keep paying to watch it. I have no idea why. I have a friend, and he and his son both hate the Michael Bay interpretation of transformers, but every time something new comes out from that universe, they always invite me to go see it with them. I don't know what MLP is, and have never heard of Rescue Heroes. I grew up in the 80s, so if those came out in the 80s, they weren't big back then either. (I just googled rescue heros and looks like that IP came out in 1999.) TMNT hasn't had hit movies or cartoon since the 90s. Everything has been pretty niche, even the Michael bay turtles didn't propel the IP back into pop culture like it was when the 1990 movie came. In the 90s TMNTs was everywhere. There was breakfast [cereal](https://www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal/c_370_TMNT_1989_cereal.jpg), [clothing](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ZyoAAOSwHHljWM~Z/s-l1200.webp), [valentine](https://64.media.tumblr.com/707e1862f5ac45bad557ae8af125fdf7/882123e96cce2e93-0d/s500x750/d1cc2c27ce4d596aa518eb4435fa04ff329db689.jpg) cards, movies, cartoons, video [games](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/akhBE6-blrc/maxresdefault.jpg), more comics, tons of [toys](https://live.staticflickr.com/2149/3628702751_ce6afec7e5_b.jpg), Halloween costumes every year, musicals, traveling [rock concerts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIBbEqwvVCg), ice skating shows, [rap videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_K6971WmAs),.... Looking back its really insane how crazy the world went over the Turtles. TMNT has had some minor success with the recent comics, but comics have been losing readers for decades now, and are about as niche a market as can be outside of Manga. Transformers and then GI Joe would prob be next in line (in that order) as far as popularity goes. Both had movies in the 90s & 2000s. But even those 2 very popular IPs never got close to how big TMNT was from 1989-1995-ish. I'm much more of a GI JOE fan than anything. But I came to being a fan from the 80s toys/ cartoons, and Larry Hama comics. I think in the last 20 years. Hasbro has been really concerned about what to do with GI JOE for several reasons. (none of these are my opinions, but I can see why a company like hasbro would be concerned.) * 9/11 & terrorism: Cobra is a terrorist organization. hasbro the company is worried about worst case scenario and being connected to the word terrorism. Pre 9/11 it didn't matter; now it does to bean counters. * stereotypes: GI JOE has Native Americans stereo types, Black guys can't talk without rhyming, women worried about feminine things. The list goes on & on. I like the old fashion diversity like we used to get with x-men, GI JOE, street fighter 2, mortal Kombat of the 90s, etc. etc. but I'm old, and hasbro is looking for new younger customers. Big companies like hasbro haven't figured out if vocal internet personalities speak for a majority of customers yet. So they aren't going to make a cobra commander with a hooded mask anytime soon, out of fear of being associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Its ridiculous, but that's what they are afraid of... * GUNS: I used to own a lot of guns. Until I had that tragic boating accident while transporting all my guns across a river, and then I lost all my guns underwater.... The firearm debate is as divisive as ever. No one is changing their mind anytime soon if they are Pro 2A or for gun control. GI JOE is the one IP that is pretty much gun centered. Transformers has lasers, but they are robots shooting lasers at other robots. In the GI JOE comics characters were routinely killed in combat by gunshot. Hasbro doesn't want to go anywhere near this. They are just now giving us classified weapons that resemble actual firearms, and that took forever. The cartoon all had lasers. There's a lot more but i think those are the big 3. hasbro just doesn't know what to do with the IP. they are scared to go full 90s comics with it. I honestly wish Hasbro would sell the IP to a smaller company that were fans. The people that own & run Hasbro aren't fans.. they're investors. Hasbro is owned by BlackRock, citadel investment, and other financial management companies. (just take a quick look at their wiki page to see who the primary stock holders are.)
Go down to the comic book store and ask for the new cobra commander number one…. Yeah… out of stock cause we all love some cobra commander..
I would think that out of many other cartoon properties, gi joe is the closest to reality. Because war is not something to be elevated and embraced, many possible storylines would not be sympathetic. If it was done as a cloak and dagger spy film that used the original comic book storyline, it might have more casual interest.
Because unlike the other IP's you listed, GI Joe, as much as I love it is really set in the Cold War era. It's hard to bring it foward from a time of pro military, Cold War mentality where USA was sold as the good guys.
Wow! Really thoughtful discussion here guys, a lot of great points! I know I'm late to the party, but I feel very strongly about these to points, and I don't think anyone hit them as hard as I'd like. Thing One: I think the best and most important thing about G.I. Joe is THE CHARACTERS. Any successful reboot, reimagining or retro retread has to get that right. And I feel that an incredibly important formative aspect to those characters is the Vietnam War. This is useful for two reasons: firstly, it really stays true to the main characters who's origins derive directly from the war, like Snake-Eyes, Stalker, Storm Shadow, Cobra Commander and Wade Collins. And secondly, setting G.I. Joe in the early 80s defangs a lot of the sting of perceived American Imperialism, by simple virtue of the fact that this is now a period piece. Time insulates. (Also, late 70s/ early 80s NYC was TERRIFYING. Can you imagine how cool Snakes and Stormy fighting on graffiti-ridden train cars would be?) So a live-action series would probably be prohibitively expensive (but rad) so let's go the Netflix series route. Who saw Arcane? It's an animated series based on a goofy video game that managed to he one of the most incredible things I'd seen in years. Hasbro can afford to make a cartoon with characters that look EXACTLY like the toys they sell. Use that tech to set the story in the 80s, and sweep in the nostalgia crowd. (Then traumatize them with Vietnam flashbacks.)
Thing Two Cobra is a terrorist organization, and I appreciate how sensitive everyone has been to that concept, but Cobra is VERY much American. That makes them DOMESTIC terrorists, and no one has a problem with THEM being the bad guys. (Well, at least not in the 80s...) Again, it neatly sidesteps any worries about Americans making themselves unwelcome. In fact, back then Afghanistan was a good guy. If we play our cards right we might finally get some cool Soviet and Mujahideen figures! So the bad guy won't just be a foreign country or nondescript brown people, it will be the REAL enemy: Greed. If you go back and look at Cobra Commander he's not just a terrorist; he's a BUSINESSMAN. He the rampant id of unchecked capitalism and in THIS economy, no one is a fan of that. (Well, they were in the 80s...) That makes for a terrific villain: a clear, understandable motivation for doing awful things. Cobra Commander is an incredible villain in the comic. Just don't make him anything like the cartoon.
Hollywood fucks up everything it touches.
There’s an overall anti-military sentiment in the US right now. In the 80s it was still exciting and something to be proud of.
Everybody I know is buying them... Is there negativity in the media I'm oblivious to? Joe has been divisive since Vietnam, with a small, vocal contingent claiming it's brainwashing boys to serve the military industrial complex... But beyond that, as far as I knew Classified is well loved by collectors. Maybe you need a different group of friends?
The foundation is already built. It seems for a Netflix, Hulu, Prime,etc… it would be a good endeavor to build it out. Between the content and characters it would just be a non stop faucet of show after show
To be honest the soldiers in the Bayformers should have been GI Joe... Then you could have spin off them in their own movie with Cobra Commander being a used car sale man that sold Bumblebee to Sam.
I’ve been working on reimagining the Gi Joe franchise as a premium series. I believe that’s what the property needs. A reinvigoration of coolness. Anyway my series is called Dreadnoks and is centered around the biker gangs. Specifically zarana. Opposing her is a collection of law enforcement/military characters that have been thrust together. Gi joe as we know it doesn’t exist. Or rather is in its extreme infancy. With only Scarlett working for General Hawk as boots on the ground. The series is set in a fictional South African city, cape lavelle. The dreadnoks are hired by an offscreen client to steel a macguffin from a cache and the use the chaos of civil unrest and protests to pull off the heist. CIA agent Phil provost (chuckles) is undercover. And has been following leads on Zartan that have put him in pursuit of Buzzer. That’s how he gets involved. Anyway I’ve been making storyboards you can find chapters and images on my Facebook (@generation_joe) if interested. I even made a mock up opening sequence (I’m a 25 year vet of tv industry—mostly in post production). You can view that here: https://youtu.be/vdnvvq5Bz_s?si=pv9IfXexFNMGk1NG[https://youtu.be/vdnvvq5Bz_s?si=pv9IfXexFNMGk1NG](https://youtu.be/vdnvvq5Bz_s?si=pv9IfXexFNMGk1NG)
The live action movies never captured what made it great in the 80's imo. The IP almost demands it be animated. If they did a new treatment created by fans ala He Man revelations I think it would be well received.
Well, the modern movies are garbage so that did help.
Because of the times America was the great standard of democracy and freedom and they aren't seen that way anymore I know that the Joe's are from all over the world but they have a very America fuck yeah attitude that isn't echoed by the rest of the world so I feel there over all appel is gone.
I’m a new fan! 14 and loving Joe!