One day back in the 1980's, Hasbro decided that it was to reboot it's dormat G.I. JOE line. The idea was instead of having G.I. JOE be a boy's equvialent to Barbie. They would shrink the sizes of the figures and have accessories to figures and the new G.I. JOE line would compete against the Star Wars line over at Kenner. The new line's accessories would be based on actual military weapons systems, such as the MIM-23 Hawk Surface to Air Missile System, F14 Tomcat, the A-10 Thunderbolt, and LCAC Hovercrafts. I'm assuming that Hasbro contacted Marvel, who then assigned Larry Hama this new project which included writing a tie-in comic to sell the figures and writing the files cards.
Now here's comes the good and the bad. The good part is that Hama gave these figures a back story, defined relationships, motivations, had the JOEs stationed and train at real military instillations and involved in real conflicts. The bad part is that Hama gave these figures a back story, defined relationships, motivations, had the JOEs stationed and train at real military instillations and involved in real conflicts.
Which brings us to what I so eloquently call the "G.I. JOE Conundrum." Hasbro doesn't what to seem to accept the idea that Snake Eyes, Duke, COBRA Commander, The Baroness, etc are apart of a very defined and specific universe. Even though we as JOE fans have our JOEverses, I go out on a limb and say that even within our Joeverses, the characters are doing anything that's drastically different that what Hama set out on the file cards. If anything we've expounded about it.
One of the things that made RoC the cluster fuck that it was, thirty years worth of continuity seem to be completely ignored for no possible reason. You can have reason for Snake Eyes not talking is because he took a vow of silence. You can't have Duke in a relationship with The Baroness. You can't have C.C. be a military scientist named Rex and if you do decide to make these changes your story has to be so vastly superior to source material that it will force the fandom to accept the new story. As far I know, the only movie that has successfully done this was X-Men:First Class, even then people will say, well why didn't just make another X-Men movie, but that's another topic for another day.
Hasbro's problem is that want to move the line forward, but have a foot in the past. As we can see the results have been....well....fucked up. Our brethern at The Tank insist that 8 years are needed to keep the brand alive and the military themes and violence need to be toned down or else some left leaning unpatriotic mother in San Francisco is going to use Miscrosoft Word, create some letterhead claiming to be a "parental watch dog group," and claim to Hasbro that their promoting war. Well I say, if has is trying to bring in new customers, why do have characters named Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Stalker, and Storm Shadow? Clearly you want somebody other than 8 years to buy the toys. You're reaching out to the people who kept this brand from going the way of M.A.S.K. Gobots, and C.O.P.S.
Hasbro's problem is that the company wants to advance the brand, but it wants to have the brand firmly rooted in ARAHverse. Hasbro shouldn't do both, nor should it would to. If Hasbro wants to do something different with the brand, it should do what Paramount did when it rebooted Star Trek in the 80's, they put then 150 years in the future and inntroduced new characters.
If Hasbro wants to stick with the ARAH, then the line is going to have to stay within those parameters. Also, Hasbro has to understand that there doesn't have to be a Duke and Snake Eyes in every line. What the fandom and the kids want is quality hot product regardless of the figure's code name.
Personally I think that Hasbro should go with an updated military theme because in my honest opinion it seems that G.I. JOE whether it was in the 12" version or ARAH was most successfully when it based in realisitic military weapons and concepts. Instead of running away from it, Hasbro should embrace the fact that the JOEs are a military theme toy.
Now here's comes the good and the bad. The good part is that Hama gave these figures a back story, defined relationships, motivations, had the JOEs stationed and train at real military instillations and involved in real conflicts. The bad part is that Hama gave these figures a back story, defined relationships, motivations, had the JOEs stationed and train at real military instillations and involved in real conflicts.
Which brings us to what I so eloquently call the "G.I. JOE Conundrum." Hasbro doesn't what to seem to accept the idea that Snake Eyes, Duke, COBRA Commander, The Baroness, etc are apart of a very defined and specific universe. Even though we as JOE fans have our JOEverses, I go out on a limb and say that even within our Joeverses, the characters are doing anything that's drastically different that what Hama set out on the file cards. If anything we've expounded about it.
One of the things that made RoC the cluster fuck that it was, thirty years worth of continuity seem to be completely ignored for no possible reason. You can have reason for Snake Eyes not talking is because he took a vow of silence. You can't have Duke in a relationship with The Baroness. You can't have C.C. be a military scientist named Rex and if you do decide to make these changes your story has to be so vastly superior to source material that it will force the fandom to accept the new story. As far I know, the only movie that has successfully done this was X-Men:First Class, even then people will say, well why didn't just make another X-Men movie, but that's another topic for another day.
Hasbro's problem is that want to move the line forward, but have a foot in the past. As we can see the results have been....well....fucked up. Our brethern at The Tank insist that 8 years are needed to keep the brand alive and the military themes and violence need to be toned down or else some left leaning unpatriotic mother in San Francisco is going to use Miscrosoft Word, create some letterhead claiming to be a "parental watch dog group," and claim to Hasbro that their promoting war. Well I say, if has is trying to bring in new customers, why do have characters named Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Stalker, and Storm Shadow? Clearly you want somebody other than 8 years to buy the toys. You're reaching out to the people who kept this brand from going the way of M.A.S.K. Gobots, and C.O.P.S.
Hasbro's problem is that the company wants to advance the brand, but it wants to have the brand firmly rooted in ARAHverse. Hasbro shouldn't do both, nor should it would to. If Hasbro wants to do something different with the brand, it should do what Paramount did when it rebooted Star Trek in the 80's, they put then 150 years in the future and inntroduced new characters.
If Hasbro wants to stick with the ARAH, then the line is going to have to stay within those parameters. Also, Hasbro has to understand that there doesn't have to be a Duke and Snake Eyes in every line. What the fandom and the kids want is quality hot product regardless of the figure's code name.
Personally I think that Hasbro should go with an updated military theme because in my honest opinion it seems that G.I. JOE whether it was in the 12" version or ARAH was most successfully when it based in realisitic military weapons and concepts. Instead of running away from it, Hasbro should embrace the fact that the JOEs are a military theme toy.
