GI Joe fandom is awash in misery these days. Garments are being rended. Butthurt Cream sales are through the roof!
The GI Joe brand is in a state of change right now. Apparently, Hasbro is ending their relationship with the Collector's Club at the end of 2016. This also involves the Transformers Collector's Club.
As Fred from joebattlelines.com eloquently puts it:
It looks like there will be no GI Joe product available in 2016. Awww, poor kids... No new GI Joe toys. Oh wait, the largest market for GI Joe right now isn't kids, it's an aging group of grown up kids with disposable income and a sense of entitlement! Reminds me of the butthurt 12" Joe collectors pissed at getting nothing during the 50th Anniversary.
Does this mean GI Joe is gone forever? Doubtful. Hasbro has plans for their own "Cinematic Universe" which would include GI Joe, Mask, Rom, Visionaries, and the Micronauts. Sounds like Hasbro isn't disposing of GI Joe. Sounds like they know they need to do something different to get GI Joe back where it belongs - in the hearts and hands of kids.
OMG!! What if Hasbro reinvents GI Joe and there's no Duke! No Snake Eyes! No Cobra Commander and Destro! "Deth of teh line!1!!"
I wish them much success and I hope the return of GI Joe is something very cool and something that I'm not really interested in. Sure, I'll probably buy a bit of whatever this new GI Joe becomes. Hell, I've still got a couple GI Joe: Extreme figures.
I just hope the kids love it. Maybe one day, they'll grow up and be pissed-off, butthurt collectors in their own right.
I think G.I. Joe has to age,literally.I see some marvel franchises going the younger route,The Young Avengers comes to mind.DC has Teen Titans.Id like to see an aging Snake Eyes training a crop of fresh young recruits.Maybe even a D.J. (Duke Junior) or an R.J. (Roadblock Junior).The young crop could come up through military school and break away from the flock to create a red dawn-like militia.What they can't do Is keep force feeding us new incarnations of Duke,Snake Eyes,Flint, etc.Those were cool characters In the 80's but we are now pushing 2020.Time for some new blood,imo,but they have to have some kind of family tie to the older Joes we grew up with in order to attract both a young and older audience.
ReplyDeleteSad to see it go.
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