Every time I hear this guy talk, I get a big smile on my face.  In many cases you can tell when the Hollywood machine is just working and the actors who proclaim their “fanboy” nature are sorta pandering to those of us who have been around the block a few times.

You heard it during the Rise of Cobra tour when Stephen Sommers said how much of a fan of the franchise he was, and then shoe-horned his “Accelerator Suit” concept into a film where it probably didn’t belong.  Just listening to Jon Chu talk about the G.I. Joe property, his genuine excitement and interest in the brand is palpable, and it feels much more than an act that we sometimes get with other movie makers.  That doesn’t guarantee it’s a great film, but I think that is certainly points for it, and combined with all the great footage and imagery that we’ve seen, I find myself even more ecstatic for June 29th.

In this interview he talks about the reasons why you should see this movie this year, the shenanigans that go on on the set of the film, and what makes this G.I. Joe film different than the others.  Check out the interview on Comic Book Movie, and I’ve also embedded it below.

Quickly becoming one of my favorite things to check up on, the G.I. Joe: Special Ops online game has added two more familiar faces to the roster today with Lady Jaye and the Cobra Viper.  Taking elements from various continuities, G.I. Joe: Special Ops seems like it’s trying to sample the best from everything.  Lady Jaye wears a tactical vest and is an established hard ass, yet she totes around javelins, and wears her hair long sort of like Adrianne Palicki.

The Cobra Viper looks a lot like the Viper we all know and love, but with a distinctly Sideshow Collectibles twist.  Thjey seem to be bringing a lot of very cool elements together. Now we just have to see how the game plays!  Check out the SyFy G.I. Joe: Special Ops website, and also check out the mirrored images below.

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This is starting to become a regular occurrence.  Over on the Cobra Special Forces Facebook Page, another image of Cobra Troopers has been posted, this time with the troopers in attack formation on a raft.  It’s a neat image because the faces of the troopers appear to be covered this time around rather than having those somewhat strange open face helmets.

Check out Cobra Special Forces for the original image, and see it mirrored below.

Big thanks to The Terror Drome for digging up these images from Stark Industries!  Looks like a poster from Russia, and then some very high res images that were the basis for recent Korean posters for the film as well.

Some great looking images here.  Check out the mirrored pictures below.

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The Cobra Special Forces Facebook page is quickly becoming the place to be for seeing some great new images from G.I. Joe: Retaliation.  We’ve already seen some awesome Cobra Trooper images, Firefly, and of course Cobra Commander, so it only seemed right that we now get a good look at the Cobra motor pool!

Behold… the Cobra HISS!

Uhhh… AWESOME.

That must have been a big curtain!

I know a lot of fans have been hopping up and down just waiting for this fan favorite character to make his appearance in the Convention boxed set.  Well, the fans have gotten their wish!  Last night the Collectors’ Club revealed the convention exclusive Horror Show, which is the last figure in the boxed set for 2012, and they’re ending with a bang.

We all should have assumed that this figure would not resemble the familiar quilted jacket that we knew from the comics and cartoon, since no existing tooling could match that.  So the Club did something rather unique.  The vest is from Shadow Tracker and it seems to be covering a torso that also utilizes the jacket bottom from G.I. Joe: Renegades Cobra Commander.  The end result is a long jacket with some great pockets and pouches that gives the figure some extra bulk.  Looking at his legs, too, he’s using the Resolute Roadblock legs, so obviously he will have some nice height due to those parts being used, too.

One more cool touch are his arms, which look to be pulled from the previously canceled Pursuit of Cobra Arctic Duke.  The result is a nice, hefty looking figure with an absolutely perfect head sculpt that is a pretty neat update to the familiar Oktober Guard heavy weapons specialist.  I’m not entirely sold on the way the vest meshes with the jacket underneath, and look forward to a bit more explanation on that one, but the figure itself looks great.  Check out some images below:

Horror Show

Group Shot (this is my own Photoshop work, NOT the Club’s)

The Entire boxed set

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For the latest details make sure you keep checking GIJoeCon.com.  Registration will be live any time!

As soon as convention season grows near, it seems like the questions continue to pop up year after year about this year’s convention.  What does “golden ticket” mean, what do I get with my registration… how can I get a set if I’m not travelling to New Orleans?

Well, What’s on Joe Mind is all over it!  We are your “one stop shop” for any Convention information you might need, and we got started bright and early with Special Edition #12.  Gary and Justin break down the entire convention brochure and provide some insight as to what you can expect on every page and just how much of your hard-earned money you should be grasping onto prior to the end of June.

So check it out at our Podbean Site or via the embedded player(s) below.

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SHOW NOTES

“The JoeCon Brochures are out!”  Those 5 words are just as potent to a Joe fan as “Gentlemen, start your engines!” is to a race car driver, because to us it means JoeCon is drawing closer and registration time is near.  Print off your forms and follow along with Gary and Justin, who between them share their nearly 20 years of JoeCon experience.  Our dynamic duo will attempt to help you understand the brochure and read between the lines on this annually anticipated document.  From the con sets, to the package choices, to the guests, to the pre-con tours, they’ll break it down for you in tinier, much easier to swallow morsels.  Now all you need to do is print out the brochure and follow along!  We’ve been on the road to New Orleans for a couple of weeks now, but the city lights are now visible in the distance.  We’re your Golden Ticket to a successful JoeCon.  It all starts here…!

G.I. Joe Convention 2012

• GIJoeCon.com Website
• The GIJoeCon Brochure
• GIJoeCon 2012 Convention Exclusives
• The G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club GIJoeCon FAQ

I think it’s pretty fair to say that when six open slots were available under the Oktober Guard emblem for the 2012 G.I. Joe Convention reveal, most fans just assumed that we would see the six most famous Oktober Guard members as part of the boxed set.  Even though Dragonsky didn’t make an appearance until a little bit after the rest of the team launched in G.I. Joe #6, most fans identify him pretty specifically with the old school Oktober Guard.

It would certainly appear, though, that either this mission takes place without him, or he’s slated for a spot in one of the attendee exclusive sets available in New Orleans for Con attendees.  Regardless of where Dragonsky appears in the grand scheme of things, the release of the Convention brochure last week identified one member of the Oktober Guard that no one had yet heard of.  And I love that.

I’m all about the story aspects of the G.I. Joe universe and one thing the Collectors’ Club has done amazingly well is using their characters to tell a story.  Now we have a totally new Oktober Guard character, General Iron Bear.  I think common hypothesis is that this Iron Bear may very well be the guy who turns tail and becomes General Mayhem from the awesome 2005 MARS Attacks convention set, but we likely will not find that out for a while.

Until then, we can enjoy the reveal of the figure itself!  Check it out at GIJoeCon.com or mirrored below.

That is a pretty cool looking figure, I have to say.  I love it when the Club throws a curve ball, as they so often do, and I think this one is a cool one.  A mixture of Arctic Snake Eyes/Snow Serpent and G.I. Joe: Resolute Duke, it looks like an arctic themed commander, and I think the whole idea works well.

EDIT – Of course thanks to Caped Crusader for reminding me that the figure is essentially Resolute Duke (Siberian Attack) with a new head, which is equally cool to me, as I enjoy that figure quite a bit.

Along with the figure reveal, they also have showed us their convention T-Shirts and Hat for 2012, which is always a popular item at the Club store throughout the weekend.  Check those images out below.

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So are we all getting hyped up, Joe fans?  Registration is going to be happening soon, and then it’s all downhill for New Orleans, and I can’t wait!  Keep your eyes peeled here and on GIJoeCon.com for the latest details.

This word comes in from those great G.I. Joe fans from TS118 who have provided images and details for some amazing dioramas over the past several years:

“TS118 has secured an agreement with Solar UIP (local movie outfit who will show GI Joe Retaliation in the Philippines) as of this week.

We shall be providing them action figure displays and dioramas for the promotion of the movie (June 10-30, 2012) and will be helping them in the premiere and regular screening set on June 20 (Thursday).  We’ll also be their official partner for the upcoming 11^th Philippine Toycon on June 15-17, 2012 where one of the main attractions will be the GI Joe movie.

Looks like the Philippines gets first peak on the new flick, but we won’t post any spoilers…”

This sounds like a pretty excellent coup!  TS118 has always been very involved in the G.I. Joe and toy convention world in the Philippines, and now they’re branching out into the movie scene.  This is awesome!

For fans from the Philippines, definitely something exciting to look forward to, and for the rest of us, I’m sure pictures will be online.  Kudos to some devoted fans for getting their work out there and making the Retaliation premier even more exciting.

Make sure to keep hitting up TS118 for the latest details and information.

The guys jump back into our regular weekly show with a full compliment this time around as Chuck, Gary, Mike and myself all come together to uncover more G.I. Joe related secrets!  I’m sure everyone remembers that little 16 bit G.I. Joe themed game that was floating around the internet a few weeks ago, Attack on Cobra Island?  Well, we dig down into the center of it in this show, tracking down and interviewing the mysterious creator behind the video game.  He gave us some terrific insight and information about the game, tells us its current status (PS, you can download it RIGHT NOW) and what happened with the whole Hasbro situation.

We also took a few minutes to talk to Counterpunch from the Seibertron Twincast Podcast to uncover how Transformers fans feel about Fun Publications and the Collectors’ Club, and I think G.I. Joe fans will find some of his responses very interesting.  Check it out at our Podbean page, or via the embedded player below.  Don’t forget, Show Notes are after the jump.

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