Wave 1 reviews continue to stagger in, as I finally got my hands on a PoC Cobra Commander from both HasbroToyShop and my good buddy Mike last week. You can check out the review on the Pursuit of Cobra Review page or directly right here.
I also finally got Firefly as well, so that review should be going up this week, too, and then Wave 1 will be wrapped up! Just in time for Wave 2 to start showing up.
When I first saw the tweets from the Hub this morning, who was commenting from the Television Critics’ Association I had a feeling some news would be coming out today. Not a whole lot, but we got a great idea of some of the voice cast who will be speaking through some of our favorite characters! A huge thanks to Toy News International for getting this information out there.
Not only am I going to talk about who the revealed voice actors are, I’m gonna give my own .02 on who they might be playing, as well as a link to their current resume. So, here’s the run down:
Lee Majors – Pretty self explanatory. A great resume, a surprise addition.
Famous Roles – The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin. The Fall Guy.
Character Guess – General “Hawk” Abernathy. He has the age, he has the dignity and the attitude. I can’t see him playing anyone else.
Clancy Brown – A long and storied acting and voice acting career. If you’ve watched action cartoons over the past 10 years, you know the voice.
Famous Roles – Shawshank Redeption; Lex Luthor (in Superman and Justice League animated series)
Character Guess – Destro. He has that “holier than thou” corporate magnate flair. I would love to see this happen, I think he would make for an incredible James McCullen Destro.
Charlie Adler – Also has had a very long and illustrious career, and I can guarantee, nearly everyone reading this post has heard his voice.
Famous Roles – Cobra Commander, Gung Ho, Flint (G.I. Joe: Resolute); Starscream (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Prime); Dr. Doom (The Super Hero Squad Show)
Character Guess – Gotta be Cobra Commander. He did a fantastic job in Resolute as Cobra’s insidious leader, and it would be an awesome homage.
Jason Marsden – Not quite as well known as some of the other voice actors, but he’s definitely had a presence over the past number of years. Not quite as well known as his older brother James (Cyclops from the X-Men films)
Famous Roles – Firefly (The Batman)
Character Guess – Duke. Michael Bell’s early leaked comments reflected that fact, so this one is pretty much a known commodity.
Kevin Michael Richardson – Another name with a lot of voice acting experience, though you may not know him right off the tip of your tongue. He’s had a lot of great roles over the past several years.
Famous Roles – The Joker (The Batman); Bishop (Wolverine and the X-Men); L. Thompson Lincoln/Tombstone (The Spectacular Spider-Man); Nick Fury (The Superhero Squad)
Character Guess – Roadblock. He’s got the stature, he’s got the gravitas, and based on the characters he’s played, I think he would do a fantastic Roadblock.
Johnny Messner – Honestly, I had to look this one up. He’s had a long film career, mostly bit parts, and no real voice acting that I can find. Several CSI iterations, other television roles.
Famous Roles – Tears of the Sun, Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Character Guess – Not a clue, really. Flint perhaps?
This is sounding like a fantastic line up. Majors, Brown, Adler, and Richardson already have me fired up. These are guys we’ve heard in cartoons for a long time who have a lot of experience and bring some great talent to the table. Renegades is looking better by the day.
Sideshow has done up a very cool video presenting their plans for the G.I. Joe license in conjunction with SDCC 2010! You can view it on their site right here.
I also took some screen shots from some of the more interesting items shown, such as Dusty and Stalker 12″ figure designs, Cobra Commander and Baroness statues, and dioramas featuring Cobra Commander, the Crimson Guard, Roadblock and more.
Check out the screen grabs below, watch the video here, or just check out the embedded video below as well.
Sure, it’s not G.I. Joe: Resolute, but part of me still enjoys the rampant cheesiness and the total “made low budget just for kids” mentality of these Operation: HISS webisodes. Hasbro’s Monkeybar TV has uploaded two more featurettes to continue the Rise of Cobra storyline.
First and foremost, Episode 6 has been posted, and you can check it out right here. You can check out some screen shots mirrored below.
But there’s also a Zartan related profile episode that’s been posted here, with a nice little cameo of everyone’s favorite G.I. Joe Marine near the end.
I’m a bit conflicted on this one. On the one hand, I love the fact that The Terror Drome has gotten their hands on a nice allotment of unproduced Pursuit of Cobra figures, then made some very in depth updates to their image galleries. But on the other hand, the more I see these detailed images, the sadder I get over the fact that some of this stuff won’t hit retail, especially a figure as nice as “City Strike” Scarlett.
Sure, the base figure is simply Resolute Scarlett, painted up in darker colors and with an updated Rachel Nichols head. But what kills me here is the gear. Even though the major piece of equipment with Scarlett, the flight pack, is one we’ve seen a couple of times already, adding that oxygen mask, that sword/sheath combination, and those incredible bladed tonfa swords makes for a whole new look for the Joe covert ops specialist. She fits in so well with the Pursuit of Cobra City Strike theme… a damn shame that she’s destined for the scrap heap, but even if you can’t have her, you can enjoy the terrific images. I’ve mirrored them below, but you really should check out The Terror Drome directly.
Along with Scarlett, they’ve also posted a pretty slick set of images for the unreleased Jungle Assault Cobra Commander. Even though he comes with the same fishbowl head sculpt, the addition of the jacket adds some nice bulk to the figure, I really like the gray color variations, and that crazy robotic bug is too cool for words. Sure, if this guy hit retail, he probably wouldn’t have been among my favorites, but he’s got such a unique look, I find myself really loving the figure and accessories, and hoping that some day I can get my hands on him as well.
You can see some mirrored images below, but also check out the gallery at The Terror Drome.
These figures weren’t the only showcases either… awesome new images of City Strike Beachhead, Jungle Assault Duke (Tatum and non-Tatum), as well as Quick Kick are also there as well. I just wanted to showcase two of my personal favorites.
A big kudos to The Terror Drome for getting images of these out to the fans. A great look into what “could have been”.
Remember a few days ago when I mentioned that it looked like the floodgates might be opening? Well, they’re still open, and Gyre-Viper is there collecting it all. He posted a few updates at HissTank here and here with some very cool pictures of upcoming items, and cancelled items.
I’m especially loving that Alley-Viper. LOVE the fact that he has the Resolute headgear as well as the more standard stuff. Very cool looking items here. Three more weeks from today and we should be seeing a lot more at JoeCon. Check out the mirrored images below, and once again, a huge thanks to Gyre-Viper for keeping the “dead time” between toy releases fairly eventful.
In spite of how much “venom” (no pun intended) is thrown towards the updated Cobra Commander design for the Rise of Cobra, fandom praise on the Pursuit of Cobra mailaway version was surprisingly excessive. With a slightly retooled head, some fancy vac-metalized parts and an array of kick ass accessories, many fans seemed ready to jump on the Rise of Cobra Cobra Commander bandwagon.
Then, during Toy Fair, it was revealed that Cobra Commander would no longer be a mail away, it was now going to be a “chase figure” in somewhat limited capacity. Thankfully Hasbro did announce at the latest Q & A, that the figure would not be extremely hard to find, but it’s a retail figure, nonetheless. And while the bulk of the figure remains the same, from the great Cobra themed packaging, to the chrome accents on the figure, there are some changes. For instance, since the figure is no longer a mail away version, the shipping box obviously is no longer needed, the very cool letter from General Hawk is a thing of the past, and the most disappointing difference is that the HISS drone that was initially slated to come with the figure couldn’t make it through to the retail price point.
So, the mad dash has begun… initial mail away Cobra Commanders have been available through illicit means for a short while, and now they’re at extremely high demand. Luckily for me, I was able to get my hands on one, and my gain is your gain. I have to, of course, give a huge thanks to an old buddy of mine for hooking me up with this item, too. He gave me a great deal on something that’s very tough to come by, and it made my month!
While I can’t bring myself to open the figure, I took a bunch of pictures, trying to get as much possible detail as I could, even through the haze of plastic clamshell. I’ve posted the extensive gallery below… enjoy!
TeeFury.com, well known for their 24 hour limited edition specialty t-shirts has posted a shirt featuring Cobra Commander! Retailing for a very reasonable $9.00, check it out at TeeFury.com! If you want it, grab it now, it’s only available for 24 hours. I’ve also mirrored some images of the design below…
Heh…in the last post I mentioned a month was a long time to wait for a follow up to a 5 minute webisode. Turns out, the action itself only took just over 3 minutes. Overall impression? About what you’d expect for a direct-to-website feature catered to kids. It’s done in CGI animation, purely computer models, and they looked like they were pulled from the cut scenes of the console game (which isn’t necessarily a good thing). Some choppy animation, some stilted voice acting, and nothing that will really make the long time fans go crazy. Definitely not G.I. Joe’s best side.
I still kinda dig seeing the movie universe further explored (especially since it would appear it’s vanishing entirely from store shelves with this G.I. Joe “reboot” this fall), but the end result did not blow my skirt up, which is really saying something when coming from this fanboy. Regardless, I’ll be waiting the first Friday of every month just to see what’s next.
On the positive side, we did get some cool intel when the credits rolled! I’ve mirrored some screen shots below, including a shot of the voice credits, which indicate that some other characters will be appearing in the series like Recondo, Helix, and Snow Job! I’ll check out further installments just for that.
A fun way to spend a few minutes, but don’t expect Beast Wars or Starship Troopers… the gallery is below.
