For G.I. Joe fans who have been following the property for only a few short years, this may come as a surprise, but believe it or not, there was a time, not very long ago, where Roadblock wasn’t a household name. In fact, he wasn’t even on Hasbro’s radar. A victim of lost trademarks, it seemed inevitable that Roadblock would simply fade from the consciousness of the G.I. Joe faithful and no longer be a major part of ongoing canon.
Sure didn’t turn out that way, huh?
I must give credit to long time Joe buddy Todd of Magnum 6 Delta for prompting me to put this post together, and considering the G.I. Joe: Retaliation motion picture on the horizon, and the potential for redefining the core characters of the Real American Hero brand, the timing couldn’t be better. Click the “Read the Rest of this Story” link below to check out the full article.
The past few episodes of What’s on Joe Mind have been somewhat of a whirlwind…between the big 50th Episode, the special edition focusing on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and our one year anniversary we’ve been trying to do a lot of special things. Well, episode 53 the guys get back to basics a little bit, bringing 12″ aficionado Ace Allgood back to the show and beginning the push towards JoeCon 2012!
I unfortunately had to sit this one out as my hectic business trip to Kansas City left me with strep throat, but I’m looking forward to listening to it with the rest of you guys! Check out the newest episode on our Podbean page, or listen via the embedded player below. As always, show notes are after the jump.
To say I was excited to receive the Amazon Exclusive G.I. Joe: Renegades 4-Pack in the mail last week would be a massive understatement. Ever since I heard the animated style tooling was being pushed aside for more “realistic” figures, I’ve had a clamoring to see what these animated figures would have looked like…and now I have that chance!
It’s a somewhat funny dichotomy, though, because honestly I don’t see much “G.I. Joe: Renegades” in the Storm Shadow figure, even in the animated design. Just read my thoughts below if you’re interested!
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a bit bitter that Hasbro scrapped G.I. Joe: Renegades without hardly even giving it a chance, and a part of my complaint lies within the fact that they ditched the animated aesthetic due to fandom outcry.
Now a big part of me doesn’t blame them one bit. I don’t have any false ideas that animated style figures would fly off the shelves…I have my doubts. Hasbro could have potentially shrugged off their long standing fans, and not drawn in any new ones, and the entire line could have gone straight down the crapper. I’m not sure G.I. Joe as a brand is quite strong enough for Hasbro to totally overhaul the realistic styling and still come out swinging. So, I don’t blame them, even though the animated figures were items I really wanted to see.
So Amazon.com comes through in a big way, offering a Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow figure that apparently use this discarded tooling to great success. Keep in mind I don’t yet have these figures in hand, and I will fully admit those hip joints immediately make me scared. I hate those hips on the Marvel figures, so I really, desperately hope the Joe design team has found a way to make those joints work better than the Marvel folks have been able to.
Aside from that, the angular sculpting of the figures, the articulation…everything else looks very cool, and I’m really digging the animated look. Part of me hopes we get a more normal Snake Eyes in this format, too. I don’t have any aspirations that they’ll do an entire Renegades run in this style, but I’ll take what I can get. Check out the original post by G.I. Joe: Renegades fan edhellman over at HissTank.com, and I’ve mirrored the images below.
Of course they had to wait until the Renegades set sold out, but hey, better late than never, right? We now have official images of the upcoming G.I. Joe: Renegades and G.I. Joe: Retaliation 4-Packs, and man, that Renegades set is blowing me away. That almost looks like all new tooling.
Craaaazy. Take a look at the images below, and don’t forget to order! Amazingly, the G.I. Joe: Renegades set is SOLD OUT currently. This is awesome news and tells me that there is still a consumer audience out there for Renegades. Fantastic. Now that I see official images, I’m even more excited to get this set in hand.
I’m actually surprising myself here, too, and I’m coming around to that G.I. Joe: Retaliation 4-Pack. It’s the small things like the movie accurate file cards, the webgear for Snake Eyes, and the better colored machine gun as well. Cobra Commander is looking sharp in black, too. ARGH. Links for ordering are below. Keep checking back for the Renegades set, I love that it’s already sold out!
As I sit here Monday morning preparing to do some catch up posts I see that Amazon.com now has the G.I. Joe: Retaliation Sneak Preview 4-Pack and the G.I. Joe: Renegades 4-Pack in stock and ready to ship.
I will admit, though, the $40 price tag took me by surprise. I’d think a benefit to buying a 4 pack is that maybe it would be cheaper than buying the 4 figures individually… but not so much. That being said, I am ALL OVER that Renegades pack. Click the links below to order ‘em up!
It’s not very often that I see someone outside of a tight circle of G.I. Joe fans talk about the G.I. Joe: Renegades animated series, so kudos to Chris Cummins from Topless Robot for diving into G.I. Joe: Renegades territory with their most recent “Top 10″ list!
And dammit, that list brings back all sorts of awesome memories. It also reminds me I need to get a version of the Episode 23 Promo posted to YouTube.
I can’t say I fully agree with all of his choices, or at least the order he put them in, but he breaks down some good reasons for each choice and I’m just smiling wide checking out all those promos again. Good times.
Thanks to Destro from HissTank.com for posting an image that reveals some details about the Amazon Exclusive G.I. Joe: Renegades 4-Pack story we broke early this week. This single image is truly fascinating. Check it out below:
Uhhh WOW.
Yeah, these are not straight-up repaints of figures we got already. That right there looks like at least some new tooling. Duke is obviously the same with the addition of recolored Cobra Trooper legs (don’t know how I feel about that). But Storm Shadow is considerably different. The head sculpt looks more animated, the proportions of the arms (not to mention the sleeveless look) are certainly different. Very, very interesting. Snake Eyes is a little tough to tell, though the feet at least look different.
And is it just me, or are there some different hip joints going on there?
Plus, look at the feet. The sculpt there looks exaggerated, too. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m seriously wondering if these were some of the “animated” style figures we’d heard about before the outcry moved us back to the more realistic style. Very interesting. I just went from pretty excited to absolutely ecstatic. Here’s hoping we get to see some of these figures in more detail soon, this is just aching to be dissected.
Fantastic.
UPDATE – As commentor Plokoon5 points out as well, it looks like Duke has G.I. Joe: Renegades Law’s hands instead of his original hands, which is a significant improvement to the figure as well. It took one of the glaring flaws in that figure and improved it 100%. Good observation.
