While no Toy Fair presence is disappointing, they do say they will show something at Joe Con in April which is only two months later.

Given production lead times, no idea that he might have been able to put into action would be available before 2016 anyway.

I am hoping for face scanning at Walmarts, reusing or possibly improving on the units used for the Cap/iron man figures from last year. 2016 would be about right - I'd need the time to lose weight anyway...

And if you're reading this Mark, in addition to NFC and online interactivity with the figures, consider putting unique custom parts on shapeways and makerverse sites, to get ahead of 3d printing. (E.G. A special hand for a BAT or a rifle that's too intricate to make it to production).

Putting items out there that you have already paid to design, but for any reason didn't make it to tooling, increases the value of your brand and toy scale to a demographic that still cares about physical things, at a very low cost to you, and without regulation and testing costs. It'll make your designers happy too.

- R

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Heh, yeah, I could get behind that. They could do things like "buy this print and get extra heads/hands/legs free" or something to allow even more customizing. Doesn't cost them anything (practically) but goes a long way toward goodwill with the collector community.

What them not being at TF pretty much guarantees is that the line won't be marketed to the general retail market, or that they planned from the get-go to make exclusives (undoubtedly to TRU/BBTS). So, obviously nothing ambitious like a relaunch.

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This is kind of where my mind went. But I wonder if all of this doesn't add up to something more significant and momentous, like Joe finally "coming out" as an adult collectible.

For years we've all criticized their fumbled attempts to win the hearts of kiddies, even if it meant pissing off the long-time fans. I always thought their claims that adult collectors weren't a significant enough portion of sales to warrant input felt like wishful thinking rather than a summation of any real-world sales data.

Based on what they did with the 50th and the fact that the movies aren't even pretending to be kid friendly anymore, I wonder if the Big H has finally admitted to itself that reinventing Joe for a generation that cares less and less about action figures is just too big a gamble and that they'll instead be content with catering to the very niche market they've acted so ashamed of for the last decade or so.

That could be good and bad news for us. Likely that would mean they're serious about listening to what we say we want. But we should expect to pay adult collectible prices for it regardless of what oil is doing.

I'm calling it, wave 1
The Fridge
Big Lob
Hard Ball
Snake Eyes
Bazooka
Snake-Eyes-Hamburger head maskless chase
Tiger Force Bazooka-Collector Level chase

Cobra Commander
Sexy bikini Baroness
Storm Shadow
Cobra Trooper

Walgreens exclusive-Cobra Officer

Cobra Trooper 3-pack(alternate paint).

And SDCC in-person-only Cobra-La 4pack exclusive with all-new sculpts whose molds were dropped on the floor after the limited production run.

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Someone on Facebook says that

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When I was younger, I saw Sgt Savage and Extreme as reboots that were interesting - failures for the most part, but intentional changes to try something new and change direction. If they are gonna capture kids again, I think this needs to happen. I am 36 years old now. I remember getting back into Joes around 19. I've been at it awhile. But if it's gonna live again, they need to go after my son, engage him, and not just in speciality stores. I hope Joe can live again. You see how much we loved ARAH - maybe it's time for a new acronym and a new concept.

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They did that a few years ago with sigma 6 and a lot of the diehard fans fought back. I dont know how well it did on TV, but I remember a lot of chatter about the figures not being accepted till it was too late.

The lack of presence at Toy Fair could simply be a lack of prep time. I suspect that whatever retail product we see in 2015 will be mostly store exclusives.

Showing up at JoeCon (a) gives them a little more time to put together an effective presentation, and (b) conveys the message that Weber really means it when he says he wants to engage the collectors.

I also feel there's a degree to which G.I. Joe may need to prove itself again to the general retail market. If several stores have distinctive exclusives that sell well, then that could say to them, "Okay, there IS a market for this product."

But anything really dramatic probably won't happen until closer to Christmas of this year, or even 2016. It's a time factor as much as anything.

I'll be interested to see what happens. While my interest in the modern-style figures isn't that great, especially those of characters whom I already have in the RAH format, if they come up with interesting new characters, I'd be willing to bring them in. And of course there's no reason new vehicles wouldn't work decently with any established figure format.

I also really, really hope that we get a 6" Black Series out of this. If they do that as well as they've done the Star Wars Black Series, I think that would become my primary interest in G.I. Joe.

They don't have to be kid-friendly to appeal to kids.

I mean have you seen the Michael Bay Transformers films? Believe it or not, they're popular with the kids. Parents do take kids to see PG-13-rated films.
Speaking as someone who was still a kid in the 90s... We bought a crapton of merch based on PG-13 movies! Terminator and Aliens are probably the biggest ones I can name.

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Star Wars.

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Terminator and Aliens were PG13 in Canada?

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I don't remember. Wasn't T2 rated PG-13?

Either way we were all really into both toylines back then. And if they were rated R, that sort of further cements my point about kids really not caring if a movie/franchise is rated G to be into it. It just has to appeal to them.

On the one hand, musclebound cyborg with a distinct voice fighting other robots from the future. On the other hand, space marines vs H.R. Giger.

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