http://getsomegrapesoda.com/2014/03/has ... x30LV44uMF
So according to this article, there is no more GI Joe design team at Hasbro which would explain why the 50th line is simply unreleased Retaliation products.
With the absence of a team, Hasbro won't attend the convention either.

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As far as we know, there currently isn't a team designated for GI Joe. Now, Derryl DePriest is still VP of Global Branding or something like that and he's one of the biggest Joe fans there is. Then John Warden, former Joe team lead is on TF. And then Hasbro has a handful of freelancers who have worked on the line in some capacity that they can call upon whenever needed (Boss Figth Studio).

I won't pretend to know who or what will be shown in Dallas or San Diego, but with a TRU store exclusive line this year, I wouldn't expect to see much if anything new.

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So no one at the company is working on one of their flagship in-house brands. Wow. In the golden anniversary no less. Geez WTF.

Are we gonna trot this out again? All the "Hasbro sucks for ignoring their brand" stuff? Folks, the movies made money, but the lines sucked. Hasbro made their money on it, but it's just not doing well enough to move forward on. Not every company keeps every product on the shelves forever. Relax. Joe needs some time to rest and recover and most likely wait for some time to become popular again. At least it's not 1976-1982!

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Let me preface this by saying this is just my opinion and I know nothing of the toy business.... here goes.

I don't find this worrisome. We know we are getting a 50th line and we know a 3rd movie is planned. That movie is probably 2 years off from hitting theatres I would guess. It makes sense to me for the designers at Hasbro to be doing other things in that downtime. Looking at the Retaliation line, we got a lot of figures, I never counted, but it feels like its around 50 or so. That is a lot of action figures. I expect the 3rd movie will get similar treatment. While it would be nice for GI Joe to have a TV show and constant presence, I think this makes sense for a movie based toyline, which is what GI Joe currently is.

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so was the line doing pretty good before the film figures started coming? because I just remember being all into the 25th thing then suddenly it was film figures I didn't like at all then there was nothing.

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Which film?

Now some of this could be fuzzy memory, so please correct me if I'm recalling this wrong.
* 25th ended to make room for Resolute which got tacked on to the end of the 25th and made into online exclusive 7 packs, and Attack on/Defense of Cobra island exclusives.
* Stores cleared the pegs for the Rise of Cobra line. I don't know the exact number but TONS of product was released under the RoC banner. Like more than all of ARAH combined. (Don't take my word for it).
* Rise of Cobra tail enders got repacked and movie likenesses removed to release Pursuit of Cobra, but also a lot of new stuff that seemed to be popular with a few exceptions.
* Pursuit of Cobra ended and the 30th Anniversary came along which also included the Renegades figures
* 30th ended for the Retaliation figures. Paramount moved the movie earlier, and then delayed it for 3D. So Wave 1 got mass released twice. and that line lasted 4 or 5 waves of figure releases.
* Now the 50th.

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Some interesting things I was thinking about the other day.

1982-1994, main RAH line – 12 years

1997-1998, 15th anniversary TRU line – 2 years

2000-2014, RAH Collection, JvC, Spytroops, VvV, DTC, Sigma 6, 25th, ROC, POC, 30th, Retaliation –14 years

So even with the heyday of G.I. Joe being the 80s, it lasted 12 years with a comic and cartoon. Since, GI Joe has existed in some form or fashion for 2 more years than the original line. Pretty amazing it's lasted this long, even if a lot of it is forgettable

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Even looking at original Joe, 1964-1976, that was only 12 years. Throw in Sgt. Savage and G.I. Joe Extreme and joe has been in stores with new product (with the exception of 1999) since 1982! It's always ebbed and flowed but, as was pointed out, at least it isn't the 76-82 years. We are still getting product on shelves this year.

The 25th wasn't really selling towards the end, lots of stuff ending up at T.J. Maxx/Marshalls and Dollar Store.


Hasbro isn't going to pay people to be on the G.I. Joe Team when there is no G.I. Joe product currently being worked on. When the time comes to start designing new product, there will be how ever many people (and whoever Hasbro wants) assigned to G.I. Joe.

Major overreaction to think anything else.

It's all deck chairs on the Titanic anyway guys.

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I was pleasantly surprised (almost shocked) to see we were getting non-Club 50th product. Nothing else that's going on with the line surprises me right now.

We'll get movie toys for the third flick. I'm betting they'll lack waist, wrist and ankle articulation and will likely sport single-jointed knees. And it will be like two waves of five figures each (with at least one version of Snake Eyes and Roadblock in each wave) plus about three vehicles with action attack-type features.

Then Joe will go away for a while again. Hopefully long enough for Hasbro to figure out what it wants the brand to be in the 21st century in order to entice the coveted kid market. And once they figure that out, hopefully they'll hold off even a little longer to ensure that a decent, kid-friendly cartoon gets into production and on the air before they start rolling out toys.

I'm hoping that there is a hiatus leading to a reset after Joe 3. Either carry on the movie-verse or do something new but be consistent across comics, cartoons, toys, etc..

I was having the same exact thoughts recently! . So weird how my adult nostalgia has lasted longer than the original at this point.

And post-2000 product surely heavily outweighs the orig RAH line, but I always think of the later stuff as less-official add-ons/reinterpretations; when in fact maybe by sheer weight the later stuff has actually done more to define the brand!




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I think it is more accurate to say that the original plan for Pursuit of Cobra was to serve as a continuation to the Rise of Cobra line and use actor likenesses for the relevant characters, but that plan was scrapped. The line was delayed to replace the actor-based heads and to rebrand the line to no longer have a movie connection.