A few thoughts--
Whoever did that Ace McCloud custom did one heck of an impressive job.
That UNIT-E comic was a cool method of promoting some of Hasbro's properties, but I hated how they portrayed MASK. That's not the MASK that I want to see in the toy stores.
Your idea of promoting some of these concepts through G.I. Joe is an interesting one, but it has one problem in my opinion -- G.I. Joe isn't nearly as popular as it used to be, and it's a tough sell to the retailers. This is why the next batch of G.I. Joe toys are a TRU exclusive. I suspect Walmart and Target didn't want it (and if the action figure sections of the Walmart and Target closest to me are any indication, they don't seem to want much of anything when it comes to action figures).
You start mentioning to them, "Oh, we're going to incorporate all of these other toy lines from the past into G.I. Joe", and I'm pretty sure their reaction would be, "Yeah, so? What else you got?"
It's a great idea, don't get me wrong. But the unfortunate bottom line is Hasbro would have to sell it to the retailers -- not to us -- and I don't see them going for it. Not if they won't even go for G.I. Joe in the first place.
