This morning, members of Hasbro's design team for GIJoe are holding a panel to discuss what is in store for Joe fans during the coming year.
On today's panel are John Warden (Designer 3 3/4"), Richard Woodhouse (Designer 3 3/4"), Steve Bono (Designer 8" Line and Fall 2008), Adam Pagano (Art Director 25th Anniversary), Michael Richie (GIJoe Director), and Neal Hoffman (Brand Manager).
We are bringing you live coverage of this panel as it happens, so be sure to refresh your web browser often to check for regular updates.
Comic packs are the first topic up for discussion. Wave 2 will have a lot of new tooling. There will be 2 new Dreadnoks with some re-used parts for the Dreadnoks. The two will be Ripper and Torch. Ripper will have Jaws of Life that will actually open; Torch will have a removable gas tank on his backpack. They tried to stay to the original colors of the figures instead of doing comic colors since these would be the first time they are released. That is the only wave 2 comic pack they are revealing other than to hint Crystal Ball's name.
Larry Hama returns to GIJoe. Starting in wave 3 of the comic packs, Larry Hama will be doing brand-new 22-page exclusive comics. They showed some art of two issues; one with Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow. The story will take place as a add-on to the original Marvel Comics "Silent Issue". Another one they showed was called "All about Fred". The cover showed a bunch of Crimson Guards standing around Cobra Commander; we'll have art up for these later today. These will be upcoming comic packs for wave 3.
Billy and Dr. Venom are on the list for possible mail-away figures. Hasbro is looking for ideas from the fans, so make your voice heard on the message boards.
They continue to state that they are working with Hollywood to try to stay true to the characters of GIJoe for the upcoming movie. Hasbro has street credit after the Transformers movie, so now Hollywood is more open to their input on how the movie should be.
Comic 2-packs will start coming out around April.
The Cobra Trooper from the 5 pack will be released on a single card along with the current Viper Pilot one in wave 2.
They are going to be making more figures so people can get them. They are trying to keep troop builders with the exclusive 5 packs and will try to make one troop builder per wave.
25th Anniversary will continue through next fall. After that, they plan to really gear things up.
Larry Hama, who has joined the panel, was asked if he will be involved in the movie. He answered that nothing is final until the first check clears.
Large vehicle playsets are a possibility with something like a movie. Nothing is planned right now, but as they gain momentum with the movie anything is possible. The Hasbro team really wants the aircraft carrier to come back but right now it's not really possible.
There are no current plans for build-a-figures for GIJoe, but it could be something we see in the future.
It was mentioned that we will be seeing the same type of chest articulation used on Hasbro's Star Wars super-articulated Clone Trooper figures with upcoming 25th Anniversary Joe figures.
