“AND NOW BACK TO G.I. JOE!”

After years of dormancy, 2020 is the year that Hasbro finally relaunched their G.I. Joe brand. Outside of various G.I. Joe comic book series from various comic book publishers, Hasbro has left hungry Joes fan starving over the last few years. G.I. Joe toys haven’t been on the retail shelves since 2016 (the G.I. Joe Collector’s Club continued to get exclusive direct-to-consumer figures up until 2018), there hasn’t been a new G.I. Joe cartoon since 2011 (G.I. Joe: Renegades), and the last G.I. Joe live-action movie was released back in 2013 (G.I. Joe: Retaliation).

This year, that’s all changing. Here’s the rundown of what’s coming and what’s already out there for fans of G.I. Joe:

G.I. JOE ORIGINS: SNAKE EYES

The news had been out for awhile that Hasbro & Paramount Pictures were developing an origin story starring Snake Eyes. Then casting started to leak, then a release date… Supposedly the movie will arrive on October 23, 2020, but with the COVID-19 pandemic still going on, who knows if that will even happen. Oh well, the machine is in motion as Hasbro is going all out with a merchandising blitz to help rebuild the G.I. Joe.

Referred to as both G.I. Joe Origins: Snake Eyes and simply Snake Eyes in the press, this is the focal point of Hasbro’s relaunch and where they hope to expand the popularity of G.I. Joe and capture mainstream success again. Snake Eyes is not a sequel or spin-off to 2013’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but instead will serve as a reboot of the live-action Joe universe, with the next step logically (and hopefully) being a movie featuring the full G.I. Joe team. Let the debate begin over which characters should appear in that film…

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G.I JOE CLASSIFIED SERIES

Already on the shelves… I guess… depending on where you live and which store you visit… is a brand-new six-inch line of Joe figures. $19.99 is the price point just like Hasbro’s Star Wars Black & Marvel Legends lines. Highly articulated with modern design updates (that are getting a mixed reaction), a six-inch line of Joes is what fans have been begging for for years. I haven’t been able to get my hands on any yet, but some look great and some not so great.

The initial wave is Destro, Duke, Roadblock, Snake Eyes and Scarlett. Upcoming waves (and some of these are exclusives to various retail stores/websites) will include two versions of Cobra Commander, a second version of Destro, Baroness w/ Cobra C.O.I.L motorcycle, Red Ninja, Gung-Ho, Storm Shadow, a ridiculous-looking second version of Roadblock, and Beach Head.

I’m disappointed in Duke (one of my favorite Joes), so I’ll wait to see if that one ever goes on clearance. Destro, Storm Shadow & Beach Head all look great. I can’t wait to get my hands on those. Snake Eyes, the Baroness (although I don’t care about the motorcycle) & both versions of Cobra Commander look nice. The rest I will skip.

I am a little confused on who this line is for. Like others, I’m not too fond of the “modern” look of some of these figures. As many have pointed out, they look a little “Fortnite-ish”. What’s with the metal shin guards and knee pads? Yes, the Joe community was asking for 6-inch figures, but we were also asking for them to be based on their original 1980’s versions. Hopefully we can still get that at some point.

I suppose some of the designs might appeal to a younger audience, but let’s get real. Kids don’t buy toys anymore. Middle-aged men trying to recapture their youth by surrounding themselves in nostalgia buy toys. A $20 action figure is a hard sell to a younger audience, even if you “update” their look. What’s also a hard sell is bringing back a beloved franchise in today’s most popular action figure size format and then eschewing the “classic” look of those characters. It’s one thing if we’d already had years of a 6″ Joe line and it was time to shake things up, but I really think Hasbro should’ve come out laser rifle blazing with figures from the original 3 3/4″ line essentially blown up to 6″ with today’s modern sculpting and articulation.

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G.I. JOE at WALMART

Well, in addition to the launch of the six-inch G.I. Joe Classified line, Hasbro will be releasing a “retro”-inspired G.I. Joe four-inch line exclusively at Walmart. These are not done in the classic 3 3/4″ O-ring style. These figures are the “modern” four-inch figures that Hasbro introduced with 2007’s G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary line and ran with on retail shelves until 2017. The figures are fine, but a lot of us really wanted O-ring style figures, but apparently Hasbro doesn’t have those original molds anymore and doesn’t want to spend the money to recreate them.

There have been a lot of complaints about this line already: figures don’t match the retro card art, figures are re-releases from previous years of the modern line, too many accessories (I think that’s a silly complaint!), “A Real American Hero” is missing, Walmart.com pre-ordering was a mess, etc. Personally, I think the line looks nice but I am disappointed they are not O-ring figures. I will still pick up a few here and there if they are based on characters I like. I would love to get the A.W.E. Striker and managed to pre-order the Cobra H.I.S.S. I did not have any of the major vehicles growing up, so I’d love to get my hands on any vehicles that come out with this line.

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VIDEO GAMES

We have a few G.I. Joe video games to discuss!

G.I. Joe: War on Cobra was released as an app for mobile devices in January 2020. I played a little of it and it was okay. It’s one of those typical app games where you aren’t going to get very far without spending real money to buy fake money so that you can upgrade your weapons, characters & defenses, which I’m not willing to do. I think I played it for about a week before deleting it!

Coming in October 2020 is G.I. Joe- Operation: Blackout for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch & Xbox One. It will received a physical release and priced at $39.99. Character designs appear to be based on the Classified toy line. It looks like it might play similar to Transformers: Devastation (2015) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (2016), although this Joe game doesn’t share the same developer or publisher.

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Last, but definitely not least!

Hasbro’s official YouTube channel started live-streaming episodes of the classic ’80s Joe cartoon a few weeks ago. As of this blog posting, episodes were being live-streamed 24 hours a day in series order. Hasbro has also uploaded select episodes for individual viewing. It seems like every week or so they add a handful of new episodes to the stream, and just recently started adding season two episodes. Of course, I own the series on DVD, but it’s nice to fire up the live-stream whenever I’m bored and get warm ‘n’ fuzzy feels.

I wonder if they’ll ever upload the two seasons that DIC produced?

Gotta love technology. 20 years ago I was pining away to watch G.I. Joe cartoons again, back when all that was available were old VHS tapes (and they weren’t cheap!). Then we finally got a few DVD releases and now it’s all being streamed for free online 24/7!

Honestly, I care about the cartoon more than anything else. I’m happy it’s still out there to be consumed. In a perfect world, we would get a third season of the Sunbow Productions era (completely ignoring the DIC series) that follows the events of G.I. Joe: The Movie, and it would have a slightly more adult feel.

Hasbro’s G.I. Joe livestream

Son of Batman, JLA Adventures, Iron Man & Captain America, Assault on Arkham

For some reason, I have this need to comment on virtually every superhero cartoon or movie I watch. Actually, I could’ve sworn I wrote up (and possibly posted) reviews for Son of Batman and JLA Adventures but I can’t find any proof of that. None of these movies are fresh in my mind anymore but I’ll briefly give my thoughts on these animated Marvel & DC movies for the record books. :)

Son of Batman
2014, Warner Home Video

Instead of randomly releasing direct-to-video movies set in their own universes in order to adapt certain stories from the comic books, it looks like DC is finally having many of their recent animated movies set in the same ‘New 52’-inspired universe. Son of Batman shares its world with Justice League: War (which itself will have its own sequel in the form of Justice League: The Throne of Atlantis).

Son of Batman is still based on a storyline from the Batman comics called “Batman and Son”. This was during the Grant Morrison era of writing the Batman comics and I think he’s one of the worst and most overrated comic book writers of all time. That probably explains why I wasn’t that big of a fan of this movie.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero – Season 2.0 DVD Review

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero – Season 2.0 (2010, Shout! Factory)
Originally Aired on TV:  September 15, 1986 – November 20, 1986)
Run Time: 660 minutes

Special Features
* Greenshirts: The Legacy Of G.I. Joe
* Knowing Is Half The Battle: PSAs
* Archival Hasbro Toy Commercials

So I’m late on talking about this one but I’ve been kinda busy and I just recently bought it, okay? Of course, that’s not to say I haven’t owned part of Season 2 on DVD before…

So anyway, in 2010 Shout! Factory had the license, desire and know-how to finally give us the complete second season of the original G.I. Joe series. They could’ve been jerks and split the season up but I like to think that they were making up for Rhino’s error and building goodwill throughout the Joe community by giving all 30 episodes to us in one volume.

I was surprised when watching this just how few episodes I remembered. I remember just about every episode from the first season but during this ’86 season there were only a handful I could recall. Plus, just the fact that the first season was around in syndication longer is probably why I was more familiar with it.

Of course, I remember the epic 5-part season opener “Arise, Serpentor, Arise!” though. After that, “Once Upon a Joe” is my next most remembered episode from this season but “Cobrathon”, “Last Hour to Doomsday”, “The Spy Who Rooked Me”, “Sink the Montana!” and “Grey Hairs and Growing Pains” also brought back memories. Much of the rest was almost like watching for the first time (though I’m sure I probably saw most if not all of these episodes as a kid).

Without the benefit of nostalgia on the majority of Season 2, I have to say it is quite inferior to Season 1. The whole series is goofy and held some far out there schemes by Cobra and solutions by the Joes but the 1986 season holds some pretty bad episodes and just goes over-the-top with the brainless plots. Episodes like when Lifeline, Dial-Tone and Shipwreck are all promoted to colonels in “The Most Dangerous Thing in the World” and run the Joes into the ground while General Hawk is away or “Second Hand Emotions” where Dr. Mindbender basically makes a keyboard that can play with people’s emotions don’t do the series any favors.

And while I’m on the subject of characters, this was a new season with new toys to promote so while a lot of the previous season Joes get cameos as background characters, they are no longer the focus and very few have dialogue. The only real holdouts from Season One with any significant screen time are Flint, Lady Jaye, Roadblock and Shipwreck with Duke and Gung-Ho to a much lesser extent. Much to my chagrin, personal faves like Duke, Quick Kick and Spirit are seriously down-played. Duke does have some lines but has basically been reduced to a supporting character while Quick Kick and Spirit (who were prominent characters in the first season) don’t utter a single line and are barely seen.

This season definitely focuses on the new characters: General Hawk, Sgt. Slaughter, Beach Head, Dial Tone, Mainframe, Wet Suit, Leatherneck, Lifeline, Sci-Fi, Low-Light and Slip Stream basically ARE the Joes at this point in the series and appear in the majority of the episodes with a few others like Ice Berg and Cross Country being featured at times. The good thing is — the 1986 line of Joe toys is my favorite year. Duke will always be my favorite Joe but all of the characters mentioned above I love (except Slip Stream… Why’d he get so much face time?!) and I have great memories of playing with their figures when I was a kid.

Cobra was going through some change this season as well with the exception of Zartan and the Dreadnoks (they are still heavily featured). Storm Shadow, who I always loved, is practically non-existent (making only two appearances by my count with one line of dialogue) while Cobra Commander, Destro, Baroness and Tomax & Xamot have extremely reduced roles on the show. Even Serpentor, the great new big bad guy, doesn’t seem to show up as much as you would think. A lot of the season seems to focus on the Dreadnoks carrying out missions for Cobra or Dr. Mindbender’s crazy inventions.

There is a loose story arc throughout the season of Cobra Commander wanting to overthrow Serpentor. In fact, in what ended up being the original series’ final episode (“Into Your Tent I Will Silently Creep”), Cobra Commander (with Storm Shadow and Destro at his side and Tomax & Xamot too, I believe) is seen lording over a secret cult called the Coil whose sole purpose is to destroy Serpentor. Would’ve been really cool to see where Sunbow Productions could’ve taken the third season as the plan was G.I. Joe vs. Cobra vs. The Coil.

From what I understand, the show was getting to be too expensive for Hasbro  and that’s why after G.I. Joe: The Movie, the license rested for a few years before returning in 1989 with DIC Entertainment producing the show on a lower budget.

Overall, Season 2 is a fun ride but I wish it featured a smoother transition from the characters of the first season to the new class. The show is a lot more silly and at times I think the animation was actually slightly inferior to Season One. It’s been a few years since I’ve watched Season One though so maybe it’s actually on par. I was hoping the special features would be something new but from what I can tell, they are just recycled from the Rhino releases. What a pity.

This is a no-brainer pick up for fans of G.I. Joe. Now here’s hoping Shout is going to release the DIC series (as sad as it is) like they’ve hinted at.

Buy ‘G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Season 2’ at Amazon.com!

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown, have some Chex party mix!

Did everyone watch Happy New Year, Charlie Brown last night on ABC? I’ve been wanting to get that I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown DVD because it has Happy New Year as a bonus feature, but luckily I saw it was going to be on TV last night so I made sure I sat down to watch it. I should’ve made some Chex party mix to go along with it.

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown is yet another animated special my family had on VHS recorded straight from a television airing (in fact, I think it was recorded from the 1986 premiere). Yet again, like many specials we had recorded, that VHS copy is lost somewhere in time & space. I haven’t seen this special since probably 1990 or so, but once songs and gags starting popping up it was like “Oh yeah! I remember this!”

Snoopy sniffing Lucy’s root beer and Rerun blowing up square balloons still made me laugh and I help but feel sorry for ol’ Chuck as he fell asleep and missed the girl of his dreams coming to the party. My girl wondered why he was the only one worrying about the book report when everyone else had the same assignment and were partying like it was 1999 and I told her its because worrying is what Charlie Brown does.

I’m pleased to say this classic from my childhood has held up well and I’m glad to see it making it to TV again. I don’t remember it being on TV for a long time, but maybe I’m wrong.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everybody!!!

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies DVD Review

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009, Warner Home Video)

I caught this one last week thanks to Netflix and loved it. While Marvel usually has the market cornered on movies, DC has always blown away any animation Marvel came out with. This fact remains unchanged in this day and age as the animation wars are being waged on shows on Nicktoons, Cartoon Network & Toon Disney and through direct-to-video animated movies.

The latest from DC is Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, which is based on the first story arc written by Jeph Loeb from the Superman/Batman comic book. Ed McGuinness was the artist for the comic and I really love that the animation is styled after his artwork because I’m a fan of his square-jawed muscular and cartoony superheroes.

Though I don’t believe this story to be canon in the DC Animated Universe (which includes Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and both Justice League series), it is produced by Bruce Timm and Warner did a great job getting some of that cast to reprise their roles here: Kevin Conroy (Batman), Tim Daly (Superman), Clancy Brown (Lex Luthor) and C.C.H. Pounder (Amanda Waller) all return.

I vaguely remember the original Public Enemies plot. To be honest, I read the collected version of the story in sections at Books-A-Million back when I used to take breaks while working at a pest control company. Honestly, I almost didn’t even bother with this movie as I think Jeph Loeb (despite giving us the awesome Commando and Teen Wolf movies) is one of the worst comic book writers around alongside Grant Morrison and Bruce Jones.

As a comic book fan, I ended up enjoying it so much more than I thought I would. Luthor is just a great villain who played a major role in the movie and even though it is voicework, Brown, Conroy and Daly display some of the greatest portrayals of their respective characters.

Would I buy this? No. But I don’t have much use for owning DVDs anymore. Definite rental-worthy movie though so get down to the video store or add it to your Netflix queue because this is well worth the one hour and fifteen minutes of time it will take up in your life.