Why did I just spend fifty fucking dollars on the Action Soldier?

>>11749627
Because it's cooler than Hit-N-Run

>>11749629
And now I want $150 worth of Cobra La soldiers but there’s no way Im doing that. I already missed Enforcer and Pythona, I probably should just sell my Serpentor

>>11749634
>$150 worth of Cobra La soldiers
It's funny that this sounds like a lot, but it's literally 3

>>11749638
I spent that much on the scorpion set when it went down to $23

>>11749647
Damn, nice. The ones near me haven't gone on sale yet, I'd certainly pick one up at that price

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I wasn't interested in this team, but these look great. Hopefully the Mercer set goes on sale cause I can't justify buying that full price with his fuckugly head sculpts

>>11749664
The ugliness on Slaughter's marauders is intentional. They're supposed to be the "good guy" equivalent of the Dreadnoks.

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>>11749675
Mercer was never really portrayed as ugly. He was a handsome but gruff guy. The head sculpts say otherwise, they look incredibly strange. Even still, Red Dog and Taurus figures aren't ugly either, they look fine.

>>11749664
I'm on the fence over this set, I was honestly never a huge fan of the Movie Marauders. I also just dropped 110 on Destro and his little flying saucer so I'm a bit hesitant to bother pre-ordering any more figures right now.

>>11749685
It's the lips that make him look weird.

>>11749685
I always liked the v2 one better anyway, so that's an easy pass, and I'll just put v2 with the marauders whenever they make him.

>>11749753
This has to be AI because neither can stand like that without a figure stand. Still nice, though.

They’re really going in on Cobra females:
Pythona
Crimson Guard
Zanya
Mistress Armada

Looking forward to Dr Knox.
But I still want my 1988, 1989, 1990 Joes.

>>11749819
The last Joe lady was retro Cover Girl, and judging by the looks of it arctic Lady Jaye with the Snowcat will be the next one. They're apparently not as interested in female Joes as they are in female Cobra.

>>11749819
>>11749866
I really can't believe we got shit like Glenda and Shooter before Bombstrike.

>>11749868
Glenda I can understand as she was an obscure character who could be a pre-tool of Scarlett. But getting female Snake Eyes and Heartwrencher before Bombstrike is just absurd. Especially since Bombstrike could easily be a deluxe pack with some sort of kick ass bomber drone pet, or even a three pack with her brothers Black Out and Barrel Roll.

>>11749868
Making Shooter a thing is a priority for hasbro. It wasn't a coincidence she was brought up randomly on the stream today again.

>>11749868
they were doing earlier joes at the time

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Should we get Jokerized Joes?

>>11749969
Fuck no

>>11749819
And yet somehow we still have never gotten a retail non exclusive Baroness outside of the one movie one.

Stop making new threads. There are now 4 GI Joe threads.

>>11749992
They're stubborn about her. Well they're stubborn about a lot of things with their "buy the shit you don't want to keep the line going, and then maybe we'll eventually get to what you want" business strategy.

>>11750074
Hate that shit. I mean, I GET it, if you release all the desirable stuff at once you're left with a bunch of more niche/hard to shift things so you need to spread out the guaranteed sellers with the more limited-appeal figures, but Hasbro does it way too hard.
That said, I'm personally quite happy with Crimson Strike Baroness. She isn't perfect but she is damn good.

>>11749866
They just revealed Ninja Force Scarlett

>>11750082
We're in year 6 of the line with no polar battle bear, Skyhawk, and firebat in sight. But hey we're getting Destro's thing, which I don't remember a single person asking for over a Firebat. Their stubbornness is frustrating. They make the list for the whole year, and fuck you if your local Walmart stops carrying it because you don't want the crap.

>>11750091
Three Cobra vehicles came with generic "blueshirt" female troops (HISS, CLAW, and Ferret) plus a female Cobra trooper 2-pack (Valkyries).

The Joe greenshirt equivalents are .......? The only thing that comes close is the legacy Marine sniper, which I do admit is a very good figure. It's still not on par with the Cobra troops.

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>>11749967

>>11750123
The vehicle choices are really strange, skyhawk, sharc, firebat are all small and iconic no brainers that should have been in the pipe after the trouble bubble, polar battle bear seems like an obvious thing to sell alongside the snowcat at least so maybe we’ll get that when it’s closer to release

>>11750146
Maybe polar battle bear will come with long-overdue Iceberg or a new version of Snow Job

>>11750194
Maybe they should just stop including named figures with vehicles and knock $30 off their price. That way they can sell more, and people won't get stuck with copies of teh same figure if they want to double up.

>>11750211
I agree 100%, but Hasbro isn't going to do that. They have had some level of understanding, which is why most cobra vehicles came with generic troops instead of named characters. Plus the rumor that the Mocassin will come with a generic swamp troop instead of Copperhead.

With rising prices it would completely help collectors to lower the prices by NOT including figures. It's simple logic. But nah. Let's clog up Ebay with a shitload of Zanyas for sale.

>>11749605
OP here. I forgot to include the Cobra flight deck 2-pack that's coming. Sorry.

There was a rumor of female green shirt coming with the Sky Hawk

Speaking of rumors, shouldn't we have gotten leaks from whatever haslab focus groups they're doing this year? Pretty sure we had those before march the past couple of years.

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>>11750308
I've heard zero rumors of Skyhawk coming nevertheless a Joe female greenshirt to start catching up to Cobra's army of female troops. It would be nice if true.

>>11750405
They play their games. They leak fuzzy-low-res images of their lists for the entire year while giving only the retailer SKUs, then spend the rest of the year filling it in. They've already decided on everything that'll get released up until December 31, and by the halfway point of the year they'll be working on next year's list.

More than likely this year's HASLAB will be Thunder Machine because it gets brought up far too often out of nowhere to just be random gossip. Comicfags will no doubt demand Deadnoks that only modern comicfags know and care about. Personally I want color-changing Zartan and Zarana with a new head sculpt on the otherwise-perfect Zarana.

>>11750146
>The vehicle choices are really strange
How so? They started off with smaller but still popular options and have been slowly working their way through the catalogue ever since. Outside of that first Baroness Motorcycle, it's not like they're releasing uppopular or unwanted vehicles. Hell they only dropped a Vamp on us about a year and a half ago, and have already put out a Stinger Repaint, the AWE Striker and a massively improved SNAKE Armor that fits that same price point. Sky Hawks,Sharc and Firebats will all occupy a similar price point and we seem to be getting two of them a year with smaller stuff like the motorcycles and flight pods and Claws mixed in (we know a Dreadnok Cycle is on the way already). It's only a matter of time before we get to those, though I'm holding out hope for an Armadillo.

I can certainly see them dropping a Polar Bear at some point this year, probably closer to when the Snow Cat is expected to hit, or maybe even the Arctic HISS. But for the short amount of time they've been putting out decent sized vehicles, we've gotten nothing but popular choices. Though I guess and argument could be made that Destro's Despoiler is a bit of a curveball but being packed with a very in demand version of the character kind of works in it's favor and was how he was originally released.

>>11750211
I would love to see that, I didn't mind them packing the Televiper with the Trouble Bubble, and I have no issues with the Ferret and Claw pilots. If they *need* to pack a figure with a vehicle, unless it's a vehicle specific to a single character (i.e. Destro's Despoiler), I'd rather it be usable as an army builder.

>>11750220
I would be perfectly happy if smaller vehicles didn't come with pilots.

>>11750308
Maybe she'll be a reference to Freestyle

>>11750435
>Personally I want color-changing Zartan

They made that back in 2021, though I guess they could drop a Retro version of him.

>>11750502
I wouldn't mind a version of Zartan that looks closer to the original 1984 figure with not being so over-muscular, color-changing skin, and eyes that look like they glow in the dark but don't. I always thought it was weird that they depicted the master of disguise as tall and massive. I can imagine him getting busted constantly with "What happened to our top secret scientist Doctor Pajeet? Why is he suddenly a foot taller and built like He-Man?"

>>11750577
>and eyes that look like they glow in the dark but don't
But...why go through all that not to have them glow?

>>11750211
>>11750220
The only reason they can release the vehicles as they are is because of their high price and they include the figure to justify that high price.
Remove the figure to lower the price and stores won't carry it anymore

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>>11750738
I don't know why they did that. My only guess is they felt they spent enough money on that new experimental color-changing plastic, so they didn't want to spend any more. It looks cool like that though.

>>11750739
>Remove the figure to lower the price and stores won't carry it anymore
I doubt that's true because lower-priced items are easier to sell. And they can't keep on pricing everyone out of the market. If they want to increase sales then they need to deflate the prices.

>>11750882
>they need to deflate the prices.
Won't happen ever, sadly. Not without a huge crash.

>>11751278
Economies of scale. The more you produce of something, the cheaper the per-unit price is. That brings down the price. Hasbro knows this, which is why they're financially able to include more with higher HASLAB backer numbers. And kids have left the market because of the high prices.

>>11750405
Seema like they'd be leery of doing a Haslab with all the crazy shit going on right now. People are going to have a loooooot less money to spend.

>>11751293
>The more you produce of something, the cheaper the per-unit price is.
not going to happen, because the GI Joe line's shelf has been diminishing year after year since the movie bombed.
So the line has to stay high priced unless it becomes popular again, thus releasing figures with the vehicles to justify the high prices.

>>11751834
>So the line has to stay high priced unless it becomes popular again
That's a contradiction. Keeping prices high ensures that it won't be popular again.

>>11750123
If Destro with his Despoiler costs about the same as the VAMP and Stinger did a year or two ago, how much would a Firebat or Skyhawk cost now? If they got released today, it seems like a VAMP or Stinger would probably cost significantly more.

>>11751834
Man, remember the Snake Eyes figures sitting on shelves by the thousands? For like, two years?

>>11751937
They're really starting to price me out of the market. Last year I only bought two expensive things (Rattler Baroness and Stinger). Everything else was the $27 stuff. I did get the money to buy a Ghost Viper, but by the time it finally showed up in my area I had to choose between buying stuff for the Thanksgiving meal or a $60 toy. These price increases are unsustainable for me, and sales are shrinking because the number of people who can afford the price increases are shrinking.

>>11751944
It's bullshit and most people are dealing with the higher cost of everything. With toys being a hobby, less people are going to be buying overpriced figures. I've been priced out but I'm still living comfortably with my old collection. I have no need to throw extra money and space away for something I feel doesn't deserve its price.

>>11752051
I agree. New toys are priced at levels that make me look to fill in holes in my vintage collecting. For example, that $60 for a Ghost Viper will buy any regular loose original Joe except for Cobra Commander, BAT, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, or Firefly. That $110 for Destro's Despoiler buys any of them loose in good condition except for straight-arm CC, and buys most vehicles too.

And I don't solely collect Joes. I collect original SW, Transformers, GoBots, etc. Current prices really are motivating me to buy vintage over new because in the real world unless you're rich (I'm not), then price is absolutely a motivator in the decision-making process of what I buy. For example, I can rationalize a 4-decade toy at $50, but paying that exact same amount for a new 2-pack or "fat-packed" Classified loaded with a pet and/or lots of extras is hard to do.

>>11752056
Even vintage prices are getting retarded though. People are still thinking they'll be able buy a mansion by selling off a toy.

>>11752081
That's true with some stuff. MOC Star Wars and MISB G1 Transformers that have been graded are selling for thousands, and I don't think we've reached the ceiling for their values. Only a small handful of 80s Joes are on that same level, but the ones that are will never be cheap.

>>11752254
>when a second-string figure should have been a mainline figure

This is what Hit-N-Run should have looked like.

>>11752255
Hit n run looks better. This is a knock off beach head.

>>11752255
>>11752282
What makes Hit n Run worse than the new guy? They both are cool

>>11752292
It's just one autist, he's said this kinda thing multiple times now

>>11751918
Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it will become popular though, and that's Hasbro's view on it, hence keeping prices as high as their Marvel and Star WArs toylines, which they pay very high licensing fees and royalties for. Again, if their prices weren't high, stores wouldn't be carrying it, because of how diminished the toyline has become.

>>11752051
This is pretty much my view on modern age toys. There's very few modern toylines I've been buying now, BUT I have been buying more older shit that i missed out on the first time. i might as well buy toys i always wanted to get, but didn't feel like paying their secondary market prices but thought that they were overpriced, because new toys are overpriced today.

There aren't many modern toys i like anymore though. The Marvel Legends line is mostly just retreads of shit i already bought ages ago and new Marvel designs aren't good. Only thing i care about with Star Wars now are their diorama sets. ...
Modern lines i had been regularly buying were Halo, Fortnite, WH40k, Hiya's various 1:18 lines, Gargoyles,... basically, all dead or slowing down with little out there.
The fact that /toy/ really doesn't post about new lines says something about the current toy industry. So my new toys buying has been very sporadic, which almost gives me no choice but to buy old toys.

>>11752056
Eh, I'd rather pay $60 for a modern toy with current engineering, details, articulation, durability and a large accessory count then go back and buy the toys I had as a kid. I have plenty of my original O-Ring figures but I stopped messing with them since newer figures were more fun. I have a small G1 collection, but most of it was discount stuff and part of it was from when I was a kid, but I'm not gonna go dropping hundreds on older toys when newer ones are more engaging to play with.

>>11752316
>The fact that /toy/ really doesn't post about new lines says something about the current toy industry.

....he says in a thread mostly about a new toyline. Hell, the vast majority of Toy is kept afloat by "what's new" as opposed to vintage collecting. The Marvel General isn't filled with people posting about their early 90s Toybiz collections, or even early '00s Marvel Legends, it's all about what's new from Hasbro, Mafex, Figuarts and others. The MotU threads thrive on Origins posting, or more currently the new movie themed stuff. Figma threads always focus on who's coming out next, very rarely do you ever see old V1 Saber or even Yotusba anymore.

Unless you mean new *franchises*...in which case those are often buried within different Generals as none of em have enough output for their own threads. Or at least none of the "collector" oriented lines, actual kids stuff just gets ignored by /toy/, as it always has. But Snail Shell, Lado Toys, Mythic Legions, various chinese companies, Valaverse, Boss Fight stuff or 30mm, all those lines get plenty of discussion across various different threads. But unfortunately /toy/, like all of 4chan has seen a dramatic decrease in user base and the two week autosage system kills discussion of all but the biggest brands or dedicated toy bases, so lesser known brands can't even support a thread for long.

tl:dr - stop shouting at the kids to get off your lawn grandpa.

>>11752349
This isn't a new line. GI Joe's been a mainstay on /toy/ since the first year /toy/ existed and this specific line has been in production since 2020.

I'm talkinga bout toylines that fill in the space that Halo and Fortnite used to take up. There's no new lines, at least on /toy/ or that i care about, to fill in the space that they used to take up. There's no new toylines that got a constant quarterly/bi-monthly waves released besides the mainstays now.
If there are, can you name one? I mean, besides kiddy shit like Skibi Toilet or the new Mario movie shit?

I think /toy/'s activity is directly correlated with the toylines that are being made and their popularity. Hence the DC General becoming a mainstay in the past 6 years. Aside from that, there's not enough new shit being released to keep people active on /toy/, and i mean new shit that gets released every week.
The only toylines that /toy/ talks about where you can literally buy something new every week are the mainstays like Transformers, Marvel Legends, etc. Before? Lines like 3a and Mezco were almost monthly, so it was regular enough to keep the threads populated and active.

I mean, what are the active threads on /toy/? It's mainly just the same shit that we've had since the beginning of the board. Marvel Legends, Figma, Figuarts, GI Joe, NECA, Transformers, etc. We used to have threads for many other toylines, because they were popular enough to support an active community. Threads JUST for Mezco, Warhammer, 1:18 scale, Mythic Legion, 3A, McFarlane, Acid Rain, Fortnite, but those don't exist anymore or are so sporadic that they mighta s well not exist.
The new toylines that do exist are so sparse that they get swept into catch alls like the fantasy and coomer general.

>>11752051
>higher cost of everything

blokees are cheap, in fact most chinese product are decently priced its just americans over pricing everything

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Bbts taking forever with my Zap preorder, so I went hunting again. Local Walmart has gone back to being a ghost town ever since the collector display got taken down. The one out of town seems to still have space for them on the main aisles, but aside from the new Action Soldier, they're still inundated with retro CCs and Stalkers that will not move.

>>11752392
My Zap just showed up today, it's currently sitting in a huge box with the rest of my PoL as I haven't had a chance to bust it open yet. It shouldn't be long as they're coming in at this point.

>>11752392
Turning Cover Girl into a mechanic gives me a "Cindy from Final Fantasy XV joined GI Joe" vibes.

>>11752382
a lot of this is just due to the decline in number of posters here too, its a lot lower than it used to be

>>11752686
Assholes who just want to argue and mega-assholes who constantly get others banned by flooding in jannie in-box with "off topic" reports drove away a lot of traffic.

Also happy Easter, everyone. Christ has risen.

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>>11752686
it could be, but the DC General grew at the same time, because there were worthwhile DC figures on a regular basis now.
So it doesn't quite line up.
The Warhammer General also started getting popular at that time too, thanks McFarlane, Joytoy and Bandai making figures. So by 2021, it saw a ton of growth.

Everything else? COVID/shipping crisis fucking everything over led to the decline of so many lines. Mezco, 3a/whoever makes the WWR line now, Acid Rain, and various other lines started being much more sporadic in their releases, so their Generals also died. There was a direct correlation with toy releases and posters/thread right there.
And those toylines became lame ducks afterward too, with a lot of delays and cancellations, so the communities didn't spring back after they restarted their releases again.

And I'm not saying that the various changes to 4chan didn't make people stop posting here (captcha, updates, bans, auto-saging threads), but people would be less likely to leave if those communities didn't disintegrate from the lack of toys. I mean, even GI Joe isn't what it used to be, with fewer waves per year and fewer figures per wave. So discussion is obviously going to be slower.
Back in the day, most discussion was centered around what was being released right now, whereas today... well, here's this meta discussion, but the majority of toy discussion is about future releases and speculation. IT's definitely not as exciting as CHECK OUT MY NEW TOY.

The entire board is lacking in that NEW TOY discussion, because there's not a lot of NEW TOYS being released post 2022. Most everything started floundering around this time, if not being killed, and not a lot of new lines to replace them.
There's less to discover today. Once upon a time, there was a new kickstarter for toys seemingly every month and now there's... 2 a year? 3 maybe?

>>11752382
cosmic legion mythic legion

blokees

>>11752732
>now there's... 2 a year? 3 maybe?
Maybe you live under a rock.
There are 3 in progress right now: Cryptoids, Kolchak, and Ashen Oath, and that 1:12 pirate one starts soon. Kolchak is the only one I haven't seen mentioned here on the board.
Last year was a bit slow because of the circus clown, but even then there was more than 3. Most of them were kind of crappy or niche things though, like the Lincoln Monsters, the weird O-ring skater girl one and the vintage style Mighty Orbots. But there were still some interesting ones, like World War Hell and The Cursed Dead. There was also an Oddworld Abe figure, and I think that YouTuber with the lumberjack sasquatch mascot did another one too.
So that's at least 7 last year, and like I said, it was a slow year.
The year before had heaps, like Flip-or, Zombie Tramp, Monstors, Army Ant, Brutal Realm, Medieval Spawn, Laurel and Hardy, and those skeletons with goat heads that I can't remember the name of.
And those are just the ones I remember because they interested me.
Plus those really gay mermen that someone kept making threads for. I just remembered those like a repressed traumatic incident. I hope the anon that posted them gets a tapeworm.
So i don't know what planet you live on where we only get 3 toy Kickstarters a year.

>>11752384
I feel like calling most Chinese products as 'cheap' requires you to really ignore that a significant amount of them are actually outrageously expensive compared to something like a Classified figure. Most 3rd party/unofficial Transformers are Chinese and I wouldn't call any of those cheap, some of the smaller ones are pretty affordable in a boutique sense but even an addon set for a Official can run you almost as much as the figure you're jamming it onto at times.
Most Gundam adjacent figures, original design or otherwise, they'll always be priced higher than a Bandai model of the same thing(unless it's a straight up bootleg of a kit)
The girly action figures you might see in the Shinki and Friends or CTG threads, yeah they'll run you a decently sized bill, there can be value to be had in the kit side of things if you look sometimes and can avoid paying too much postage but pre-assembled is expensive.
And Blokees, they have a few cheap price points sure but plenty of their larger releases butt up against or exceed their western(or Japanese) equivalents.
The idea Chinese equals cheap, hasn't been true for some time, if it ever was

>>11752803
Chinese figures haven't been "cheap" in a LONG time. Even back in the early 00s, third party Transformer figures from China were super expensive and usually very high quality. Over time they've only been able to put out better and better figures at increasingly high upper limit price points. It's a very direct market aimed exclusively at collectors and relying entirely on online sales, so stuff like price points, character releases, box size and all the other crap that used to be demanded by retail chains have absolutely no affect on what they put out.

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>>11752788
I'm talking about •new• and things that /toy/ actually cares about though. Toy aisles are always full of new toylines, but who gives a shit about skibidi toilet? or the latest trending grocery gang/monser in my pocket blindbags?
Most of those kickstarters you listed are also the types of shit that were around 10 years ago (and there were more of them too) but no one bothered to make threads about them, because it wasnt interesting to 100% of /toy/, unlike something like pic.
This toyline generated a lot of excitement for /toy/ and there were more projects like this every month.

Stuff like the recently ended Mythic Legion Kickstarter are shit that /toy/ cares about, but that's only going to please the established fanbases. It doesn't draw in new fans. Again, there's no sense of discovery there.

I mean, that sense of discovery like fucking toy hunting is treated as nostalgia today, because of how few GI Joes are released in waves today and those waves in themselves are fewer than they used to be. We used to come to these threads to call out our locations to tell others what new wave was out or what figures we found. There was a wave every two months and case revisions inbetween those waves, so there could be constant activity and most of it was helpful.
Again, today, that's missing, because of how little they release, so the topic is reduced to mostly boring speculation and nostalgiafagging. Some poorfags0 are so bored that they'll even post AI shit.

>>11752803
Yeah, Chinese shit isn't cheap at all. Considering the cost of living and production over there, everything is super inflated in price. Lots of rip off prices, like they're selling their shit to Saudi princes, and the quality control is usually bad too.

>>11752803
>The idea Chinese equals cheap, hasn't been true for some time

Only for Americans because you're scared of what you let them do with handling all the manufacturing of goods

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>>11752631
Don't look, anon
>>11752669
Is she not already a mechanic?

>>11753139
Ah yes, Hellscreamerz, a project so popular it had a whopping 400 backers! Why they even almost broke 100k in funding, which was a lot of money way back in the far off year of....2021....

So you ever get yours yet?

tl;dr - everything in your post is utter nonsense and you are just making yourself look foolish every time you respond.

>>11753147
Chinese figures are neither cheap price wise nor cheap construction wise, so I don't even get what you're trying to imply here. They make some damn good original figures these days as a lot of em are just as into all the same crap as western audiences.

>>11753160
Yea, I don't get why anyone would be confused that Cover Girl, the tank mechanic, is portrayed as a tank mechanic.

Also, they need to drop the Blue and Yellow Baroness already, that mold just looks fantastic and I feel she'll look even better in brighter colors I mean, I always preferred Baroness to be in black leather battle armor, but that figure is just begging for a more colorful repaint.

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>>11753199
it was popular on /toy/, hence garnering a lot of attention even back then. Yeah, i lost my money on it, but it doesn't change the fact that there were many people actively posting about it.
More people were interested in it than some generals today.

>I don't even get what you're trying to imply here
Because you're playing stupid to make contarrian arguments.
A lot of people know what he's talking about.
See pic? The figure on the left costs $160. The figure on the right costs $20.
Does the figure on the left have $140 worth of features than the one on the right?

Nevermind the quality control for the left was pretty bad, so a lot of people complained about brittle plastics and pieces not being glued on right. Nevermind the 1990s Kenner-quality gold plastics.

>>11753227
>JoyToy out of nowhere
OBSESSED

>>11753160
Yes but technically her classification is that of tank driver>>11753147

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I looked up this character because I never really read the Devil's Due Publisher GI Joe run. Would she be a general Classified release or Retro? I hope her inclusion is a sign we'll be getting more obscure Cobra babes. Dr. Knox, Sub Commander, and Raven the Strato-Viper all would be rad.

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>>11753245
Not surprising it's him making stupid arguments based on lies.

>>11753253
Her primary is Armor and her secondary is AFV Mechanic.

>>11753267
Probably general as I don't think she ever got a toy previously so it wouldn't make sense to give her an ARAH Carded figure. And yea, it would be cool to see more of the lesser known or even one shot ladies from the comics and cartoon. For both Joe and Cobra.

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My new Hiya arrived

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>>11753370
Sculpted detail looks great for a 1/18 figure.

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>>11753371

>>11753160
It's almost been a year, so she's about due for the repaint release. I also wouldn't mind if they gave her blue skin and released her as Mara

>>11753267
That outfit is too "1990s comic book superhero." This is one case where I hope they redesign it to something more feasible.

>>11753160
It hurts.

>>11753370
>when licensing fees make the smaller one cost more than the big one

>>11752316
>that's Hasbro's view on it, hence keeping prices as high as their Marvel and Star WArs toylines
You just revealed your hand, Mr. Hasbro employee.

Classified is deliberately inflated so the higher-priced licensed stuff doesn't have price-competition from within the same company. Heaven forbid the Marvel and Star Wars brands aren't strong enough to sell on their own without worrying about the prices of other stuff. When Star Wars licensing fees and prices rise, GI Joe MUST rise with it "to be fair."

Fuck that. Hasbro needs to look out for Hasbro first, not Disney. They lost money last year because of the massive amounts of unsellable Star Wars and capeshit not even Ollie's can get rid of.

>>11752732
The DC General is a terrible example. It's literally one attention whore taking to himself about Starman Jack, Power Girl and a number of public domain characters from the 40s.

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Hasbro really needs to make "the viper." They need to fat-pack it with multiple types of window wipers and multiple heads so collectors can army-build it. They need to make it exclusive to only 10% of all Walmarts while allowing scalpers to list it on the Walmart website for $90 to manipulate collectors into ignoring the $60 price tag in their desperate mentality of tracking it down. Then they need to blame the computers for the distribution afterwards.

>>11753374
much better face than the other hiya joes I’ve seen

>>11753160
That's all she is since Hasbro will never deliver a Wolverine.

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>>11753471
I wish i was a Hasbro employee, but I'd have been fired long ago like David Vonner, because I'd have been pushing for 1:18 scale

And just so you know, Hasbro used to be really fair, thus the 1:18 GI Joes were cheaper than the 1:18 Marvel and 3.75" Star Wars figures. Even the Star Wars figures were sometimes more expensive than the Marvel figures. So before, you could really tell how much the licenses cost them. Even within the same line, you can see how just adding movie photos/labels cost more thanks to how the royalties break down for that versus the tv show (see pic).

sales have dropped too much for them to do that now.

>>11753863
Go into any Ollie's or Ross, and see which one they have the most of and which one they have the least of:Star Wars, Marvel, and GI Joe.

Raising Joe prices to hedge against the losses of the licenced shit is only pricing the fanbase out.

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>>11753459
Yeah, that's mildly annoying
>>11753576
I cant find my Baroness, but Iron-Knife looks leagues better than her when it comes to face sculpt. And with his rubberized hair it's a lot easier to pose his head than Baroness with her solid hair

>>11753871
My Ross always has more SW stuff than snything. Sometimes Joes, sometimes Legends.

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>>11752392
>>11752405
Finally hit the pile, hopefully he's in by the weekend
>>11753858
Yeah it's odd we don't have a Joe tank yet. I would've thought we'd at least get the Armadillo by now

A new round of potential leaks came out. Take them with a grain of salt.

>>11754205
Muskrat
Sonic Fighters style Road Pig
Stealth Cobra CLAWS
blue S.N.A.K.E. armor with dire tech
Triple T with Sgt Slaughter (which version?)
Arctic Cobra Commander
Arctic Baroness
Scoop
Tundra Stalker with kayak
Energon universe Baroness
Shirtless battle Serpentor (war of Springfield comics)
Zanzibar (not sure with skiff or not)
Voltar with bird

>>11754213
Desert team (desert repaints maybe?)
Dusty v3 with Sanstorm
Water mocassin with gunner (no Copperhead sold with it)
Retro Firefly

>>11754213
I probably should have held out for the blue snake armor knowing how quickly hasbro plastic yellows

>>11754234
I’m waiting for Red Shadows Escape Armor version.

>>11754213
Deluxe Deep Six (no Sharc)
Another ninja force 2 pack after Scarlett and Tj’Bang
Fatal Fluffy monster

My guesses:
Marauders Mutt and Footloose
Deluxe Blizzard
Deluxe Cobra-La Golobulous

>>11754213
>Triple T with Sgt Slaughter (which version?)
Probably USA wifebeater, because they did TTT Sarge right out of the gate.

>>11754259
>no sharc
fuck

>>11754213
Arctic CC and the two Baronesses are the only ones that caught my attention. The first SNAKE sold out so damn fast that it was gone before I knew it was out by the second loses my attention with "dire tech" which tells me it exclusive to 10% of the Walmart stores and will be overpriced.

Arctic Stalker can be crap or absolutely bad-ass. Let's see how Hasbro handles it.

>>11754269
Stupid autocorrect fucked up my sentence on the SNAKE and makes it sound incoherent. At least it's not as bad as the time it autocorrected "Big Lob" to "Big Lip."

It's not hard to imagine Arctic Baroness is Rattler Baroness repainted white with a "soft goods" trench coat. It'll be an instant sellout if that's the case.

>>11754272
I've told you, I've cursed it, the world is going to end before we get another Baroness, it's literally over.

>>11754293
You didn't curse shit. When it comes to female figures Baroness is their biggest one, which is why we've gotten five of them with more coming. She's the female "Snake Eyes" when it comes to easy-sell figures. So I totally believe that we're getting two more in the near-future.

Where the fuck are Flash and Grand Slam?

I hope shirtless Serpentor can be positioned to recreate the comics scene when he’s pulling the bullet out of his arm with a hot knife.
That would be awesome.

>>11754347
Iceberg too. He was listed as a coming figure then all mention of him disappeared. I guess they'd rather put out arctic Stalker, which I admit is a better choice if true.

>>11754394
Iceberg, along with rugged Duke, Toxo-Viper and Mistress Armada are coming out in the wave that hits around Yo Joe June.

>>11754394
You reckon they do his kayak, at the figure + pet price-point? Ignore it altogether?

>>11754402
The $50 fat-pack? Or the Walmart-exclusive $60+ price?

>>11754428
Could be.

>>11754347
At this point I suspect they'll be in a two pack like Steeler and Short Fuse

>>11754524
Grand Slam would most likely be packed with the rocket pack and the launch platform. So Flash would probably be retro-card like the coming Zap. Figure.

>>11753871
>Raising Joe prices to hedge against the losses of the licenced shit is only pricing the fanbase out.
again, they're not going to price it down, because sales have dropped too much. They'll cancel the line before they lower prices, because it's not profitable or/and it's better to put their resources into something else.

>>11754659
High prices are part of the reason for the sales drop. You don't stoke sales by raising prices.

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>>11754272
It is much more likely that they reuse the Snow Cat Lady Jaye mold. I don't think Hasbro has ever done a soft goods coat

>>11754685
True that they never did a soft goods coat but there's a first time for everything. The only three ways I've seen Baroness in winter is black battle armor with an overcoat, the same thing but white armor, and a skin-tight suit with overcoat. But as we saw with ones like Crystal Ball they can go in completely unpredictable directions and somehow make something awesome out of it.

>>11754683
sales dropped before prices went up.

The early classified figures weren't all that well liked, hence Hasbro dropping the new style the Classified line launched with.
The movie figures also bombed.

This is part of why Hasbro increased the prices in the first place. The other part is COVID+shipping crisis and now the economy being shit.

>You don't stoke sales by raising prices.
You don't, but Hasbro is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If Hasbro lowers prices, it's not worth it to continue on. This is also why they stick a figure with the vehicles, because in order to keep the price point that makes it worthwhile, they need to include the figure.

If Hasbro thought more sales would increase from a price drop, they'd have done so.
I mean, I just recently passed up a Stalker and the Stinger vehicle at Ross at 67% off MSRP last week ($8 and $30), because I only buy favorites... but if they had been 1:18 and the same price, I'd buy up their entire stock just to army build.

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>>11754722
>>11754685
i don't think that lady jaye is very far off with some new parts

>>11754739
Give me artic vipers.

>>11754750
no can do, how about a full set of artic dreadnoks instead

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These Blade glasses are so much better than any of the glasses we've gotten in Classified.
>>11754213
>another Slaughter
Sounds about right. Stalker with the kayak would be awesome, hope they'll do a new head sculpt.
>>11754347
>>11754524
>>11754642
Yeah jump pad Grand Slam would be my guess to differentiate him from Flash, I don't think the HAL would do that well

>>11754750
Only if they're not just straight white repaints of regular Vipers. That snow mission pack with the White Night Viper and SAW Viper is just lazy.

>>11754818
I'd rather grab a HAL over the MMS, and they put out two of the latter.

>>11754883
>>11754739
you can see one there and he has a puff jacket. It wouldn't be lazy white wash

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>>11754739
Repainting the Rattler Baroness with a long coat would work better, and would absolutely sell better. And they've done soft goods before with ghille suits. Throw in a lot of modern Joe collectors not caring for the cartoon and preferring the 2000s comic book stuff.

>>11754739
>>11754685
It would take too much altering of the molds to turn the clearly-different coats into two figures. Plus retooling the rest of the battle armor Baroness mold. I can't say that Hasbro wouldn't do that, but the cost-effective approach is a Rattler repaint with soft-goods long coat.

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>>11754213
>Energon universe Baroness
Not sure if I like this version. There's just something wrong about her being a good guy. Her being a spoiled born-rich psychopath out to burn the world for the shits and giggles is 100% her character.

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>>11754974
Yeah it's retarded. Outfit looks like some lousy 90s era superhero and the artwork is dogshit.

>>11754978
>the artwork is dogshit.
Intentional to "fight coomer male gaze" by people who think it's a hate crime for a woman to be attractive.

>>11754984
I bet it's drawn by a tranny that imagines itself to look like this.

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>>11754987
Guess which one of these is Hasbro's brand manager who controls how everything GI Joe-related gets depicted.

>>11754992
Purple haired Classified Monstro-Viper when?

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>>11754963
It's not a Retro release anyway so why would she resemble the cartoon? In fact...Operation Blackout, the video game that launched the Classified line, had it's own version of Arctic Baroness.

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>>11755093
Here's a close up of OB Arctic Baroness. Notice her hair has the same dye job as the woman in pic related >>11754992

>>11755093
>>11755096
I always forget the initial Baroness was meant to have a bunch of gold highlights and purple hair. Crazy how quickly they nipped that shit in the bud.

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>>11755100
>they nipped that shit in the bud
You say that but Arctic Baroness might be an attempt to bring OB Baroness designs back. I hope I'm wrong.

>>11755102
There's zero chance. Any time a figure comes out with even a minor change to their original design, there's outcry. I don't think we've seen a Joepro in years.

>>11755093
>>11755110
Hasbro is doing stuff from beyond the original ARAH "continuity." That was clear with incorporating Quarrel and Glenda into the line as well as the Ghost Viper, GRIM Viper, and coming Dawn Moreno SE. At this point they can go into any direction or even do something entirely new. It really is unpredictable, and that leave us with multiple ways Arctic Baroness could turn out. The part of me that's a cartoon nerd wouldn't object to the cartoon likeness, but at the same time, I'm still thinking repaint because repaints are a cheap way to make a profitable figure since it paid for its mold and development in the first run. So Arctic Baroness could be Rattler repaint but with a white poncho that's crimped at the head similar to Luke Jedi's robe.

>>11755100
>purple hair
>>11754992

>>11754974
>>11754978
If they give us G.I. Joe Baroness then I hope we get Cobra Mercer as he still works for Destro the Energon comics.

>>11754992
Oh great this faggot obsessed with the fat woman is back.

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crimson gals showed up today
they're great
gonna put a marvel legends head on one of them

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>>11755352
I mean, he's not wrong.
If GI Joe and its characters shifts in a direction that they aren't known for, you should be blaming the more obvious Hasbro employee who looks like they belong at a lesbian cartoon pony convention instead of a military parade.

I mean, even that fat mexican dude, you know he's the reason why the Classified line started off unpular with its techhnologically furutistic designs, because he was involved with the Transformers line for so long.

I don't think there's anyone in charge of the GI Joe line that actually understands it, hence almost everything they're making is what 40 year old fans are asking for. And that's not really conductive to a children's toyline.
Back during the 2000s and 2010s, there were still old time designers and military fans in charge of the GI Joe line, hence hitting gold with Pursuit of Cobra. Brand new designs, that didn't cater only to nostalgiafags, yet it wowwed them and the kids. So despite the movie being such a disappointment, the GI Joe rebounded fast and garnered even more support.
You knew that that the people in charge of GI Joe back then knew exactly what they were doing when fans and kids were getting super excited over an accessory that's smaller than a grain of rice.

>>11755474
we NEED the POC crew to run this franchise.

>>11755474
>I mean, even that fat mexican dude, you know he's the reason why the Classified line started off unpular with its techhnologically furutistic designs, because he was involved with the Transformers line for so long.

I can tell by all your misspellings you're an ESL yourself, or maybe you're just really mad so you typed that really fast, but we know the reason they looked like that and it's not your smoking gun Mexican

>>11755509
I want that dusty they made as a classified figure no changes needed.

>>11755474
It's very clear YOU don't understand what made G.I. Joe popular, so please keep your incorrect opinions to yourself.

>>11755509
>>11755522
If they just straight up took all the best POC figures and upsized them to 1:12 scale I'd very much buy every single one of em.

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>>11755509
>we NEED the POC crew to run this franchise.
Sadly, they all either retired or they got fired. This is why there's a purple hair and transfags in charge now.
When GI Joe got canned in 2013, they didn't need a big team anymore, especially since they ongoing line was mostly re-releases and products that were at least half way done. And once GI Joe got fully canceled in 2016, even the half assed team was reshuffled or fired.
Modern GI Joe also got half assed once the movie line bombed, hence the current team that doesn't know what they're doing and just doing what the nostalgiafags ask from them.

>>11755522
if they only remake shit that was popular in 2010, then they'll still fail.
They NEED better creative people in charge or at least know what they're doing, and they NEED to create NEW shit, instead of retreads. Remakes are boring.
The only reason you want a remake is because the current shit is so lame.
Making something new and a love for military shit is what made PoC so great, so if they continued making /new/ /cool/ /designs/ like they were in PoC, you'd be too busy wanting the new cool designs to ask for remakes... like most of us were back in 2010.

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People will buy this just for the new Scarlett head (myself included), unless they fuck it up like they did with the retro.

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>>11755469
I envisioned doing this with the insanely evil looking Sharon Carter head before they ever even announced female Crimson Guards, and now I get to

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>>11755469
>>11755668
Good stuff. I'm still going back and forth on whether I want to grab some. I never bothered to pick up any CG, and getting retro male ones that actually match the ladies looks like it would cost an arm and a leg.
>>11755522
Seconded
>>11755654
That's my plan, hoping to do a hair swap as well.

>>11755677
>Good stuff. I'm still going back and forth on whether I want to grab some. I never bothered to pick up any CG, and getting retro male ones that actually match the ladies looks like it would cost an arm and a leg.
If you're iffy, I suspect the female CGs will be similar to the valkyries in the sense that they're just always going to be generally available, and will be on sale multiple times, if not doubly so given they're a single release and aren't any kind of exclusive
I would've preferred the darker red and black version, and they'll definitely make those eventually, but I'm just always excited for women troopers regardless

>>11755679
also the plug where the scabbard attaches to the belt is even less secure than the male version of the CG, which already weren't great, that would be my biggest complaint

I don't know if this is really the right place to ask, but whatever. I'm a millennial watching G.I. Joe for the first time because I want to understand why so many of Gen X are obsessed with it. To my great surprise, I would say it's actually a pretty good cartoon by the standards of the time. I don't think I'll ever love it enough to spend money on Joe toys, but I get why the people who do love it think it's cool.

Anyway, I just finished 'Arise, Serpentor, Arise!' and I'm curious...how did 80s kids feel about this new villain being introduced and completely stealing Cobra Commander's thunder? How is the character generally regarded within the fandom?

>>11755703
>I would say it's actually a pretty good cartoon by the standards of the time.
it wasn't.
I thought it was steamy shit even when i was a kid watching it
It was better than He-Man, sure, but it was still shit. It's like comparing a human turd to a dog turd.

This is why i prefered stuff like Robotech or Mysterious Cities of Gold. Better stories. Better animation. Shit actually made sense.

As a kid, i used to think that the Hanna Barbera turds like Huckleberry Hound, Laff Olympics, or Mr Magoo were the oldest cartoons, while golden age Disney or Looney Tunes were modern, because technique and technology got better over time, right? Didn't learn until the late 80s that the the golden age shit was actually from the 30s and 40s, and a million times better than 60s, 70s, and even 80s cartoons because they had a budget for good animation and quality writers. Kids who grew up with 90s+ cartoons were super fucking spoiled, because cartoons started to have a budget again and weren't complete rot.

As for Serpentor, i hated him and I was happy that he "died" in the movie. I missed most of the DIC cartoon so i didn't know that he survived and got done away with there. I always thought he was written retarded on purpose too, because he was designed to be hated. "This i command" would get on anyone's nerves... right?

Also, i haven't rewatched TMNT since i was a kid, because i don't want to ruin my nostalgia for it.

>>11755731
>This is why i prefered stuff like Robotech or Mysterious Cities of Gold. Better stories. Better animation. Shit actually made sense.
Well yeah, they were dubbed anime.

>>11755743
GI Joe was anime too but specifically made for the western market. You can really see the anime style in the first "A Real American Hero" cartoon.

>>11755731
Robotech was shit. Imagine taking a n already-made cartoon then editing it, moving stuff around, and changing names and pieces of the story so you could copyright someone else's series as yours. That's exactly what Harmony Gold did.

>>11755469
They look like they need a hug from Solid Snake.

>>11755731
>It was better than He-Man, sure, but it was still shit. It's like comparing a human turd to a dog turd.

Kek, that is what I mean though. It's not the high watermark for an animated series by any means, but I do find it more watchable than its contemporaries (He-Man, G1 Transformers, Thundercats, TMNT, etc.). It is stupid as fuck, but in a generally entertaining way.

>Kids who grew up with 90s+ cartoons were super fucking spoiled

I always felt like this as someone who grew up during that period, but I always assumed that was just an unwarranted sense of generational superiority on my part. Plus, we had stuff like Batman the Animated Series sure, but we also had Power Rangers, which is just as retarded as G.I. Joe to anyone that didn't grow up with it.

>As for Serpentor, i hated him and I was happy that he "died" in the movie

That's what I figured the general reaction to be for sure though. Can't imagine Golobulus and the Cobra-La shit was any better received, but I guess I'll see for myself when I get to the movie.

>"This i command" would get on anyone's nerves... right?

It's certainly already getting on mine. That said, I do actually kind of like the shift in characterization it's resulted in for Cobra Commander. Chris Latta plays the asshole usurper (or resurper in this I guess) like no one else and having him basically become the Starscream to Serpentor's Megatron is highly amusing to me so far.

All this arguing and butt munching about the cartoon makes me happy I have zero attachment to it and only collect GI Joe because I'm a gear queer. One day, I hope to get enough parts from various generic military dudes to customize a figure of a soldier using my own personal loadout, or one that's incredibly close to how it looks. I think that'd be cool the latest action force special ops guy does a good job of that. The plate carrier, helmet, and lower body are all pretty close to what I want.

>>11755654
what do you want to bet it has a different size ball so you can’t put it on the old Scarlett?

>>11755802
>It is stupid as fuck, but in a generally entertaining way.
ugh, no. Stupid cartoons is actually what made me start reading books and it's why most people prefer the GI Joe comics to the cartoon(s).

>I always assumed that was just an unwarranted sense of generational superiority on my part.
nah, it's completely warranted.
From the late 1950s til around 1987, most cartoons were dogshit. There's exceptions, mostly shorts and films, but stuff that aired on TV was diarhea. Ducktales was when someone decided to put thought into the writing on a routine basis and pretty much everyone caught on that writing mattered afterward.
The Real Ghostbusters had a couple of good episodes, but they were rare. I'd like to pretend that TMNT did too.

>I do actually kind of like the shift in characterization it's resulted in for Cobra Commander.
It got old and annoying to me. Since GI Joe was so formulacic and safe, it got boring fast. You mentioned Starscream, which made it it get old even faster.
BUT i will say that its initially great. The character is played to the fullest, but since there's no consequences or continuity, it hits a wall.

Also, i can't really speak on about Cobra-La stuff, because i don't really remember anyone talking about the movie. I guess my classmates were too old at that point to really talk about the cartoon. In stores, the Cobra La stuff was a poor seller. You could find them years later shelfwarming with other shit nobody wanted, like weapon packs, while newer figures were selling out.

>>11755802
>I do find it more watchable than its contemporaries (He-Man, G1 Transformers, Thundercats, TMNT, etc.).
Same here. Out of all the 80s cartoon GI Joe seems to be the one that holds up the best. Its main problem is a low framerate though but that's how Sunbow shit out 50 episodes in one season and 30 in the following season. Hasbro can correct that now with an AI program designed to increase framerate, but they don't seem interested in that.

>>11755832
>I'd like to pretend that TMNT did too.
I honestly don't get how anyone over the age of 5 enjoyed "COWABUNGA DUDE! LET' HAVE PIZZA!" TMNT is pure cringe for me.

>>11755832
>Since GI Joe was so formulacic and safe, it got boring fast.
One episode is military stuff. The next episode is Indiana Jones treasure-hunting across exotic places in the world. The next episode is weird shit like melting people. The next episode is deadly with Joes stumbling actross their own dead bodies, or Cobra using ghosts to attack the Joes. The next episode is "Flint really wants to fuck the Baroness" with her in a bikini or with a magic perfume. The next episode is fucked-up shit like Destro in a satanic cult engaging in human sacrifice to a demonic monster.

The cartoon really did have a lot of subject-matter variety.

>>11755841
Try not having a stick up your ass. People like fun, and tmnt was fun and creative.

>>11755829
that's an easy problem to solve

>>11755841
Early TMNT was actually pretty good. Pretty serialized and satire and 4th wall breaking. I wanna say it was pretty good until season 5. That's when it got pretty slapstick.

>>11755977
Seasons 3 and 4 had a lot of filler episodes that were cringe. For every cool episode like Bugman or Tempestra, you had 2-3 dud episodes like Shredder's Mom.
Also season 3 was when they started to phase out Mikey's nunchucks because they had to cuck to the UK government.

>>11755994
You're kidding, right? Season 3 was the best one. Real stakes balance perfectly with goofy charm. The turtle's personalities are locked in without being too goofy, bigger scale stories but still relatively grounded, mutants introduced are actually memorable. It’s not “high quality” by modern standards but the writing, characters, tone and scale all briefly align before the show overextends itself.

And Shredder's Mom is important because it humanizes Shredder. Here we get to see Shredder embarrassed, defensive and weirdly relatable. It turns him into a character with a personal life rather than "generic bad guy".

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>>11754963
My half-assed photoshop since I'm not exactly a pro at it. Repaint everyuthing blue to white. Repaint everything black to gray. Slap red coba emblem on it. Toss in a parka. Done. Arctic Baroness.

>>11755999
Ninja Turtles are for 5-year-olds karate-kicking the air while saying "HYA HUH YUH!"

>>11756020
>100 hours in photoshop
Ah, like the good old days. Looks nice. Hope they ditch the harness and pistol holsters completely. Also hope they don't put molded fur on her wrists to match this artwork >>11754963

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>>11755977
>a cartoon can't have good continuity or plots so the writers satirize tropes and do low brow humor
>it was good until the humor was too low brow and annoying
TMNT is a silly comedy that knows it and plays up the jokes at the expense of the story. Sunbow GI Joe is an action show that has silly plots played 100% straight. They are fundamentally different shows.

>>11756022
It's like a rule to give them all holsters of some kind even fi the holsters are disproportionately thick due to the plastic used. They could do a trick used by BBI and others in their smaller figures lines, and sculpt on the holster straps then glue in the holster onto the side of the leg to produce a more low-profile holster that looks more realistic instead of disproportionately thick.

>>11756032
>holsters, webgear, and vests are generally a separate piece on Classified
>not designed to be removable on all figures
It's so simple.

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Ramp Rats live now for Pulse Premium cucks
Less than 30 minutes until public cucks can buy them

>>11756038
Yes it is. It also produces holsters that are too bulky. Have you seen Crimson Baroness's holsters? They're retard levels of large. And vests are good for concealing ugly torso joints.

>>11756042
The problem is they're cool, but they're generally worthless unless you have the Rattler.

>>11756048
The Rattler sold pretty well, and I have one, but I understand if people missed out on the haslab.
I'd still be buying them either way because I just like troop variety and you could still put them with a CLAW or even a SNAKE.

>>11756029
Even though one is ninja mutants and the other is elite soldiers, the formula is nearly identical. Exaggerated characters, absurd plots treated seriously, heavy merchandising, clear good vs. evil. Leonardo is Duke. Michelangelo is Bazooka. Raphael is Snake Eyes. Dial Tone is Donatello. Shredder and Krang are Cobra Commander and Destro. Your 80s slop is not better than my 80s slop.

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>>11756052
Yeah it's not rare. At 26k, there's probably more Rattlers than there are some regular-release figures that didn't do so well. But the sheer demand keeps the prices of everything but the gunner high, and the deck crew set still requires it to be of any real value.

Let us hope that there'll be a cheaper re-release that has a better price than arctic HISS did.

>>11756078
Right, I did considering mention the crate thing with the Ramp Rats can be used to fill out walls on the Cobra defense post, but I think it's probably more likely that someone would have the Rattler than that set

>>11756065
>absurd plots treated seriously
>>11755977
>Pretty serialized and satire and 4th wall breaking
Which is it?

>>11756043
I'm saying I would accept the bulky holsters if Hasbro designed every single one to be easily removable. They did not which is retarded.

>>11756065
GI Joe characters treat Cobra as a serious threat every episode. The Viper episode pays homage to this by making the Joes act on random anonymous phone calls because they really want to stop Cobra at all costs. TMNT has the Turtles making fun of Shredder and Krang constantly. It's not the same.

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>>11756109
It's possible to make a removable belt at that scale and smaller. Kenner proved that almost five decades ago. They just don't want to, and want belt/holster combos to be non-removable.

>>11755841
>I honestly don't get how anyone over the age of 5 enjoyed "COWABUNGA DUDE! LET' HAVE PIZZA!" TMNT is pure cringe for me.
It had •=>ninjas<=•. VERY IMPORTANT IN THE 80s.
It had better animation than everything at the time. The action and the frame rate that you were talking about was almost cartoon intro quality, at least for the miniseries.
All the characters were great. They had personality (unlike fucking Duke, Hawk, Flint, or other random protag from most 80s cartoon) and it wasn't just a ONE note personality either (unlike Cobra Commander or Megatron, etc).
There was world building, which almost never happened in the 80s.
The story progressed a little bit, which almost never happened in the 80s.
The tried to have continuity, but shitty writing at the time meant that they also didn't care about retconning or forgetting about shit almost immediately.
Also, the character designs are great and timeless.

>>11755846
>it did Indiana jones, but badly. It did poltergeist, but badly. it did Aliens, but badly.
I mean, it also did GI Joe but badly, because the comic came out first and was 100x better.
And I'm talking about formulaic and safe in that Cobra HAS to lose and they have to fire a million lasers without hitting anyone and none of the characters can grow or learn a lesson and for all of the underhanded shit that goes on with Cobra, there's no repercussions, because the last episode never happened. And usually the plot doesn't make sense.

>>11755994
Once the nunchuks disappeared, the slashing, slicing, dicing, cutting and even kicking was taken out too, hence the over reliance on slapstick. The 80s was a turd like that. We got a little bit of awesomeness for too short of a time.
It's a shame that even the 90s got fucked over by democrats when they killed saturday morning cartoons with educational shit.

If those leaks are true we’re still not getting any 1990 Joes.
(Captain Grid Iron, Ambush, Pathfinder, Freefall, Stretcher, salvo, rampart, Sub-Zero, Topside, Bullhorn)
At least they’re starting with the 1989 ones with Scoop and Tundra Stalker

Had half the thread really been about bitching between which cartoon was better in the 80s-90s between G.I. Joe and Ninja Turtles?

The answer is both. They were both awesome. That's why the franchises still exist today. The cartoons were awesome, the toys were awesome, even the comics were awesome. If they weren't, they would've gone the way of Go-Bots and Mummies Alive and barely be remembered, only showing up in nostalgia threads on /co/ about "shows only you watched" and junk.

>>11756078
I've been saying this for a while, but all the Haslabs past the HISS Tank will be resold via direct pre-order in Tiger Force colors. We'll get the Tiger Hawk, the Tiger Rat and the Tiger Cat, as well as the Tiger Shark and Tiger Sting.

>>11756042
>>11756100
I kind of forgot they came with the giant crate thing, the price for em don't seem as bad with that in mind. I actually have two of those Outpost things, so this crate could be used to combine with em to make a larger wall or something.

>>11756048
Eh, they'll work just fine as general Cobra maintenance crew for me. Them and the Techno-Viper can work on the SNAKE armor when it's in it's docking bay. Though I do wish they had holsters for their knives and pistols. I miss the days when Classified figure could stow all their gear, made for a really fun play feature and it was nice not having to toss a bunch of extra parts in a bin,

>>11756409
>half the thread really been about bitching
Every thread devolves into two retards arguing, been like this for a while now

>>11756409
The Tiger Hawk?
We haven’t even gotten a Tomahawk.

>>11756443
>>11756409
are you guys really upset that people are having a civil discussion about what they liked and didn't like about the cartoons because it's not a circlejerk?
no one is bitching or arguing.

>>11756450
Tiger Fly*

My bad, named the wrong chopper.

>>11756452
Bullshit is bullshit and the bitching about no one liking the cartoons is very much bullshit.

>>11756452
Upset, no, a little sad though yeah, cause half the thread is literally always a back and forth with paragraphs upon paragraphs about some adjacent topic and not the actual figures themselves. Not the thread would be very active regardless though, so do as you please.

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>>11756409
>ll the Haslabs past the HISS Tank will be resold via direct pre-order in Tiger Force colors
That would be nice if true. Just repaint it while reducing the sheer amount of crap it came with, and lose the lights to make it cheaper. The Arctic HISS could have been cheaper, but they wanted to re-tool the guns to missles and do some other shit to make sure it's $200. Give it one sticker sheet that people will hopefully use instead of "I DON'T WANT TO DEPRECIATE IT AFTER I PLAY WITH IT THEN PUT IT BACK IN THE BOX!" Produce enough of them to use economies of scale to make it cheaper.

And there are multiple ways to repaint the Rattler. There's the original, the tiger force version, the 2002 TRU-exclusive copper version with red accessories, and the green camo "A-10" version. I'd personally like it in the green camo, but knowing Hasbro they'd stoke the old-school fanbase with the Tiger Rat version.

>Eh, they'll work just fine as general Cobra maintenance crew for me
They'll work better as a maintenance crew than purpoe Darth Vader does. I just wish the HASLAB set came with one of those instead of a needless Rattler gunner.

>>11756409
>The answer is both.
Understanding how opinions work, I do agree. I personally will never care for Ninja Turtles while someone else will rationalize it as a masterfully-done deep story with episodes that cold have been done by Shakespeare and Tolkien. And for the record Gobots toys are still cool.

>>11756570
The term is "TEXTWALLS" when people get a little too long-winded in their posts.

>>11755703
>Anyway, I just finished 'Arise, Serpentor, Arise!' and I'm curious...how did 80s kids feel about this new villain being introduced and completely stealing Cobra Commander's thunder? How is the character generally regarded within the fandom?
He's probably one of the most divisive GI Joe characters, you either love him or hate him. He's also one of the characters where the cartoon and comic versions were very different in personality, so there are people who do like one version more than the other.

Cobra Commander is another character where the comic and cartoon versions were miles apart in terms of competency and how much loyalty anyone had to them, in the cartoon literally everyone in Cobra's high command had already taken at least one attempt at overthrowing him, so all of them finally banding together and getting Cobra Commander replaced shouldn't have been that unexpected, and completely changing up the internal dynamics of Cobra does a lot to reinvigorate the cartoon for it's second season, Cobra goes from having a weak leader everyone's plotting against to literal superhuman leader everyone falls in line behind except Cobra Commander playing the Starscream role.

I get the impression that Hasbro and Sunbow saw Cobra Commander and Starscream as cowardly weasel villains the audience was supposed to love to hate, and were blindsided by how many kids unironically loved them, and a lot of the Serpentor hate was coming from a place of "Cobra Commander was /myguy/", though some of it is people who somehow think GI Joe was 100% plausible serious military realism until the guy in the snake costume showed up.

Basically, new leader characters voiced by Dick Gautier in 80s Hasbro toy cartoons get a lot of underserved hate that still goes on to this day.

>>11756845
>>11755703
>Anyway, I just finished 'Arise, Serpentor, Arise!' and I'm curious...how did 80s kids feel about this new villain being introduced and completely stealing Cobra Commander's thunder? How is the character generally regarded within the fandom?
I don't speak for others, but I thought it was crap.

It starts with Dr Mindbender bitching about Cobra Commander, and even when I was a kid I was thinking "DUDE YOU'VE BEEN ON THE JOB IN COBRA FOR FIVE MINUTES AND YOU'RE ALREADY COMPLAINING?" Well really that whole season on both sides added a lot of new characters, which was fine, but pretending like they were always there was annoying. It annoyed me even more as an adult. But that's how they bring in new characters to sell the newest toys with.

With the previous catalog year, almost everything and everyone was phased in starting in the year before that (1984) with Pyramid of Darkness and Revenge of Cobra. Almost nothing in 1985 came as a surprise because of it. We even knew the Firebat was coming courtesy of the cartoon. We just didn't know that it would be bundled in with a playset that most parents couldn't afford.

And it doesn't take much to notice that Hasbro itself must have realized that Serpentor wasn't really popular, which is why for the rest of the season he's in very little of it.

>>11756879
Arise Serpentor was a breath of fresh air after the last 3 season premiere five parters where the same thing happens.

Cobra attacks. Duke (and/or Snake eyes) is captured.
The Joes have to go on world wide side quests to beat Cobra to the MacGuffin.
2 or 3 Joes meet a future Joe. They also meet a hot civilian girl.
Everyone comes together and defeat Cobra.
At least Arise Serpentor Arise was different

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>>11756913
The previous threes actually started off as whole movies that ran on saturdays. They didn't get broken down to mini-series until FOX came along and had GI Joe running 5 days a week.

And Shipwreck as an 80s pop musician beats anything in Arise Serpentor Arise.

>>11756932
Maybe in your area.
But in other more populated areas they were already in syndication long before Fox became a network in1986. It depended on how many stations your area had.

In Chicago, for example, they ran the 5 parters after school in the afternoons on the syndicated station WGN in September 1983, 1984 and 1985.

>>11756945
Early 1985 in my area, not 1986.

>>11756879
>Well really that whole season on both sides added a lot of new characters, which was fine, but pretending like they were always there was annoying.
It opens with the Joes having had a lengthy period of inactivity, and while there are a lot of new guys, they don't pretend they were always there in the older seasons, they've just joined between seasons. Mindbender is the only new bad guy who joined between seasons, the new Dreadnoks get introduced as new characters right there.

Mindbender having only been in Cobra for five minutes doesn't mean he was wrong, either.

>And it doesn't take much to notice that Hasbro itself must have realized that Serpentor wasn't really popular, which is why for the rest of the season he's in very little of it.
I feel like we've had this exact conversation before, but outside of Arise Serpentor Arise itself, it's the front half of the season that's light on Serpentor appearances, which has more to do with Sunbow recycling unused season 1 scripts they couldn't really fit him into than it had anything to do with Hasbro or Sunbow somehow knowing whether a new character would be popular or not before the season even started. If they were able to react that swiftly to audience reactions AND he was unpopular, it would be the second half of the season that had less of him.

You may hate Serpentor, but there's been more than enough anecdotes over the years about him being one of the must-have Joe toys of the year, and more recently in Classified he's in-demand for a new release as he only got a limited exclusive that sold out fast. If he wasn't popular at all, he'd be one of those exclusives that's still available on Pulse for months afterwards.

>>11756932
I use to have the music from that episode stuck in my head as a kid. they used it in the transformers too, it was canned music for their cartoons.

>>11755469
i tarded out and didn't actually preorder these on bbts, any chance these will restock so i can get them to europe?

It often seems rather random when certain figures get restocked. Suddenly Technoviper got a reissue in slightly altered colours.
Is this a character popular enough to get that treatment? I really dig the just plain bright red colours on her as opposed to the more movie adaptation darkened scheme others get.

>>11757284
They're still availible a few places here in the US, I preordered mine from Amazon last year or whenever the fuck they first went up, but surprisingly it seems like they're selling out at most of the toy-focused sites

>>11749605
>Zanya with Swamp Skier
I'm only just getting into Joe figures but it's cool they are releasing Disavowed characters

>>11757327
Agent Helix is still the most random figure they've done

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>>11757328
>most random
Helix is kinda cool, I'd give that title to Wolf Spider

>>11757357
well he's just a new guy, that's different
doing a character introduced in a video game nobody played who made a few (?) comic appearances is more niche imo

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>>11757361
Its isn't even the first time an Agent Helix figure has been made.

>>11757103
>there's been more than enough anecdotes over the years about him being one of the must-have Joe toys of the year
he isn't really.
He got killed off in the movie and in the DIC series.
Hasbro only made one figure of him in the original toyline, because everyone who grew up with him was tired of his shit.
Compare that to Cross Country from the same year, who got two figures in the original toyline.
Wet Suit from the same year got 4 figures in the original toyline.
Lifeline from the same year got 2 figures in the original toyline plus re-releases.
Leatherneck got 2 figures in the original toyline.
Lowlight got 4 figures in the original toyline.
Sci fi got 4 figures.
Beachhead from the same yaer got 3 figures in the original toyline.
Wet Suit, Beachhead, Leatherneck, Lowlight, all got remade a couple of times in the GI Joe vs Cobra toylines and the 25th toyline, because of fans demanded them. Whereas Serpentor got remade once, because he was pretty much the star of his own cartoon.

In short, Hasbro has data on which of their characters were popular, thus they capitalized on actual popular characters year after year after, and Serpentor definitely wasn't what kids wanted back in the day. He only got throne a bone in modern history due a major multiple part cartoon and comics that centered around him. If Dr Venom or Dr Talbot had a storyline centered around them, they'd get as many figures as Serpentor too, but that doesn't mean they're actually popular.

>>11757404
yeah but in terms of Classified, we got her before we got an Iron Grenadier

>>11757443
>we got X before X
That's a worthless discussion. We've gotten a lot of weird shit before arguably far more important characters. They do that on purpose to prolong interest in the line.

>>11757449
>That's a worthless discussion.
Then how else would you measure the unexpectedness of a specific figure?
I don't think Zanya is surprising at all, given they've done all the A-Tier Dreadnoks already

>>11757327
Kamakura is better than Throwdown.
Also, Mistress Armada is coming.

>>11757426
Then how come Road Pig was the only Dreadnok under Zartan to get a new figure in the original toyline?
Why only one Ripper or Buzzer or Torch, etc.

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>>11757404
She's Lady Jaye, but younger to appeal to the hipster crowd.

>>11757426
True. Serpentor was buried by Hasbro pretty quickly even though Hama liked him.

>>11757404
>her weapon is a dildo-jackhammer
What did Hasbro mean by that?

>>11757443
The Classified order of release is "WHATEVER FEELS RIGHT TO US" while finding out what customers want the most, then intentionally putting it off for years while telling customers to buy the shit they don't want to keep the line going because if your local Walmart stops selling it then it's your fault for not buying five Big Lobs.

>>11757590
Because some dip-shit at Hasbro liked a guy with football shoulder pads moreso than the original dreadnoks?

>>11757600
>The Classified order of release is "WHATEVER FEELS RIGHT TO US"
Probably not, considering Heartwrencher has been rumored so long that they likely have a finished mold for her they've been sitting on for like 2 years wondering if she should be a Haslab pack-in or not and no one has any real opinion on her

>>11757607
>they likely have a finished mold for her they've been sitting on for like 2 years


Which is why I said:
>>11757600
>then intentionally putting it off for years while telling customers to buy the shit they don't want to keep the line going because if your local Walmart stops selling it then it's your fault for not buying five Big Lobs.

The same goes for Flash. We know they've worked on him to some capacity because of his weapon showing up with Glenda, but Hasbro keeps us waiting.

>>11757426
>because everyone who grew up with him was tired of his shit.
I should have realized I was talking with That Guy again, and once again you're assuming everyone in the world thinks and feels the way you do. The whole thing below about Road Pig getting more figures in the original line than the original Dreadnoks, as well as Major Bludd getting more figures than any Cobra after Cobra Commander and Destro tends to support the theory that the guys at Hasbro were making what they wanted to make a lot of the time.

There were five new releases of Serpentor in the 2000s, he wasn't some unpopular character who only got remade once.

>>11757634
>five
Did you count the one that comes with battle armor CC?

>>11757634
>There were five new releases of Serpentor in the 2000s
The first release was also a mail away figure in the 90s until Joe died the first time. He was made in China instead of Hong Kong with different tooling to the retail release. So he was popular enough that they made all new molds of the first version.

>>11757600
“Because if Foitball Joe”

Not really. The amount of Joes each year (q0 to11) had no bearing on the amount of Cobras (6 to 7).

The real answer is why do Overlord (no media adaptation whatsoever in the 90s) when you could have done a new Buzzer, Ripped, Torch, Crimson Twins, etc.

Which Cobra’s didn’t get a new version during the original A Real American Hero run:
Baroness (though 1 was planned for 1995)
Xamot and Tomax
Wild Weasel
Scrap Iron
Buzzer
Ripper
Torch
Serpentor
Thrasher
Every Cobra from 1987
Voltar
Darklon
Gnawgahyde
Overlord
Cesspool
Sky Creeper
I won’t count the 92, 93, 94 figures because the line ended before those guys had a chance to get a new version.

>>11757815
With the direction Hasbro was going in 1995, they would have all been ninjas with dino-pet sidekicks.

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>>11757590
because kids don't like gay bearded bikers? They were basically joke characters too. Kids already naturally don't buy bearded characters unless they're super important, so any negative thing about them makes it less likely for them to get bought, so it's no wonder Hasbro didn't make more.
people here bitch about fucking NINJAS being in a military line, but you think gay bearded bikers should be popular? AT least ninjas look cool, were very prominent characters (with snake eyes being the main character in the comics), AND ninjas were insanely popular in the 80s
And don't get me wrong, i like the dreadnoks, but everything was working against them being popular when they were even conceptualized as Ewoks
>>11757634
why are you even arguing? Fact is, Hasbro has always gotten data about what sells every week/month AND got NPD tracking sales with demographics on a quarterly basis, so they knew exactly what was popular with kids. They also got data from kids watching their cartoons too.
So the fact remains is that Hasbro DIDN'T make another Serpentor figure like actual popular characters did in the original line. Fact is that Hasbro KILLED Serpentor off as soon as they could in the movie and then killed him off again in the very first episodes of the DIC cartoon. Fact is, he was written to be annoying.
Fact is, kids didnt like Serpentor, thus no new figures of him were made and his character was killed off

He was so unpopular that they didn't even make him in the GI Joe Vs Cobra line in the 00s. He only got a figure in the Comic Packs because he was a prominent character in a multi-part story in the comics, which was mostly a redeco (cheaply made). And of course he got remade for the 25th, because he was a promient character in a multi-part story inj the comics, a multi-part cartoon, and the movie. For a character that's so prominently featured, you'd expect him to be made 8 times like Beachhead who barely got lines... but no, he got 2 and a half figures.

>>11758020
Is that why they stopped making female figures in 1988?
I always thought that was sus.

>>11758052
Gen-X kids didn't mind female figures as long as they kicked ass. Millennial boys seemed to really hate them, so as toy marketing transitioned from Gen-X to millennials, it seems like there's fewer female action figures across all boys toy lines.

>>11758120
I’m a late Gen X’er so I suppose that makes sense as I grew out of the target audience.
But they did later do a ninja force Scarlett.

>>11758052
They only made what they did because the Baroness toy was surprisingly popular since she was a major villain. I imagine Zarana and Jinx didn't do as well so that was that

>>11753139
Hellscreamerz,
So fucking annoying.

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Why do the new Stalker figures make him look 65

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>>11758233
Cause the designer liked Lethal Weapon

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>>11758020
>Fact is, kids didnt like Serpentor, thus no new figures of him were made and his character was killed off
Wasn't a major factor in this how Larry Hama hated the character, and the comics taking the lead in the fiction by the late 80's? the cartoon went on ice for 3 years before being revived by DiC for only 2 years. Hama's comic was basically the driving fiction from 87-94. Without the cartoon pushing him, Hama could just kill Serpentor in 88, which probably influenced them to also downplay him in the toyline which the Dic show was based on
It might be self-aggrandizing, but Hama also has said he basically had Hasbro by the balls with character profiles because when they tried to do their own in-house they didn't have the same quality. So while he wasn't deciding the direction in the line on his own, he did have enough pull to probably steer them away from using him.
>Fact is, Hasbro has always gotten data about what sells every week/month AND got NPD tracking sales with demographics on a quarterly basis, so they knew exactly what was popular with kids. They also got data from kids watching their cartoons too.
I call BS on this, especially in the 80s.
What Hasbro can track is what is ordered on a case(literally) by case basis. They can estimate if they stop getting sales after a set of figures got released, which would mean a store was still at capacity and didn't sell out entirely. But on a figure by figure basis? Being able to tell who is buying the toys? In the 80's or 90s? that would be hard even now.

>He was so unpopular that they didn't even make him in the GI Joe Vs Cobra line in the 00s.
Venomous Maximus isn't Serpentor, but he's effectively the same concept just updated for the 2000's, in a time they were more conscious about updating designs to be more appealing to modern kids.

Regarding Serpentor; he was a popular character with a good number of fans but one who was hated by the writers and by Hama in particular and since Hama is considered God of GI Joe, it created the illusion that EVERYONE hated Serpentor.

Figure-wise, Serpentor is a popular seller but even amongst fans, he's like Galvatron in that he takes a good amount of time to set up in fiction and even then, takes away from Cobra Commander. And the fact that ASA is arguably the peak of the cartoon in terms of quality, makes it hard act introducing him since ASA nails the epic nature of Sunbow's five part arcs.

The fact that he hasn't gotten a mass retail release is pretty insane, even if it's a BS retool to make him look like his Devil's Due redesign, which was the basis for the 25th Anniversary version.

>>11758120
I'm not sure if that's really true, if so it's more due to toy industry execs putting too much faith in focus test groups. Which tend to be flawed because kids will act differently when they feel they're watched or judged by other kids. A boy in a test group with a bunch of other boys won't say he likes a girl figure because other boys will call him a gay or say he's a girl. So toy companies would minimize girls in toylines
But even then, we had Power rangers, where there were 2 girls a year in the 90's. Transformers having two female characters for the first time in US shelves with Beast Wars. Pretty much every superhero toyline had women. A lot of these figures were in demand and sold fast, which could arguably also have been due to the burgeoning collection scene and adult fans buying hem, but personally I was a kid looking for a lot of these female characters to round out a collection or if I just liked the character.
GI Joe was sort of a weird exception really. And the Street Fighter//Mortal Kombat sub lines did at least have one woman figure each.

>>11758316
>Wasn't a major factor in this how Larry Hama hated the character,
No, because a ton of kids didn't like the character. Even the cartoon writers seemingly hated him, hence making him talk in the most annoying ways, which made a lot of kids hate on him. Theres a reason he was killed off in the movie and the DIC series.

>Hama's comic was basically the driving fiction from 87-94
Nah, the GI Joe comic was popular from the very beginning. It quickly became one of Marvel's most popular comics thanks to Hasbro running ads for the comic book (downlow ads for the toys). So the comic's actual hay days was before 1987, where it was routinely outselling the XMen and spiderman comics since probably 1984 or 1985

>I call BS on this, especially in the 80s.
NPD/TRST has existed since the 70s. Their entire job is to track sales and demographics.
And it was very easy to monitor this shit in the 80s, because they basically had 1 wave year per year. By the late 80s, they started doing 2 waves or releasing the second half of the wave at mid-year. So it was actually easier to track back in the day.

Just think about this for 10 secs. Why would they make 4 figures of Beachhead, who barely had lines in the movie and barely appeared in the comic, if they didn't know he was a big seller? Why'd they kill Serpentor off so fast, despite that other anon claiming he was such a popular seller? Popular characters don't get just a single figure made.

Hasbro obvious had specific sales data and this is why characters like Snake Eyes got 5 figures made by the end of the line, despite being such a background character in the cartoon, while prominent kid favored characters like Bazooka only got 3, even though more kids watched the cartoons than read the comic.
NPD provides important sales data and it's why toy companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to get it, instead of just relying on their own metrics of how many cases get bought and feed back from retailers.

>>11758188
Baroness was gloss black and ended up being the best female figure in the entire line. Kids knew she was coming as far back as 1982, but what Hasbro surprised them with was so much better than the blue jumpsuit. Before her were Scarlett and Cover Girl which were great in the cartoon but had shit figures. Lady Jaye had an underwhelming figure too. But Zarana does improve, and Jinx is ok but kids who saw ninja movies were confused as to why she was bright red.

>>11758332
Minerva in the 1987 headmasters line is the first female Transformer.

And DIC was apparently put off by Hasbro's refusal to do a female figure, so they brought back Baroness and Lady Jaye just so the cartoon isn't a total cockfest.

>>11758421
>Why would they make 4 figures of Beachhead
3.
And two of them were late in the line when they would just use any existing name to keep a trademark, which was why the second Shipwreck was a diver that bore zero semblance to the original.
And one of them was a straight repaint a year after the second version to brighten him up because fluorescent dayglow shit was rife at that point.
If he was such a big seller, he would have got a second version a lot sooner than 7 years after the first one..

>>11758449
I personally liked it when they did new versions of existing characters instead of shitting out new characters to pretend they were always there. The most valuable individual regular release figure is such a figure (1985 Snake eyes and Timber). It was always annoying when they were talking to newbs like they were always there, and even more annoying when they brought in new characters to fill the roles already taken by others (like Helix taking over covert ops that Lady Jaye did, or Bazooka taking over Zap's job).

>>11758443
>Minerva in the 1987 headmasters line is the first female Transformer.
I know, which is why I specified on US shelves. Takara and Hasbro were running the line differently in the late 89's. Hasbro avoided making an Arcee figure so that stayed in the prototype stage, but Takara was more comfortable making female figures here and there.

>>11758504
>Takara was more comfortable making female figures here and there.
Not really true since Minerva was their only one. We wouldn't get another female out of either of them until Blackarachnia and Airazor.

>>11758233
Because as one of the original three he's one of the oldest Joes.

>>11758233
Black don't crack

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Got an email saying the G2 Megatron repaint of the Ramen Toys tank is now available for preorder. Pass for me, but someone may want it.

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>>11758233
>>11758527
Moreover he was a sergeant and they tend to have longer careers in the field. The old archetype is that the commission officer (lieutenant) is usually the one who's young, ambitious, and fairly fresh from officer school, while the sergeant is the one who worked his way up from private and has field experience. Technically the lieutenant is in charge although the lieutenant and sergeant are supposed to make decisions together, and depending on how experienced the lieutenant is the sergeant may have more weight. You can use a married couple as an illustration, in theory the husband is the head of the family but the husband and wife in function work as co-equals.

>>11758421
While Beachhead is super popular, he only gets figures these days because the design team realized they could repaint him as Firefly to save money.

Hasbro has fucked up ideas of who is popular. Hence why they keep shoving Duke down peoples throat, barely di anything with Lady Jaye even though she's the most popular female Joe and so popular that even Hama has to use her instead of burying her in favor of keeping Scarlet around as the token female Joe, and why they kept pushing Heavy Duty even though everyone wanted Roadblock instead

>>11758713
Baroness is the most popular, not Lady Jaye. And we're getting a new Lady Jaye with improved head sculpt when the Snowcat gets released in 3-4 months.

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>some characters for the Classified Retro line get new body made from different molds
>including the face
>others get nothing but a recolor and guns they never came with
Hasbro half assing some of their Retro releases but not all of them simply calls to attention when they get lazy. I hate it. Cobra Trooper Retro should've used more from the Classified Cobra Office body. Retro Baroness should've been a new body and face instead of a recolor of her Operation Blackout design. Same for Lady Jaye. They keep doing it which is why I can't commit to the Retro line accept for my favorites that are ruined from lazy reuse.

>>11758772
*except for my favorites that aren't ruined from lazy reuse.

>>11758772
Lady Jaye would have been fine if it had a better face. The battle armor Baroness needs to be completely tossed and started over.

>>11758780
The Classified Baroness is not that bad but I wish that giant x belt was removable

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>>11758790
Notice the longer torso and shorter legs than the Rattler version, as well as less muscle definition for kicking ass. Plus that head sculpt with notches/flat spots on the side of the head for the glasses, and visible knee pins. Plus the half-torso armor when it would look better with full-torso as well as the stupid shoulder pads and forearm gauntlets.

It's shit. Hasbro needs to toss it and start again.

>>11758801
The Rattler Baroness is better, but that other Baroness is not shit.

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>>11758820
I'm with you, anon. I have the Crimson Strike Baroness and I think she's pretty great. Rattler is definitely a bit better but this is no slouch either.

>>11758832
Crimson Strike Baroness should've been the Retro Classified release simply cast in black.

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>>11758832
That reminds me I want Astoria

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>>11758449
>when they would just use any existing name to keep a trademark
That wasn't a thing until AFTER they lost their trademarks, which was a late 90s thing, not early 90s.
And that's some serious cope to pretend a billion dollar company who was spending serious amount of money on market research for decades wouldn't put thought into who they used, just because you don't like the idea that some characters are less popular than you want to believe.

>the second Shipwreck was a diver that bore zero semblance to the original.
They wanted to move away from the YMCA joke and Navy SEALS were getting popular during that time. GI Joe didn't use to cater to just nostalgiafags like they do today and Hasbro was successfully updating their image at the time, hence GI Joe becoming popular again in the 90s... and hasbro's greed killed that because they wanted to carry that renewed interest by making joes more into superheroes.

>>11758713
nothing wrong with redecos, because that's how Hasbro has been doing shit since the 90s. The fact is, popular characters will appear more frequently and even more popular characters get newly molded, if not retools.

And yeah, i dislike Duke too, but he obviously sells. Again, Hasbro has access to NPD data and they know what characters sell best, hence their selections not always being made up of popular cartoon or comics, who still manage to be popular as just toys. I mean, look at all the Viper types who barely show up in the media, because the hanky faced blue pajamas soldier is the enemy 92% of the time, yet Alley Vipers and Vipers themselves became huge.

>>11758925
Duke doesn't sell. Sigma 6 died because they flooded Duke toys on the shelves even after it was apparent he was a huge fucking shelf warmer no one wanted. Similarly, the huge number of unsild Duke figures in the movie line helped kill the movie line to the point they refused to pay for the likeness rights to Tatum and drastically reduced the number of Duke figures in POC.

Duke is pretty much the poochie of the GI Joe line for a reason.

>>11758948
>Duke doesn't sell
wrong

>>11758948
I never really understood the point of Duke. They already had Hawk for a short haired blonde team leader. Then Duke showed up, was the Great Value version of Hawk, and Hawk got put behind a desk. What was the point?

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>>11758948
remember the initial hype, with people saying how so and so was rare and hard to get? nothing Sigma 6 sold
I bought a bunch of the 2.5 playset and minifigures for half off back in the day. I passed over that amazing VTOL thingie and the mechs, because i didn't know that you could modify them to fit the 1:18 figures.

Whereas the 8" figures were a super easy pass. So much on clearance and it wasn't even Duke. Literally everyone. Only reason Duke stands out to you is because of that expensive Christmas season deluxe figure.
You might as well claim that Destro isn't a popular character because Winter Destro shelf warmed for so long.

And it's a testament toward how popular GI Joe still was back in the 00s and 10s, because almost nothing showed up at Ross/Marshalls/etc. Weirdly enough, the first wave of Pursuit of Cobra vehicles did show up at Ross, mostly because stores were still clogged with movie vehicles. So Ross/Marshalls had new HISS and that VAMP vehicle before Walmart and TArgets did.

>Duke is pretty much the poochie of the GI Joe line for a reason.
He's a non-character, but since he was main exposition narrator, kids thought he was the main character of the cartoon, thus his popularity.

>>11759013
they needed a character to explain the plot and actions going on in the cartoon, because the writers were shit.
He was the character kids pretended to be on the playground and it made me wonder if they even knew any other character, until i went to their house to see their GI Joes.

>>11753370
Hiya and JoyToy's 1/18 lines are actually some of the best out there. The articulation was a bit limited with Alien/Predator figures earlier on, but everything after has been great.

>>11758884
Imagine if any company, anywhere, made female figures look like that. The best we have are Frazetta Girls, which are inherently limited in scope. I guess Xesray are close as well, everything else are shitty anime designs.

>>11759199
>The best we have are Frazetta Girls, which are inherently limited in scope. I guess Xesray are close as well

The faces on all those look like trannies, though. No western company will ever make attractive good figures, because they're beholden to western ideology. Even the more recent photorealistic face which tend to look a bit more feminine, they almost always have resting bitch face.

Many of them have blocky, fridge-like bodies too, and in the case of Xesray, they tend to be butch muscle-girl fetish figures, so they don't work for people who want actual feminine figures rather than the faces and bodies of men.

Its a shame, because a lot of the properties that Frazetta Girls and even Loose Collecter put out are all great characters that deserve good figures, but they are almost locked behind hideous faces, or even if they have decently sculpted bodies they have articulation that is about 15 years out of date.

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>>11758925
>I mean, look at all the Viper types who barely show up in the media, because the hanky faced blue pajamas soldier is the enemy 92% of the time, yet Alley Vipers and Vipers themselves became huge.
The 1986 BAT is the most valuable ARAH Cobra trooper by a mile, so that says a lot about which trooper fans like the most.

>>11758948
Sigma 6 died because it was F'ing stupid. It tried too hard to be a "bridge" cartoon that was enough western to pander to western kids but also enough anime to appeal to weebs.

>Duke is pretty much the poochie of the GI Joe line for a reason.
Overall Joe fans do like Duke, but there aren't a lot of ways to get a good one because of how fixed his image is. He's like Darth Vader in that sense in which re-imagining him in different outfits just does not work. He only works as long as he's served one single way that he's known for. Personally I'm getting the 250th USA Classified Duke. I like it.

Round up of what’s known to be coming:
Official:
Deep Six (non deluxe)
“rugged” Duke (possibly Skybound)
Mistress Armada
NightForce Psyche-Out
Iceberg
Toxo-Viper
Snake Eyes green ferret vs Stealth Viper Trouble Bubble
Ninja Force Scarlett and Tj’Bang

Rumored leaks:
Stalker with kayak
Retro Firefly
Water Mocassin with gunner figure
Dusty with Sandstorm
Heartwrencher with tri-motorcycle
Desert Team Pack (Joe or Cobra??)
Stealth CLAW with figure
Arctic Cobra Commander
Arctic Baroness
Road Pig (either Sonic Fighter or other)
Triple T with Sgt Slaughter
Muskrat
Voltar
Zanzibar (not sure with skiff)
Serpentor (shirtless? Non-deluxe?)
Skybound Baroness
Scoop
blue S.N.A.K.E. armor with dire tech
Thunder Machine(retail? MTO? HasLab?)

>>11759506
Skybound Baroness? Never heard of that one

>>11759520
Another name for Energon Universe Baroness from the new comics.

>>11759218
the BAT is overused because they cant shoot people in the cartoon.