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Originally posted by: DESTRO @ Hisstank.com

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G.I. Joe State of the Union - Toy Fair 2014 G.I. Joe 50th Anniversary Fail

Toy Fair 2014 has come and gone. Now that the news team had some time to catch up with all the work that comes with this mega sized event, we wanted to share our thoughts on the G.I. Joe action figure side of Toy Fair 2014. We may be a little late to share our opinion but I feel it needs to be said. G.I. Joe ARAH 3 3/4 - 4 inch is officially dead.

The Hasbro Toy Fair show room for 2014 was one of the best looking displays of action figure goodness I have seen throughout the years. The sections I visited were well representative of the lines they were showing off.

Unfortunately it was a huge disappointment to walk into the show room to find no sign of G.I. Joe action figures during a 50th anniversary year (other than Kre-O). There was not even a logo to take pictures of and there was no official team member from Hasbro who was currently working on the brand that could answer any questions.

With this being the 50th anniversary of a mega toy brand you would think there would have been more effort put into G.I. Joe considering there will be a third G.I. Joe movie in the pipeline and it's the brand that coined the term action figure! I feel they let all the momentum escape they gained from the positive second attempt at a movie with G.I. Joe Retaliation.

Is what we saw in the Hasbro presentation really worthy of a G.I. Joe 50th Anniversary year?

I really don't think so. Twenty figures that are mostly straight-up repaints with one of the weakest G.I. Joe SDCC Exclusives we've seen to date feels like G.I. Joe was an after-thought, rushed just to say "we did something". With the exception of the new Destro and Flint this line just gives off sounds of the dying on their way to the grave. The G.I. Joe ARAH train has come to the end of the line.

Alright so if the G.I. Joe 50th anniversary line is so bad and mis-represented - what would you have done differently?

I would have started by making a statement with the 50th anniversary of G.I. Joe by putting out a reissue of the Real Terrordrome not the Kre-O version, and gave us 20 completely new tooled figures in the "POC Style" of product, with the repaints shown at the presentation thrown into the mix to break it up over the year. Secondly I would have tested the 6" market for G.I. Joe and put out four key characters in a single Black Series wave: Snake Eyes, Destro, Baroness and Scarlett! Lastly, a massive attempt at getting the G.I. Joe brand into the video game market with a Call of Duty / Halo Style game.

All of the above would have been nice but the bottom line is Wal-Mart, Target and other big box retails are not interested in buying into a brand that does not have a ton of media and hype behind it. Sadly if they do not buy it, it does not get made. The industry trend is the toys must have a movie, TV show or major video game to justify the kind of purchasing levels needed for a line of products listed above. The days of huge toy sections for every brand are over. We had a solid 10 years of spray and pray style production over the last decade, with G.I. Joe and other lines, from multiple companies. With the massive cost increases in production and buyers from the big box retail stores cutting back, this is the end result.

So that leaves us with what we got, a very weak Toys "R" Us exclusive run of mostly repaints that will be extremely hard to find and heavily scalped on eBay because of poor distribution and small print runs.

"Are you mad Bro"?

Not at all, I'm just trying to be honest. There are only so many original products and repaints Hasbro can do which will appeal to both collectors and a mass market. The hardcore guys that collect G.I. Joe like the readers of HISSTank.com may be able to support a Toys "R" Us exclusive run of repaints, but Hasbro is not going to invest the tooling cost and development budget and the major retailers will not purchase big with no media behind it. On top of that, we are reaching a point of "been there done that" with G.I. Joe ARAH, even if they did. Leading us to the biggie...

There needs to be a reboot of the brand to go in a different direction. They need to drop G.I. Joe ARAH, wipe the slate clean, and start fresh. Even if it's set 20/40 years from now, connected-but-not to canon, fine. Or just start over. For us, we won't like anything but ARAH figures, 3.75 in scale most likely. But that won't work as the main line aimed at kids anymore. Not easily anyway. If Hasbro isn't making money with G.I. Joe at a larger level (aka kids), then we won't get anything but FSS and Sideshow level stuff, if we are lucky. Let's be honest, we are already starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel with character selection and what is left to be produced.

The Modern Era run of main stream ARAH G.I. Joe is over. Hopefully they figure out what to do next.

Lets us know what you think by sounding off after the jump.... [Read More]

Read More: G.I. Joe State of the Union - Toy Fair 2014 G.I. Joe 50th Anniversary Fail @ G.I. Joe - HissTank.com.