[hasbroherofan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowflakian

*edit* Though I'm hoping you're saying that with sarcasm considering toy history and all. *edit over.*

Actually that's not as much of an issue as you think. "Liberals" support troops. They don't support questionable orders or those that use it as an excuse to take it too far.

Everything GI Joe actually stands against since it's supposed to represent the best of the best. The soldiers that stand above to do what's right against adversity, even adversity within from a 'bad order'. You see this most pronounced in original GI Joe too, where Cobra's Metal Head represents certain modern style of personalities and ego, whereas the GI Joe side represents good hearts and moral centers with respect. Tomax, Xamot, and Destro as well as Baroness also represent 'dark money' and those cues of greed driven pursuits. Retaliation heavily reflects much of this too. As did Renegades.

Things like what VashTS is saying is the kind of stuff that Cobra would use for divisiveness to rally against what the moral center of GI Joe is supposed to be. Much of what Retaliation and Renegades was built on as a concept of propaganda controlling the masses to stay blind to the truth. The things that made GI Joe thrive are very universal concepts tied to real complications that mostly 'liberals' talk about. Like equality, PTSD(shipwreck's infamous multi-part episodes), and more. Though it does tend to attempt to get hijacked by certain 'power mad' areas like the NRA and other supremacist views that try to ignore or rewrite the moral center message of what GI Joe represents. Same as they try to do the same to NCIS & spinoffs and Blue Bloods.

But let's not turn this to a political discussion either.
The real burnout is from war toys that remind consumers of the current world state of affairs. Where once it was pride in standing up to it, has turned to weariness from this going on for almost 20 years with very little actual headway made other than the surge of pride during 2011. As well as weariness from those that go overboard and do bad things in its name, and how they act like Metal Head or Dreadnoks in how they treat others. This is why we see a surge in sales with modern era's approach along with the rejuvenation of the scale as a market wide thing, to then the drop off after 2012, to then the steady decline as weariness settled in and a different kind of escapism was sought after.

Things like NCIS still do well, because it focuses on the 'good side' of the military arms and the personality of the individual while not making excuses for the bad and talking about that too. Same reason shows like Blue Bloods does so well. It's the ideal of what it's supposed to be. Not the reality of what much of it is or has become due to various propaganda and twisted perceptions of those that blindly follow.

Retailers are the issue though. Retailers are the ones that decide what goes on shelves. And retailers aren't seeing enough product move to support keeping GI Joe on shelves. Walmart has no issue with Corps Elite, because it does move product and cheap enough to maintain ordering. Which is why they have the exclusivity contract for that. Same to how TRU had the True Heroes line for Military toys too, and TRU had maintained a military aisle for the majority of it's last 20 years

This is why GI Joe's return has to coincide with a movie launch to use the blockbuster toy factor to get back on shelves, and then stay on shelves because of product moving.

And yes a line that appeals to kids and makes GI Joe cool to them would definitely help. That line would do best to stick to the modern era standard. Get back to the experimental roots and 'coolness' factor. Pull on areas where coolness factor and fan demands coincide. Cutting Edge Jinx, Renegades Baroness, maybe mix in some of the Sigma 6 designs in Modern Era styling. Stuff that'd appeal to kids but collectors also haven't gotten yet.

6" is a relative issue because there's so many preferred outfits for characters. But if done slowly and right could survive in a collector focused line. It's a matter of deciding which versions are the definitive outfits. Duke and Scarlet alone have close to 5+ outfits each different areas of fans prefer. So it'd have to have the right mix to appease that kind of demand. Shipwreck is one of the few where his classic outfit is perfectly iconic thanks to Venture Brothers. But that's part of the problem to GI Joe. The iconic outfits are mostly on the Cobra side like Metal Head, Destro, Baroness, the various Cobra Commander suits, Zartan, Cobra-La. The GI Joe side varies much more between and has divided fan preferences to outfits, styles, updates, or you name it. This is also something Sigma 6 did right, it created new iconic 'cool' suits for Jinx and Kamakura too. To this day, Sigma 6 is the best Kamakura outfit.

Like me personally, I prefer Scarlett's ROC impact armor, her Sigma 6 suit, and the convention exclusive vs autobots yellow and black suit. As well as her spy troops outfit & Renegades. Not her classic toon costume. Though her classic toon costume is one of the few iconic suits with how it blends well to Captain America as part of a modern squad he'd lead.

Same as Snake Eyes has wide preferences from original 2 suits, on forward. Like I tend to prefer Retaliation, Renegades, and Ninja Force for him. But others prefer his v1 outfit, and some prefer his ski-mask style one too. Which I'm partial a fan of that one too. And Dawn Moreno is fun too.

So a 6" line has to go for which versions have the biggest sales push. Though some characters only have one solid outfit, like Doc and Doc 2.

Yeah I don't mean it to be rude but people are really overthinking it. The issue is not modern America not liking soldiers or supporting the troops. If that were the case Captain America would not be one of the most popular superheroes on the planet right now.

G.I. Joe has pretty consistently had trouble trying to win over newer audiences and is often regarded as an 80s relic. That's not really a political thing. The same can be said of quite a few toylines that were huge in the 80s but aren't as big nowadays. Remember the oughts attempts at relaunching Thundercats and He-Man? Yeah, those didn't really take either.