Leatherneck!!!

I didn't say so earlier but the Alley Viper is coming!!! That's so cool, even if he is Orange and Blue!!!

Those are just customs (so far), the little Hasbro sign says so

See the sign

NOT AVAILABLE on their name tags...

Obviously made to gauge fan interest, though. Or Hasbro's goons are busy finding ways to reuse parts. Or both. Leatherneck looks very convincing.

Note the Night Creeper uses new Zartan parts...a figure we have yet to see a painted prototype of!

but still, there may be a change of hart,you never know Lava, I'm hoping that the Sgt is part of the line :D :D

I took the customs to be Hasbro's answer to fans' fears that the new figures wouldn't have the same customizing possibilities as the old line (it came up in those Q&As they did). So these are saying "Look, you CAN customize them, look who you can make!" -- hopefully this won't be their way of excusing themselves from properly making some characters. I guess these customs show us what's possible if they do decide to produce Slaughter, Pythona, etc, but they'd still be WAY off as there's a huge difference between making a 1-off custom at 4" scale and creating a figure for production.

I'm pretty much unmoved either way from my existing feelings by the new pics. Some of them look really nice as representations of the characters (Beach Head in particular) but I have a few issues -- Lady Jaye apparently still doesn't get a removable cap, Serpentor's torso looks rather weird/bland considering the detail elsewhere, and the lack of cobra "hood" looks wrong considering the rest is pretty much a v1 update. I think the promised "army builder" pack with the VvV color-scheme CC & SS is stupid of them and what the hell's with that "Air Trooper" - gas-mask trooper with a JUMP repaint? They're already making up stuff to reuse parts instead of what they promised which was meant to be delving into the 25-year history... And on a semi-related note, I see the single-card Trooper is indeed a Viper Pilot -- I'd rather army-build the red logo...

Interesting that they used the Satan artwork and called it a Red Ninja. They also appear to have done a new head for him with the pointy "ears" on his mask making him more comic-accurate. In that vein, making his arms all-red too would have been nice.

Meh. The Marvel Legends previews have me more interested than the Joes, and even those are looking a bit dodgy in places (cutting back on articulation horribly). The JoeCon set seems to be the upcoming toys I'm most excited about at the moment!

it looks like they are trying to fix the articulation problems people are having with the hips, if you look at the lady jay the grey proto one i guess looks like the changed her waist design from the painted version,but the zartan design looks like it will offer even more movement with the notches in his legs

http://i.toynewsi.com/g/?mode=view&...ize=800&start=0

but this is a little over the top look at the popeye arms

http://i.toynewsi.com/g/?mode=view&...ze=800&start=60

That set is the only upcoming Joe stuff I'm excited about! :)

Word is (joe battlelines) the current Hasbro GI JOE guy (there's a new one every year, seems like) said something about correcting issues, like the hip articulation. Scale wasn't one of them...but...at least they claim to notice. They've been good at doing that in the past. As well as passing the buck...

Like the $7 price tag for Star Wars figures. "It's based on retailers"

Even though the MSRP (manufacturor suggested retail price) is $6.99.

This time the factories in China are the scapegoat. Funny, GI JOE has factory issues, but Star Wars doesn't seem to.

Oh, those are customs. I was too busy looking at the figures to notice anything else.

Btw, here's Recondo's ditty about GI Joe at SDCC blah blah blah...

Recondo says John Warden says...

so were just going to have to waite and see what will 2008 bring, its not that far way..

It's nice to know that Hasbro knows of the problems plaguing the current figures. At the same time, it does sound like a rush job and the fact that the posse in China do what they want when it comes to American product designs. We can only blame Hasbro so far. Personally, I think Hasbro should've taken a stronger stance and made the factories in China do the figures over.