It's kind of getting to its own topic, but I just wanted to chip in on the new characters outside the toys thing... A few from Sonneilon's list did make it into the comics, I'm sure - didn't a few Joes including Snake Eyes and/or Falcon go up against some Sand Vipers and the newly-cyborg Overkill? And Burnout had a few non-speaking appearances in some Dreadnok group shots, as did con-exclusives Crusher and Demolisher (or at least the one with Sagat's head).

I'd add VvV Croc Master to the list as he's stated as being a new claimant to the name on his FC (and is appearing alongside some Jungle Vipers in next month's America's Elite #21), and the ROCC driver Long Range is a different guy to the Thunderclap driver (think Sky Patrol Airborne). He's not been in the DDP continued-universe series but as far as I was aware it's meant to be the same basic Long Range as the Sigma Six guy.

Overkill from Spy Troops onwards I would not count as the RAH character because the Talking Battle Commander's filecard is vastly different, saying he was a prototype for a new BAT series but cost too much to mass-produce; no mention of cyborg parts. And there's the pedantic matter that the RAH one was "Overkill" and the rest have been "Over Kill"...! :P

Medi-Viper is interesting in that we saw the troop at the end of the Marvel run but it took over a decade for a figure to show -- classing them as a new character would mean including Kwinn and the other comic pack Oktober Guard characters who'd not been figures before...

Oh, it's all so convoluted! Is it any wonder that for the anniversary Hasbro probably just went to the local colleges & bars, asked random people to name some GI Joe characters, then took the most-given 25 names to make the "most popular characters" into new figures!?