I'd like to see Hasbro put out some 25th anniversary vehicles with a new touch. Any rumors?

None at all, man.

Yes, the vehicles are every bit a part of GI Joe mythos but I think Hasbro wants to push the characters as hard as they can. Like people have been saying, these 1st 10 figures need to be bough and cleared from the shelves to get Hasbro to think twice about things. We can ASSume that if these 1st 10 are sold out, then the next 15 will be easy and the inclusion of vehicles is a possibility down the road.

Thing is, I like the idea of themes. It helps the Joes evolve in terms of characterization and whatnot. Unfortunately, the lack of focus on the themes led to redundant chars and outfits that made no sense. At least w/ VvV, you had venomized troops and Link the problem-solver. But at the same time, that could have been a small scale mission and another mission could've been made up and have had chars specifically for that.

SHoot, what if they did Viper Lockdown? What if they ran with that idea and created a wave or 2 of Joes to support it? Give them similar camo/outfits and away we go. Then another mission/story after that and again, different joes w/ decent outfits. Uhmmmm, anyway, the vehicles could go w/ missions too. What's the point of creating dune buggys for a snow story? lol

Ok ok, i'll shut up.

What he said... it all depends on the velocity of sales for the last 15 if the scale line will continue and vehicles show up.

I never thought about Lucas pulling strings to help his "marketing genius". Conspiracy theory of fact *eyes dart back and forth*

If I remember the dates right, I think it happened w/ the 3rd movie. He wanted NO competition so he set up a situation w/ Hasbro to get that 'other' 3.75" action figure off the shelves so only his would be available. To an extent, 3.75" went away for Sigma6 but the small line had it coming. You can also blame that on the big wigs there. It would seem that each theme/year, there was someone knew at the head. Deryl DePriest, Dwight Stall, Billy Lagor... Someone wanted GI Joe to be an overnite seller and that was part of the reason for S6.

It wasn't until recently that someone figured out that slow and steady sales can work too. Instant success stories are rare and S6, while popular, may have not taken off like they had hoped or assumed or thought or whatever.

Here's the goofy thing tho. We talk about how Hasbro will continue 3.75". But in what fashion? More redux of characters? Extend the years so the choices are thru 1989? It's gotta be quick cuz I think the steam will run out.

Off topic, but....Depriest manages (or mismanages) Star Wars now (not sure if he has had any hand in GI JOE in recent years). I say mismanages sort of jokingly, as good and bad ideas used for GIJOE appear in the Star Wars line.

Good: comic packs. (Including EU character ones with all new figures), return of some large vehicles (as store exclusives), acknowledging clone army building fans with things like Betrayal on Felucia and Hunt for Greivous.

Bad: Order 66 two packs with reissued figures paired with exclusive repaints. (which he acted like these were some treat in the press release about them ), large vehicles with exclusive figures, exploiting army builder and clone trooper fans with things...like Order 66 2-packs.

I always hated those gimmicks, putting an exclusive figure in with an expensive vehicle, or repacking them with figures that have already come out and most likely already own... The comic packs were certainly a nifty idea though (for Star Wars) ad gave us some nice figures we would have otherwise never seen.

--== Paragon ==--

I had forgotten that DePriest went over to SW. Rumor has it, he's a lot of the reason why some of those figures got new/more articulation.