Derryl DePriest and Mark Weber were onsite at the G.I. Joe Convention in Loveland and ran the Hasbro Team panel, bringing us all the exciting news on product for 2016!
The focus of 2016 will be figures over vehicles, broken down into 2 Packs and 3 Packs. These will be offered at Toys R Us and Entertainment Earth. The two packs will be shipped in cases of 10 allowing for evenly packed offerings, so no more short pack figures! The roster is as follows:
Two Packs
- Arashikage Duel
Two Pack of carry forward figures for Pursuit of Cobra Snake Eyes and Renegades Storm Shadow
- Sinister Allies
What looks to be carry forward versions of the PoC Cobra Viper and 25th Anniversary Iron Grenadier
- Zombie Patrol
A two pack of carry forward 30th Anniversary Zombie Vipers!
- Heavy Conflict
A new build for Heavy Duty with Kindle Worlds fan vote Stiletto!
- Mission Accepted
Duke faces off against a BRAND NEW character in Tombstone. Hasbro felt strongly that featuring an unmasked Cobra character (and an African American at that) would be a great way to develop the Cobra roster.
Squad Three Packs
- COBRA Legion
A Cobra B.A.T., new looking Cobra SAW Viper, both led by a female Cobra Officer! The Cobra Officer will be unmasked and with blonde hair.
- Special Forces
Dark colored Outback, dark colored Falcon, and the first ever appearance of SHOOTER the mysterious 14th original G.I. Joe member. Shooter will be based off her appearance in the Devil’s Due comics!
And that’s what we’ve got this year (well, besides the SDCC Convention Set we already know about). Keep following along, more images from the Hasbro booth are sure to come!
Oh, and so I don’t forget… here’s the final crossword puzzle solution. Big thanks to Phil at YoJoe for all the pics and thanks to Terry for the live stream!
…I am BEYOND STOKED at a chance to get SAW-VIPERS at retail!! Plus 3 new characters and a female Cobra Officer, finally! Too bad about vehicles… But they have to dig deeper and release things besides V1 HISS, Awe-Strikers and Skystrikers! Repainting and retooling/new weapons for the mechs, repainting the RHINO, Reissuing the Cycle-Armor, ect!
What’s up with the Wonder Twins action going on with the Zombie Vipers?
I was watching the panel stream as it happened yesterday, and my wife had to come upstairs and ask if I was okay because I kept swearing with delight. When the least appealing pack in the roster includes my favorite custom fodder (POC snake eyes), it’s a good year. Easily the most diverse year in the line’s history! A widely released Falcon and Outback in great colors! Original characters! Multiple troop builder packs! Even if they end up made of play-doh and colored with markers, I will be psyched.
Pretty underwhelming. Color palette seems limited this year. Lot of dark, plain decos. Even the star in the logo is black.
Are there still shoulder decos on Snake Eyes like the first release? I think I’d actually prefer them without. These two particular Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow figures are great and I’m fine with Hasbro releasing them every year so everybody gets a shot at them.
I like Cobra Commander and Destro chromed but I’ve never liked the Vipers with it.
Wonder Twins Zombie-Vipers are just Hasbro being funny. Nice that they’re being released again. I never saw them the first time around. Wouldn’t have been upset with some of the concept case zombies instead though.
They really need to go clean shaven with Heavy Duty and equip him with something other than a big machine gun. Otherwise, he just seems like a Roadblock knock-off.
SAW Viper’s the one figure that I think really could’ve used a darker color palette. I guess blondie got promoted,
http://joetoonarchive.com/thumbnails.php?album=83
It’s too bad FunPub got the masked female Cobra Troopers.