Fred from JBL fires up his camera once again and generously donates his time and pixels to another Wolverine: Origins 1:18 scale gallery on GeneralsJoes. Even though I can’t find these freaking figures myself, at least seeing Fred’s insanely well detailed and quality images satisfies me… but just a bit.
Hi – Here is a quick update from http://www.bigbadtoystore.com about a
variety of new preorders, and more new arrivals.
The fine folks at IDW and JoeReloaded bring us 5(ish) page previews of both G.I. Joe #3 and the G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA Movie prequel #1 (featuring Duke).
G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA Prequel #1
My first reaction? G.I. Joe #3 looks pretty cool… Atkins does a nice job with the art, great flow to the action, nice dialogue by Dixon (Hawk’s somewhat cliche’d “come get some” not withstanding). Love Hawk being on fire…good stuff.
The Rise of COBRA prequel seems neat, too. More basic military action, a step away from the future-war sci-fi stuff that the movie seems to be going for. Ripcord and Duke together on a fairly standard jungle op. Fairly standard from an art perspective, but it works well enough, and the story flows, even without a whole lot of action. Not bad, and I’m happy to be kind of moving into the movie universe.
Thanks to Phil Kost from JoeReloaded for the heads up.
According to the latest copy of the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club newsletter, there is an actual “Street Date” in place for the debut of the G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA action figure line. That date is listed as July 11, 2009. Recently the Marvel figures had a similar date of March 1st, however that ended up being a pretty “fluid” date as many stores released the figures earlier than that date, and there are still many stores who have not yet stocked their shelves (such as every single store in my nearby vicinity. :/ ).
Regardless of the stedfast date, we at least now have an idea of when we should be expecting these to hit retail. One item of note, the M.A.R.S. Industries 3-Pack with the Officer and 2 Troopers are a “preview” item and will hit retail before then, most likely in May.
Thanks to madmac of the JoeBattleLines forums for this information!
While these two repaints are definitely not my cup of tea, I know there are fans out there looking for them. If you can’t find them in your local area, hit up Target.com, they’re in stock now.
Tiger Force Tiger Rat w/ Wild Bill
Python Patrol Conquest w/ COBRA Viper
Thanks to singsingjohnny and Shin Densestu of HissTank.com for the info!
* * * * * * * * * [ SMALLJOES.COM NEWSLETTER ] * * * * * * * * * *
Hi all,
We wanted to tell you about some web site updates and new product listings.
Phil Kost from JoeReloaded reports that according to Midtown Comics, G.I. Joe #3 and G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA Prequel #1 (featuring Duke) will both be released next Wednesday, March 11th.
We reported yesterday that G.I. Joe: COBRA would be released March 18th, which still leaves G.I. Joe: Origins #2 somewhat up in the air.
Thanks to Phil for the info, it would certainly appear that IDW is flying out of the starting gate…and I think I might be the only one at least a little bit excited to already be starting the move into the Rise of COBRA universe. If nothing else, it’ll be a different take. I’m willing to give it a shot, at least.
eBay seller “dreamcab” has posted several auctions for test shot vehicles with drivers that may or may not be for upcoming movie items. I would hypothesize that at least a couple of them were slated for vehicles w/ figures before they got cancelled and re-allocated as figures in the COBRA Island 7-Packs. I’m not sure I buy the listing descriptions, but we can at least take a look at what are listed:
Listing calls this a “RAM” and doesn’t mention the figure’s name, but the vehicle itself is obviously a newly tooled and somewhat modified Silver Mirage. That being said, it’s still tough to tell what the figure is with the size of the pic in the auction. The tooling looks like the Resolute Duke that comes with the Resolute 5-Pack, though who knows in what capacity the figure would have been used.
This is definitely a curious one. The listing calls it a “FLAK w/ Outback” but obviously that’s the Whirlwind, not the FLAK. And also obviously, taking a close look at the figure, that looks a hell of a lot like Recondo to me. The tooling, the shoulder holster, the hat and gun. That’s who it is. It would seem this is how Recondo was supposed to come before this set may have gotten cancelled and had the figure re-allocated to the 7-Pack.
The Firebat itself looks to be modified with larger engine intakes, rockets, and a differently tooled tail section. The figure looks like Sgt. Airborne, so who knows if it’s just a test shot for that figure, or if it was slated to be something new. It’s certainly not A.V.A.C. as the auction indicates. Something for the movie perhaps?
The auction is labelled as “Duke w/ Jet” but I see no indication that this is even Duke, or that this is even an upcoming vehicle. This is obviously the Valor Vs. Venom Sting Raider, but who knows in what capacity this may end up getting released or what the main goal is. The figure is tiny, so it’s tough to tell what tooling was used or what weapons it comes with.
EDIT: Thanks to the keen eye on folks on HissTank, as well as DistantFred via the comments, it certainly looks as if the driver included with the above auction is the COBRA Island 7-Pack Lamprey.
This is obviously the movie COBRA Gunship w/ Firefly, though the auction is listed as being the “Skyhawk”, which is the most glaring example of these auctions being mislabelled.
All in all, this is certainly an eclectic mixture. Possible movie stuff, possible upcoming anniversary stuff? Possibly cancelled Anniversary stuff? Regardless, these are some really interesting items that I’m fasincated with. It’ll be really interesting to see what ends up coming down the pipeline.
Thanks to The Terror Drome for pointing these auctions out!
I think we all knew the first issue of the COBRA limited series was coming out in March, but I’m not sure we knew when in March it would arrive at comic stores. Well, we know now.
According to the big-ass sponsorship wallpaper from IDW on Comic Book Resources’ Robot 6 blog, the arrival date is March 18. Cool to see IDW sponsoring a pretty major comic oriented blog, and even more cool to see they’re plastering G.I. Joe images on it. Love it, and I cannot wait for the first issue of COBRA. I have a sneaking suspision people are going to really be blown away by this book.
