Well, I actually cheated a little bit and instead of closing down the Concept Case survey last night, I did it at about 5:30 am this morning. I was very pleased to see people were placing votes all the way until the end, as the last survey completed was at around 3:00am.
The response to this survey has been frankly overwhelming. Everyone has been very positive and very enthusiastic about the results and the potential for data gathering for Hasbro. While there is certainly no guarantees that anything here will impact any decisions Hasbro is going to make, they encouraged us at JoeCon to get whatever data we could, and G.I. Joe fans should be proud, you guys delivered!
There were nearly 1200 responses, which is quite impressive, and the fans have spoken. I am going to outline the winners of Round One below, and you will see a wealth of charts and graphs screen capped as well, just to prove the results weren’t skewed in any way.
30th Anniversary Top 10
Kwinn
Flint
Hit & Run
Lady Jaye
Crimson Guard Immortal
HEAT Viper
Cobra Eel
Beachhead
Cobra Officer
Crimson Shadow Guard
Pursuit of Cobra Top 10
Data-Viper
Clutch
Echo Faction Trooper
Dreadnok KAOS Crew
Cobra Infantry
Zartan
Heavy Alley-Viper
Raven’s Wing
NOMaD Warrior
HISS Driver
Zombie Invasion & Legends of the Arashikage
Ghost Ninja Henchman
Dark Ninja Master
Zombie Cobra Commander
Beast Ninja
Toxo-Zombie
Red Ninja Dice
Ninja Warrior Monk
Zombie Cobra Viper
Gold Ninja
Urban Ninja
There were also (obviously) results for the G.I. Joe: Renegades and vehicles as well, and I mirrored images of the survey results on those below. I figured the figures from the three main sections was the most important.
Now…where do we go from here? I think an important next step is to take the winners of each section and face them off against each other. They’ve all been compared within the confines of their own subline, but I think the next important step is to cull more wheat and refine the results even further.
For folks who have been following along…what would you rather see? The Top 5 from each section face off, or the Top 10? Would a Round two survey with 15 – 20 quick and easy choices be a better idea, or broadening the scope a bit? Leave me comments in the comment section with your choices.
Take a peek at the images below to get a great breakdown of each section of the poll, and most importantly THANK YOU ALL for your contributions. This has been a terrific community-building experience.
Here we are. Number one. My most requested, most admired, and most longed after item that we saw in the Concept Case at the 2012 G.I. Joe Convention. I will admit something, though. If we’re talking about being impressed by a specific item itself, I would have to admit, the Coyote was probably the most impressive toy that I saw, standing on its own. But with the thought in mind that we will likely never see this thing at retail, I wanted to place the number one moniker on a more realistic goal. A figure with some new tooling (but not too much), and a figure of a character that I have loved for a very long time.
1 – G.I. Joe: 30th Anniversary Hit & Run
In 1988 I was just starting high school, and trying to figure out what I wanted to be “when I grew up”. I bounced between being an artist, being a writer, and pretty much as far away from Information Services flunky as you can get. Back in those days, well before I ever heard the term “fanfic” I explored my writing by diving into the G.I. Joe universe. With it being 1988, and the last Sunbow G.I. Joe adventures being behind us, it felt kind of like a new start, even though I was a devout comic fan, and the comic was still going strong. One of the first figures I bought from the 1988 series was Hit & Run, and I was immediately blown away. As a 14 year old kid, I was especially impressed by his background on the filecard, involving the death of his parents, and it immediately gave the character an immense depth in my mind.
My own personal G.I. Joe universe developed over the next couple of years, and in 1990 I really dove into my writing, which involved the Joe team picking up the pieces after a massive battle had eliminated much of their leadership team. Stalker was the new commander, Bullhorn played a key communications role, and Hit & Run earned his spot as the trademark “lone wolf” being rather anti-social and angry at the world because of his rocky upbringing and his inability to stay in one place for too long. As a big fan of Wolverine and The Punisher back then, the whole lone wolf mentality was fresh in my head, and the character was without a doubt the focus of my entire G.I. Joe universe. He wasn’t a ninja like Snake Eyes, but he was fast, awesome with a weapon, and he just didn’t care about anything but killing Cobra.
The character has just always resonated with me, and continued to when I wrote my fanfic The Price of Peace (which is pretty different than what I was writing in 1990, but still had some of those elements in place), and then when I moved over to my Dio-Stories. Hit & Run has always remained a constant, and even as I’ve watched several other characters evolve through new designs and concepts, my trusty ’88 Hit & Run has maintained his place. Yes, we did receive a 25th Anniversary update in the Attack of Cobra Island boxed set, which both surprised and impressed me, but the end result, unfortunately, didn’t really give the character justice in my mind. I wondered if a new version ever would.
Turns out that yes. A new version could do the character justice. Justice in a huge way. As I walked to the Concept Case up ahead, after grabbing my parachute figures from the Sales floor, I had already heard the whispers of people milling around. No less than four people walked up to me in the 20 minutes I was in line, a couple of them practically jogging, to excitedly tell me there was a Hit & Run in the case. I almost couldn’t believe it.
After waiting in line I rushed over, and there it was. A newly tooled head, with the necessary green facepaint and camouflage. Lots of borrowed parts, but parts borrowed from as of yet unreleased figures (upcoming 3-Pack Firefly torso, upcoming 3-Pack Agent Mouse arms) and using the fantastic parachute rig that was never included with Lifeline…essentially the figure looks all new, but with lots of borrowed tooling. Parts choice was perfect, the weapons used were simply fantastic, and the new head, helmet, and goggles simply topped the whole thing off. This figure is freaking gorgeous. Gorgeous. Not only does it look amazing, but it does a perfect job of taking one of my all time favorite characters, as obscure as he might be, and planting him firmly in the modern era, capturing all of the old school spirit, yet making all of the right updates. If I was allowed to make the perfect update to Hit & Run myself, this figure would be the end result. I love this figure so much, I’m desperately trying to not imagine a world where it is never released. I’m trying to convince myself that fan demand will somehow prevail and this figure will end up at retail or as some sort of online exclusive somewhere, some time, and some place. I don’t care when, I don’t care how, and I don’t care how much, this figure must happen.
I’ve always said that the Concept Case Survey was designed to be site neutral, hosted on a third party site (SurveyMonkey) and designed to be used by anyone, regardless of their affiliation. But I did suspect that other sites would want to run their own surveys geared to their own membership, and that’s cool, too.
For those HissTank.com faithful, they’ve started rolling out “Concept Vault Madness” similar to their March Madness polls, where they pit certain figures against each other to try and pick a winner.
The way I see it, if we can pull data from many different sources for Hasbro to use, all the better. Take a look at HissTank.com’s Concept Vault Madness, but then also make sure you swing by the Concept Case Survey as well to make your voice heard loud and clear. 😉
If you are heading to HissTank for the Vault Madness, and need an image refresher, don’t forget the Identification Gallery. That might prove useful.
Just a reminder that the Concept Case Survey that has been available via SurveyMonkey will be closed on Monday July 23rd for the initial round results to be tabulated. I did post earlier this week that the survey would end today, but in rethinking that, I figured it might be good to have another weekend for folks to make their voices heard.
I’m surprised that the volume of responses has continued to come in pretty heavily. G.I. Joe fans are making their choices clear! Thank you!
Getting down to the nitty gritty, which is where you’ll find this particular figure on most people’s want lists. To be honest, if I had been asked a month ago what my most wanted figure would be, this guy would be pretty much have hit the top of the list without any competition.
Well, when Hasbro unveiled the Concept Case at this year’s G.I. Joe Convention suddenly there was a LOT of competition. Vehicles, figures, ideas… it almost relegated this guy to the “been there, done that” pile. But not quite.
One close up look at this figure will tell you that even for folks who don’t really care for the character are still getting a very good G.I. Joe toy.
3 – G.I. Joe: 30th Anniversary Kwinn
Of course one might ask, among a team of heavily armored, heavily equipped, future tech sporting super-soldiers, where does an Eskimo with shorts, a khaki shirt, and a weasel skull necklace fit in? That question has obviously been asked a lot, especially by Hasbro themselves as this poor guy (who is a fully tooled and ready for release figure) still has not gotten an opportunity to be released yet.
I think Hasbro pushed fans near the breaking point when they actually displayed him in a case full of unused (and perhaps never-to-be-used) concepts, but based on conversations with Hasbro at JoeCon, I think chances of Kwinn being released are probably around 85 – 90%. This is not a guy you need to worry about never getting your hands on. Regardless, he still stands proud pretty close to the top of my Top Ten list. Admittedly, though, based on responses I’m seeing from the Concept Case survey, I am in the minority for putting him this far back, which should be good news for all of you Kwinn fans out there.
Along with a couple other fan sites, the guys from JoeDeClassified and JoeBattleLines worked together to talk to Hasbro rep Derryl DePriest at ComicCon last weekend, and has posted the interview online here.
There is some great conversation throughout the entire scope of the interview, especially focusing on the possibilities of more Resolute or Renegades product beyond the scope of the Concept Case stuff, and while the answers certainly aren’t ones that I wanted to hear, it was very intriguing discussion, nonetheless.
Kudos to JoeDeClassified and JBL for gathering together some great discussion points. Check out the full interview here.
