For a short while we were getting monthly updates to a new animated G.I. Joe short-format “web series” that takes place in the Rise of Cobra universe, called “Operation: HISS”. Initially designed to bridge the story between Rise of Cobra and Pursuit of Cobra, but is obviously something that was not necessarily created with the highest standard in mind.
Regardless, it’s been a couple of months since we saw anything new from the Operation: HISS series, and some folks (probably not many) were wondering what the heck happened. No idea. But I do know at least, that Hasbro posted a short Scarlett Spotlight on their video page, and the MS G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club posted a very nice high def encode up on their Facebook page.
I’ve encoded it below.
I know this is pretty hokey, but I was at least hoping to see someone like Helix show up somewhere along the way…
August is still a couple of months away, but as we all know, certain places have pre-production figures from The Pursuit of Cobra already, and the latest one to catch my eye was the Toys “R” Us Exclusive Spirit Iron-Knife. Not having a local TRU only made the choice all the easier, and I’ve posted my review in the Pursuit of Cobra Review Page. Of course you can also check it out directly right here.
August is only a couple of short months away, and we all know what that means in regards to the Asian market. Over the past few days quite a number of products have started showing up across the web, and while I’ll refrain from linking to specific auctions, I did want to mirror the updated images and point out that these all come courtesy of The Terror Drome. To date, we’ve got some nice pictures of Pursuit of Cobra City Strike Beachhead, Jungle Assault Duke, Desert Battle Storm Shadow, and G.I. Joe: Resolute Scarlett and Baroness.
In the past I’ve jumped on some of these auctions pretty quickly, to be totally honest. But so far, I’m holding myself back on this initial batch. I grabbed Spirit pretty quickly when he appeared a couple of weeks back, but I’m just having a hard time pulling the trigger on $20 a pop when they should be hitting retail in about 6 – 8 weeks. The really weird thing is, for the Rise of Cobra figures, which were pretty inferior, all told, I was jumping on them pretty quick. But for these much better figures, I can’t bring myself to do it, at least not yet. Is it because of the price jump, which is admittedly, pretty small? Or is it my strong, iron clad moral core? Yeah, definitely not that.
Check out some of the images mirrored below.
So the answers have all pretty much trickled in for the latest round of the Q & A, which I’ve archived much of right here. Honestly, it seemed like a somewhat drab round, without a whole lot of info. I know many of you will say that’s no surprise, but in the last round, I thought we got some great news nuggets, especially considering how close we were to Toy Fair.
This round there wasn’t much to get riled up about, but we did get some interesting information gleaned from the sites around the ‘net. These were some of the more interesting things discussed, in my opinion…click the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for the full run down. (more…)
When images from the Pursuit of Cobra were first shown from JoeCon in 2009, while most folks raved about Shadow Tracker and Jungle-Viper, I was secretly drooling over the City Strike Firefly. That freaky looking helmet, and futuristic design all really appealed to me and it was one of the figures I was most looking forward to. As the months have gone on, my love for the figure has waned, but just a bit.
I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not quite as fond of the figure, or if all of the other Pursuit of Cobra figures just look so much more bad ass than they did even six months ago, but whatever the reason, Firefly hasn’t retained his “rock star” status, at least from preliminary pictures. His vest makes him look a bit bulky, I’m not sure exactly what the detail is underneath the vest, and his sewn-in elbow pads are giving me some unfortunate flashbacks to the Rise of Cobra troopers.
But who knows…I don’t have the figure in hand yet, so I should try to reel in my early judgements at least somewhat. It’s quite possible I’ll be surprised. I still absolutely love that helmet, love his machine guns, love the suction cup backpack. Ah, who am I kidding, everyone who reads this page knows I’ll probably gush about it anyway…
Regardless of all that, Gyre-Viper has supplied a healthy helping of Pursuit of Cobra Firefly pictures over at HissTank, and I’m mirroring a bunch below. As some added bonuses we’ve also got some Resolute Firefly and Zartan thrown in for good measure. The start of 2010 has been pretty slow from a product standpoint, but damn, once August hits, it’ll be like 2009 all over again. Only this time the product is all going to be great. At least from early glimpses…
Check out the images below.
Why? Why did it take so long to get this idea right? And why, right when the G.I. Joe design team is absolutely kicking ass, will we be migrating back over to yet another G.I. Joe theme with G.I. Joe: Renegades in 2011?
I mean, seriously. The Pursuit of Cobra is like the essence of everything that is awesome about G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Real world, gritty military action, mixed with futuristic science fiction, yet fantasy that’s not too separated from the realm of reality. It’s nearly a perfect mixture of military and fantasy. I know we’ve already seen a healthy helping of images of the upcoming Cobra HISS Tank from the Pursuit of Cobra line, but for some reason these new images from AC Toys just make me all the giddier about it. The sleek, armored “speedster” look, the fully multifunction upper body with the multitude of cannon turrets and twin canopies. This thing is INSANE.
I’m not a huge fan of the brown, and that HISS Driver does absolutely nothing for me, but the vehicle itself is one of the coolest toys I’ve seen in a long, long time.
