When I first saw the tweets from the Hub this morning, who was commenting from the Television Critics’ Association I had a feeling some news would be coming out today. Not a whole lot, but we got a great idea of some of the voice cast who will be speaking through some of our favorite characters! A huge thanks to Toy News International for getting this information out there.
Not only am I going to talk about who the revealed voice actors are, I’m gonna give my own .02 on who they might be playing, as well as a link to their current resume. So, here’s the run down: Lee Majors – Pretty self explanatory. A great resume, a surprise addition.
Famous Roles – The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin. The Fall Guy.
Character Guess – General “Hawk” Abernathy. He has the age, he has the dignity and the attitude. I can’t see him playing anyone else.
Clancy Brown – A long and storied acting and voice acting career. If you’ve watched action cartoons over the past 10 years, you know the voice.
Famous Roles – Shawshank Redeption; Lex Luthor (in Superman and Justice League animated series)
Character Guess – Destro. He has that “holier than thou” corporate magnate flair. I would love to see this happen, I think he would make for an incredible James McCullen Destro.
Charlie Adler – Also has had a very long and illustrious career, and I can guarantee, nearly everyone reading this post has heard his voice.
Famous Roles – Cobra Commander, Gung Ho, Flint (G.I. Joe: Resolute); Starscream (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Prime); Dr. Doom (The Super Hero Squad Show)
Character Guess – Gotta be Cobra Commander. He did a fantastic job in Resolute as Cobra’s insidious leader, and it would be an awesome homage.
Jason Marsden – Not quite as well known as some of the other voice actors, but he’s definitely had a presence over the past number of years. Not quite as well known as his older brother James (Cyclops from the X-Men films)
Famous Roles – Firefly (The Batman)
Character Guess – Duke. Michael Bell’s early leaked comments reflected that fact, so this one is pretty much a known commodity.
Kevin Michael Richardson – Another name with a lot of voice acting experience, though you may not know him right off the tip of your tongue. He’s had a lot of great roles over the past several years.
Famous Roles – The Joker (The Batman); Bishop (Wolverine and the X-Men); L. Thompson Lincoln/Tombstone (The Spectacular Spider-Man); Nick Fury (The Superhero Squad)
Character Guess – Roadblock. He’s got the stature, he’s got the gravitas, and based on the characters he’s played, I think he would do a fantastic Roadblock.
Johnny Messner – Honestly, I had to look this one up. He’s had a long film career, mostly bit parts, and no real voice acting that I can find. Several CSI iterations, other television roles.
Famous Roles – Tears of the Sun, Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Character Guess – Not a clue, really. Flint perhaps?
This is sounding like a fantastic line up. Majors, Brown, Adler, and Richardson already have me fired up. These are guys we’ve heard in cartoons for a long time who have a lot of experience and bring some great talent to the table. Renegades is looking better by the day.
GeneralsJoes commenter Nas made the trip to San Diego and was nice enough to bring some little tidbits back with him to share on the site!
First of all, he had a chance to talk with Mike Costa, writer of the amazing G.I. Joe: Cobra series, and here are some cool little bits of info he had to share.
Originally, his story focused more on the military aspects of Cobra, as opposed to the financial side. As such, he’d intended to have Major Bludd be the primary antagonist, with a surprise reveal of Zartan towards the end!
However, Major Bludd was on an early “don’t use” list, so editor Andy Schmidt suggested using Tomax and Xamot. Mr. Costa was very clear with me, however, that he never felt stifled by the “don’t use” list from Hasbro, and in fact had nothing but nice things to say in regards to the feedback he received as his comic got edgier and more intense. In fact, when he decided who he wanted to kill off in the book, the character was on the “don’t use” list, but Hasbro complied, based on Costa’s reasoning (My observation- And clearly, how his story was going.)
When Cobra wrapped, he was asked to continue the story, but wasn’t sure where it could go without it being a rehash. After talking with Andy Schmidt and Chuck Dixon about the direction the series as a whole was heading, Mike felt confident that he could do a quality story, and said we’ll see the two books (GI Joe main series and Cobra) coming together nicely as the third arc wraps.
He was never a hardcore fan of GI Joe. He had the toys in the house, since his younger brother collected them, but Mike was more of a Transformers fan! He actually credits his lack of fandom to his ability to write a story with no compromises, especially as he’s getting into the Transformers story he’s writing for IDW, and has to struggle more about being precious with the characters.
I mentioned the awesome and scary takes on Crystal Ball and Croc Master, and how CB looks a lot like Alan Moore. He laughed, and said his intention was to have him look like Rasputin. (My observation- artist Antonio Fuso took that where he wanted it to go, apparently!) But, Alan Moore looks like Rasputin, so there you have it!
Another very cool little part of the SDCC experience was that Nas had a chance, with his son, to become official employees of Cobra Industries! As an added bonus, they get their own name badges… this is BAD ASS. I NEED one of these for myself! Awesome. Check out the images below.
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A huge thanks for Nas for taking the time to relay this information to us!
Now that we know just a little bit more about G.I. Joe: Renegades, we know that in this new series, Cobra starts off as a legitimate (or supposedly legitimate) pharmaceutical corporation called Cobra Industries.
Well, on the West Coast, apparently recruiting has started! HissTank reports that Cobra Industries propaganda has started appearing throughout Comic-con and has some great images hosted on their site, which I have mirrored below. I love this sort of stuff…here’s hoping we get more of it leading up to the animated series this fall.
Thanks to the glorious wonders of YouTube and sneaky convention attendees. Woop!
From what we can see, pretty neat stuff. Sure, mostly gun fire and Snake Eyes beating crap up, but the animation is fluid…the action is crisp and well choreographed. Looking forward to seeing more!
Well, not holy crap because of his name, because it’s pretty likely you’ve never heard of him before. I know I hadn’t. But if you’re a self-respecting geek, you’ve no doubt seen some of his work. His name is Henry Gilroy, and the guys at the Terror Drome confirmed at SDCC that he is one of the lead writers for G.I. Joe: Renegades.
So why is this important? Why is it a “Holy Crap” moment? Check out his resume:
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Animated Series (Writer)
The Secret Saturdays
Transformers: Animated (The Sound and the Fury)
Bionicle
The Tick
The Adventures of Batman and Robin
Batman: The Animated Series
Uhhh yeah. I think Renegades is in pretty good hands. As I’ve already covered in this post, we’ve got some very experienced veterans involved here, and experienced veterans with a great background. Some of the folks who worked on some of the greatest animated series in the past 15 years now have their hands in G.I. Joe, and I think that can only be a good thing. I can understand how some of the art and character designs might be a turn off to the adult Joe fan, but I still think we need to give the actual content a try before we prepare to write it off.
