Someone out there has passed along some very interesting images of what looks to be a potential G.I. Joe: Renegades themed 4-Pack as an Amazon.com exclusive. This surprising and somewhat mind-blowing set doesn’t feature any new characters (beyond the Red Ninja) and the look of the characters on the box is remarkably similar to what we’ve seen already.
But here’s a question… considering that G.I. Joe: Renegades was initially being designed as an animated style figure line, is it possible some of that defunct tooling could find their way into this set? I don’t know. Maybe I’m looking too deeply into it, but it seems weird to me that they would release a 4-Pack with mostly the same figures that we’ve seen at mass retail already. Some previously unused tooling would make this set a LOT more desirable, I think.
I guess time will tell. Until we get more details, check out the terrific looking box art below. Can’t wait to see some images of the figures!!
no images were found
UPDATE – Now that my little Renegades geek heart has slowed down a little bit… there are some indications here that these could in fact be new figures of some sort. Looking at the arms for Storm Shadow and Red Ninja, they look completely different than what we saw in the 30th Anniversary version. Also, with Snake Eyes jumping around in a trench coat, could we see a coated version of Snake Eyes in this set?
So with big thanks to Gyre Viper and JoeDeClassified, we got a very nice look at some potential upcoming figures to be released this year. With much of the focus being placed on the G.I. Joe: Retaliation movie line, this figure assortment (which contains some very old school classic deco’s) sort of came out of left field and has many fans scratching their heads.
Well, looking to find some answers, I asked around a little bit to see what I could find.
A reliable source tells me that these figures are themed as a low price-point assortment, mostly targeted for Dollar Stores. The idea of the assortment was to take some of the well known core characters and get them into retail outlets, but to do it in interesting ways, and ways that existing tooling would allow.
With the idea of paint applications, apparently some decisions had to be made for cost purposes, and even though a figure like Cobra Commander looks to be somewhat bland, he has the same paint apps as anyone else, they’re just applied differently. As far as paint applications go, too, each paint app adds cost to the overall product, so to keep pricing low, the number of different paint applications also had to be kept low. While the price has yet to be revealed, we can expect to see these priced lower than the mainline items.
Release dates are uncertain, but we should expect to see these hit Dollar Stores this summer.
Obviously at this point, these details could be subject to change, but I consider this information to be extremely reliable. Again, to see some images of these figures, check out JoeDeClassified.com.
If nothing else this assortment brings a certain enlightenment to me. Ever since its release, I’ve always hated the Ninja Force Storm Shadow. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but it’s clear to me now. I think the design and the limited articulation of the original figure significantly impacted my overall opinion of the uniform itself. Seeing this similar design on a much better base figure really gives new light to the look of the figure in a way I didn’t appreciate back in the 90’s. It’s amazing that after 15 or so years, taking old school deco’s and applying them to newer figures can still bring things to light after all this time.
A great looking assortment, and great news about them potentially hitting discount and dollar stores. Hopefully there’s more still to come!
This latest image from G.I. Joe: Retaliation comes courtesy of StarkIndustries.ru, which is apparently a Russian film site, but I’ll be damned if I know where they got it from. I know with the last series of Retaliation press images, a Russian site was ahead of the American press by a day or two for whatever reason.
The awesome looking image features G.I. Joe member Flint (D.J. Cotrona) facing off against the infamous Cobra Ninja Storm Shadow (Byung Hun Lee). It’s a pretty neat image and shows us that from all appearances, Storm Shadow will look very similar to his Rise of Cobra appearance in his leather trenchcoat. Check out the mirrored image below.
I’m honestly not sure if there is any new footage here or not, but it’s a new ninja-centric TV spot for the film, so here it is! Check it out on YouTube or embedded below.
All right! Sure, I would much prefer some more footage these days, but I’ll take another press image as well, especially when it’s a very cool action shot of the one and only Storm Shadow!
Escape from what? That’s the question. It would certainly appear that perhaps his body was retrieved by someone and kept in some sort of stasis, allowing him to survive…but how does that jive with Cobra Commander and the word that this Commander is a totally new character than what we saw in Rise of Cobra?
Verrrry interesting. Cannot WAIT to find out all the answers June 29th! Check out the mirrored image below and a big thanks to Twitter follower toycollector962 for the information.
