Is There a Roadblock or a Shipwreck Keel-Hauling Our Chances for 6-inch Joes or is Hasbro Just Not Gung Ho?

Well, another major toy event has come and gone, and once again there is no sign of 6-inch G.I. Joes. There were Thundercats and Madballs, Nukes and Captain Americas, but no announcement from Hasbro that they would finally start a 6-inch G.I. Joe line.

A more rational man may take that as a sign. Maybe it’s not meant to be. Maybe, for whatever reason, Hasbro just has no interest in moving one of their properties into a different scale, ignoring a precedent set by… pretty much every property they’ve pumped out. A more rational man may look at all the brand new tooling involved, may look at the mind-boggling wealth of characters, may look at a built-in audience of toy fans hungry for this new take on an old favorite, and think that if a 6-inch G.I. Joe line hadn’t reared it’s fatigue-covered head by now, then it’s more than likely not going to be happening.

A more rational man would stop banging a drum that isn’t producing a sound.

I have been accused of many things, but rational isn’t one of them.

I only have to look at the Star Wars Black series, a series finally delivering — in the slowest way possible — the 6-inch Star Wars experience. Sure, the line has had some ups and downs, but it exists. It exists after years of believing that it just wasn’t going to be happening.

A rational man would give up. Rational men are perhaps pragmatic about situations that seem unshifting, and they move onward, to devote their time to less untenable endeavors. But you have to look to the irrational to put their faith in something that seems impossible. You have to look to the irrational to take all the contrary evidence and toss it away. An irrational man will continue to hold out hope that something will happen. Look at all those people who said, “They’ll never make 6-inch Star Wars figures.” That may have sounded rational once. How do they sound now?

They sound wrong, is how they sound. Dang wrong.

I’m choosing to look at 6-inch G.I. Joe as an inevitability.

I’ll even make it simple. Let’s take the major factor that holds any project back: money.

In toys, the money is in tooling. G.I. Joe, like Star Wars, is a brand with a high amount of non-reusable parts. However, G.I. Joe has far more reusability than Star Wars. Just for irrational fun, let’s take a look at a simple first wave that could be high in reuse and rich in rewards while still offering up a nice assortment of figures.

In order to maximize the reuse, it will probably be important not to be absolute sticklers to the original G.I. Joe toys. In other words, I don’t think anybody will freak out if a character that didn’t have laced-up boots in the original line suddenly has laced up boots now. At least, I’m assuming nobody will freak out.

Let’s assume they’d aim for a wave setup like the Star Wars Black Series, which means four characters initially, with waves shifting to accommodate re-releases of past characters. This has a tendency to backfire as those oceans of Ewans will attest, but let’s assume they’ll go in that direction anyway.

Hasbro would be smart to start off with an army builder. The two largest army builders would be the standard Cobra Trooper or the Viper. I’d say start off with the Cobra Trooper. This would allow the ability to pack in multiple heads for the army-builders, including one with a Scar for those who wanted a Scarface. Also one head could have a red face cover (comic style) and one a black. This would be three heads, which could possibly means two to three purchases at minimum for completists, including much more for the crazy army builders among us.

Hasbro would also be smart in going straight for Snake Eyes in this first wave and making him a standout like they did with Darth Maul in the first wave of Star Wars Black. That was back when we thought we’d be getting absolutely perfect versions of every character each time. If they started with Commando Snake Eyes, they’d have some parts for several of the other “original 13,” including Stalker, because Stalker is a badass and should come out sooner rather than later.

For our next good guy, let’s start off with Duke. If you get Duke rolling, you have parts for Doc, Gung Ho, and Major Bludd, plus you have a built-in excuse for a Tiger Force version down the line, maybe as an exclusive or two-pack, three-pack, five-pack, whatever-pack.

And since we’ve got Duke parts, let’s piggyback them into Major Bludd, who will give us parts for several characters down the road, including Tripwire and possibly a version of Cobra Commander with those high boots.

So that gives us a first wave of Duke, Major Bludd, Snake Eyes, and a Cobra Trooper. That means a first wave with a prime bad guy, an army builder, a leader, and the most popular character in the entire Joe brand, with plenty of parts reuse set up to provide for several characters down the line. Hasbro could easily start making back their initial investments and provide a public service, that service being a 6-inch G.I. Joe line. But I’m no professional toy-imagineer. I’m just an irrational guy waiting for a time when he can start putting together a collection of 6-inch G.I. Joes.

Any day now.

Any day at all.

Until then, I’m going to keep banging this drum until it squeaks.