G.I. Joe Classified Series: The Chatty Pointless Thread & Performance Art

[docsilence]

I'm on record as being always of the opinion with any established property that every character and costume is -someone's- favorite and should be treated that way. Don't phone it in or fuck it up just because it's not the popular one.

I feel the same way here. Yeah, maybe not a lot of people care about Mirage. But someone does. And that person is going to be gutted when Hasbro finally gets around to making this character they grew up being so fond of and it's not the character they actually grew up being fond of. I loved my Salvo figure growing up. If Hasbro finally makes Salvo and it's some bullshit gender-swap I'm going to be PISSED. Not because 'ew girls' but because 'I really want 1990 Salvo.'

Not saying you can never do gender swap characters (that's all fucking Dawn is). Just that I find it unacceptably douchey to make that the first time that particular character makes it into the line. That's as much a 'fuck you' to ARAH fans as 'Arctic Storm Shadow.'

Totally agree with this. I've actually found that in non-Joe IPs very often my favorite IS the one who new writers decide to make some sort of change like that for and while I'm all for adding representation and breaking up a monotonous cast of characters, it's kind of funny how often it's been my fave who is the one they swap out.

I also find I really like those Second Generation female Joe characters but I want BOTH versions. Doc and Dial Tone are two of my favorite characters, I want action figures of Carla and Jill, but I'd have been heartbroken if Classified skipped over the OG versions. They'd absolutely get my money on the 2.0 characters but I would've been really upset if they ignored the old school ones.

 

[Damien]

Totally agree with this. I've actually found that in non-Joe IPs very often my favorite IS the one who new writers decide to make some sort of change like that for and while I'm all for adding representation and breaking up a monotonous cast of characters, it's kind of funny how often it's been my fave who is the one they swap out.

I'm often a fan of the characters people don't even USE, let alone gender-swap. So I'm always wary of 'what if we just took this shit character and did something different' because, my dude, that might be my ONLY chance at seeing that character and you want to change them.

I also find I really like those Second Generation female Joe characters but I want BOTH versions. Doc and Dial Tone are two of my favorite characters, I want action figures of Carla and Jill, but I'd have been heartbroken if Classified skipped over the OG versions. They'd absolutely get my money on the 2.0 characters but I would've been really upset if they ignored the old school ones.

For sure. I think even the more steadfast 'ew girls' club falls into this line of thinking in a way. The complainers love to buy this stuff. If you do the gender swap first, you're going to calcify them against it and potentially get people refusing to buy just on principle (even if it's a shitty principle). If you do the OG first and then another version later, you don't -start- from a position of animus and people are more likely to just be like 'sure, I don't want to use this as female Deep Six, but I'll just make her a different female diver.' Which is a 180 from 'NOT MY DEEP SIX, WILL NOT BUY!'

 

[docsilence]

I'm often a fan of the characters people don't even USE, let alone gender-swap. So I'm always wary of 'what if we just took this shit character and did something different' because, my dude, that might be my ONLY chance at seeing that character and you want to change them.



For sure. I think even the more steadfast 'ew girls' club falls into this line of thinking in a way. The complainers love to buy this stuff. If you do the gender swap first, you're going to calcify them against it and potentially get people refusing to buy just on principle (even if it's a shitty principle). If you do the OG first and then another version later, you don't -start- from a position of animus and people are more likely to just be like 'sure, I don't want to use this as female Deep Six, but I'll just make her a different female diver.' Which is a 180 from 'NOT MY DEEP SIX, WILL NOT BUY!'

Yep. I mean I literally created my own way to have both Docs alive and well over in the file card thread and made a way for me to reconcile Dawn as maybe kinda cool. I can headcanon the hell out of a swapped character.

At least with this line specifically I feel like you're gonna get both though. Like if we got Jill Dial Tone first I would've been like dammit! but then fully expected OG Dial Tone next year or something. Whereas most other lines once that swap is done that's the new canon. (And to be honest, I have OG Doc and now I'm looking around like... Carla soon? Please?) They'll get my money for both but I love getting the original first.

I would laugh my ASS off if they gender swapped Salvo though just because of that shirt, but I know he's one of those randomly beloved characters for a lot of people. He is to other collectors what Rampart is to me, just an out of nowhere character who stuck with us from childhood, so they should get their favorite too. (I cannot justify why I love Rampart, I just thought his shit was rad.)

 

[Damien]

At least with this line specifically I feel like you're gonna get both though. Like if we got Jill Dial Tone first I would've been like dammit! but then fully expected OG Dial Tone next year or something.

That might be true of Dial Tone, but it's certainly not assured of every character - especially your one-off and less popular characters like, say, Pathfinder. As-is, Classified has been going on for a long time and we're still missing a lot of fan-favorites. If they start taking those characters and doing dumb shit with them - how far out does that push the 'real' version.

To go back to my favorite example; would we still be here without a proper Ninja Force Storm Shadow if the line hadn't basically started wtih their own 'version' of that costume? Probably not. But because they did, there's clearly no rush to do it again. And that's a popular character -and- a popular costume.
Low-Light has a variant that some people legitimately prefer and looks -entirely- different from the one we got. Low-Light came out exactly three years ago this month. Are we ever going to get that other version?

My thinking is always going to be that there's only so many years of life in a toyline, and there's only so many releases they can manage per year. When you look at ARAH - a line that lasted 10 years and produced more figures per year than Classified tends to, in probably 7 of those years. -- we'd need Classified to be around for 10-12 years JUST to make all of the ARAH figures, give or take. It's not exactly a field that's ripe for feeling positive about messing around with potentially our only chance at certain characters.

 

[Ru1977]

@Chooch555
Yeah, that's almost definitely how it'll go, I guess I was going for "had they continued that trend, which would/could have been".

.Yeah, maybe not a lot of people care about Mirage. But someone does.

Yeah fuck that guy! Heh heh.

And that person is going to be gutted when Hasbro finally gets around to making this character they grew up being so fond of and it's not the character they actually grew up being fond of. I loved my Salvo figure growing up. If Hasbro finally makes Salvo and it's some bullshit gender-swap I'm going to be PISSED. Not because 'ew girls' but because 'I really want 1990 Salvo.'

I do get that. And it's easy to be calloused and say "eh, he looks too much like people I immediately prejudge", but I get it... If they do Snake Eyes 3... Well, I was already not super enthused about Storm Shadow 2 so that's close enough. I got Jinx only because she was on severe discount but still hate that her neck is naked.

Not saying you can never do gender swap characters (that's all fucking Dawn is). Just that I find it unacceptably douchey to make that the first time that particular character makes it into the line. That's as much a 'fuck you' to ARAH fans as 'Arctic Storm Shadow.'

Yeah I do get that. I get what would be better than swapping is female characters with similar specialties.

Yeah, I'm 100% behind them adding more women but I don't really want rehashed ideas of existing characters. They've created some gorgeous new figures for Classified and I think they have more bangers in them if they have the time and space to do it. I do think you're flagging good themes to add women characters to though - I'd love to see them create an original Native female character who doesn't take a spot away from existing Native representation, and especially if they make her not a cultural stereotype - think more Airborne than Spirit. We NEED an arctic Joe specialist who's female too since that particular area is a boy's club.

Agreed all around. And I definitely appreciate Hasbro is going more diverse with their new characters in Classified.

It would be absolutely hysterical if they gender-swapped the guy in the shirt that sounds like a Joe Rogan saying though, that would be hilarious.

Not just gender but ethnicity as well!

I also find I really like those Second Generation female Joe characters but I want BOTH versions. Doc and Dial Tone are two of my favorite characters, I want action figures of Carla and Jill, but I'd have been heartbroken if Classified skipped over the OG versions. They'd absolutely get my money on the 2.0 characters but I would've been really upset if they ignored the old school ones.

So basically always do the original first, then the Dawns etc.

I'm often a fan of the characters people don't even USE, let alone gender-swap. So I'm always wary of 'what if we just took this shit character and did something different' because, my dude, that might be my ONLY chance at seeing that character and you want to change them.

You're right, you ARE that fan heh. And I wasn't thinking.

For sure. I think even the more steadfast 'ew girls' club falls into this line of thinking in a way. The complainers love to buy this stuff. If you do the gender swap first, you're going to calcify them against it and potentially get people refusing to buy just on principle (even if it's a shitty principle). If you do the OG first and then another version later, you don't -start- from a position of animus and people are more likely to just be like 'sure, I don't want to use this as female Deep Six, but I'll just make her a different female diver.' Which is a 180 from 'NOT MY DEEP SIX, WILL NOT BUY!'

Fair enough.

Yep. I mean I literally created my own way to have both Docs alive and well over in the file card thread and made a way for me to reconcile Dawn as maybe kinda cool. I can headcanon the hell out of a swapped character.

Right, and I think I'm so deeply immersed in my own head canon that I'm not really considering other collectors.

At least with this line specifically I feel like you're gonna get both though. Like if we got Jill Dial Tone first I would've been like dammit! but then fully expected OG Dial Tone next year or something. Whereas most other lines once that swap is done that's the new canon. (And to be honest, I have OG Doc and now I'm looking around like... Carla soon? Please?) They'll get my money for both but I love getting the original first.

Right, same here. Dawn was like that for me.

I would laugh my ASS off if they gender swapped Salvo though just because of that shirt, but I know he's one of those randomly beloved characters for a lot of people. He is to other collectors what Rampart is to me, just an out of nowhere character who stuck with us from childhood, so they should get their favorite too. (I cannot justify why I love Rampart, I just thought his shit was rad.)

He's one of the few Navy guys not in a wet suit or the Village People.

 

[Damien]

Hopefully I'm not coming off too much of a dick about it. It just feels like a ton of my favorites, in basically every line I collect, either never get made at all, or get absolutely quarter-assed because no one actually cares about them. And those are the characters that feel ripest for the 'let's just do something different with them' arguments. So I'm definitely (over)sensitive to it.

15+ years of Marvel Legends before we got an absolutely not very good Shatterstar. A similar amount of time to get a shitty Black Knight that they only bothered to make so they could re-use 'good enough' Green Goblin parts. Still no Kylun in sight. Danny Ketch took about 15 years to get a redo from the not super great original figure.

Fucking Arctic Fucking Storm Fucking Shadow. Fuck.
6 years in on Classified now and we're really just starting to break into the stuff I love most (Ninja Force, general 90s nonsense).

Star Wars Black Series is in YEAR THIRTEEN (fuckin' believe that?) and we just got Dash Rendar, still no Imperial Knights. Got lucky that the SECOND go at Qui-Gon had a decent face but the artic is still lame even though dipshit Maul got a complete re-make in the same goddamn set as the THIRD release of Qui-Gon.

How many years of DC action figures with no Shining Knight, no Saunders Vigilante, no Viking Prince, Nightmaster getting one of the worst action figures in modern history (DCUC Question was great, though, so I guess I won that one).

Anywho... not that anyone cares about my personal silly toy woes. More just a demonstration of where that irritation and defensiveness comes from. The above isn't just lists of characters I like - they're lists of some of my favorite characters in their respective IPs. And I'm sure I'm not the only one getting that end of the stick.

 

[Ru1977]

Hopefully I'm not coming off too much of a dick about it

Looks to me like your dick levels are within the acceptable margins.

 

[docsilence]

I figured out the two reasons I loved Rampart BTW--his primary gun reminded me of the stuff Vasquez and Drake had in Alien, and he had that microphone jutting out of his helmet so he felt space marine adjacent and I saw ALIENS way way way way WAAAAAAY too young.

A similar amount of time to get a shitty Black Knight

A topic for another thread but I was literally just staring at that shitty Dane Whitman and fuming htat we never got another one, I love his classic armored with cape look and while that figure has lived on my desk since the day I got him, he is not good enough. (Not a fan of the 90s bomber jacket look so many people love on so many characters, always felt a little bit like the Avengers/X-Men equivalent of wearing a Patagonia vest over a blue dress shirt, but that's just me.) I want a proper redo of him before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

 

[NORM]

I’d love some females in the line that gives us the real life folks in uniform. Female medic. Female diver. Female police. Female cadet. Female pilot. Make up new file cards for them, but keep them a bit more grounded with current, real world designs. The line is in dire need of more females. And don’t make them all supermodels. Make some thicker, make some shorter.

 

[Damien]

A topic for another thread but I was literally just staring at that shitty Dane Whitman and fuming htat we never got another one, I love his classic armored with cape look and while that figure has lived on my desk since the day I got him, he is not good enough. (Not a fan of the 90s bomber jacket look so many people love on so many characters, always felt a little bit like the Avengers/X-Men equivalent of wearing a Patagonia vest over a blue dress shirt, but that's just me.) I want a proper redo of him before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

It'll never happen because it would require arms and legs that are useful for exactly two characters that Hasbro would ever even be remotely interested in, and both characters already have 'reasonably modern' iterations in Legends. We're cooked, us Black Knight stans.

 

[docsilence]

I’d love some females in the line that gives us the real life folks in uniform. Female medic. Female diver. Female police. Female cadet. Female pilot. Make up new file cards for them, but keep them a bit more grounded with current, real world designs. The line is in dire need of more females. And don’t make them all supermodels. Make some thicker, make some shorter.

Diver, green shirt, medic are all insta-buys for me.

 

[Ru1977]

I figured out the two reasons I loved Rampart BTW--his primary gun reminded me of the stuff Vasquez and Drake had in Alien, and he had that microphone jutting out of his helmet so he felt space marine adjacent

Those are great reasons. Fuck. Now he's on my list.

and I saw ALIENS way way way way WAAAAAAY too young.

If you did, I did too. Aliens was such a massive influence on so many things for me. And still.

I definitely saw Terminator when I was too young heh, but my mom had outstanding taste in movies.

I’d love some females in the line that gives us the real life folks in uniform. Female medic. Female diver. Female police. Female cadet. Female pilot. Make up new file cards for them, but keep them a bit more grounded with current, real world designs. The line is in dire need of more females. And don’t make them all supermodels. Make some thicker, make some shorter.

100%, yes, PLEASE.

 

[AceofKnaves]

:laughs in Colan Dracula and First Appearance Joker:

Trust me, TRUST ME, I get feeling burned as hell on having never gotten (and also half-assedly gotten) favorite characters/versions of characters.

It SUCKS.

I don’t mind getting a less-wanted version first AS LONG AS I also get the one I *really* want, buuuuuut that’s rarely guaranteed so there’s the rub.

Fuuuuuck Salvo’s teeny-dick-energy try-hard glass-jaw shirt though, fuck it a lot.

 

[Ru1977]

Yeah! Use it as a post-coital penis cloth.

 

[Damien]

I know everyone likes to get themselves real bent out of shape over Salvo's shirt. But He-Man has a Nazi war medal on his chest. So.... it's helpful to be more fluid in our interpretations of things, I think.