G.I. Joe (franchise)
| This article is about the real-world Hasbro franchise. For the fictional counter-terrorist team, see G.I. Joe (team). |
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G.I. Joe, sometimes called Action Force in Europe, is one of Hasbro's most long-lived franchises, originating in 1964 as the very first line of "action figures." Though it has undergone many revisions and relaunches since then, it has always maintained a military theme, often with a science-fiction edge. In part because of the nature of the franchise and in part because of similarities in presentation, G.I. Joe and Transformers share much of the same fanbase.
The fictional universes of the two franchises have also overlapped on several occasions, originally due to pure marketing but more recently due to nostalgia. From the late 80s, Hasbro repeatedly tried to make a Joe/Transformers combo pack with Joes that fight inside vehicle Transformers, but the timing never worked out; one franchise would be popular and the other wouldn't be.[1] In 2011, Hasbro finally did crossover toys and the fact that they are just exclusives to San Diego Comic-Con has probably inspired more terrorism than Cobra ever committed.
History
1980s
Following its initial popularity in the mid to late 1960s, the G.I. Joe line underwent several rebrandings and redesigns in the '70s with varying degrees of success. In 1982, Hasbro decided to try a complete overhaul, drastically reducing the size of the figures, broadening the cast, and commissioning the advertising agency Griffin Bacal and Marvel Comics to develop a brand-new universe for them to occupy. The resulting comic book and toyline, dubbed "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero", proved massively popular, and Hasbro quickly expanded the scope of their marketing to include a television cartoon by Sunbow Productions in 1983. (Since advertising toys through cartoons was still frowned upon—if not outright banned—by that point, Hasbro circumvented that limitation by declaring the cartoon an advertisement for the comic books instead.[2] The ban on toy-promoting cartoons was eventually lifted in 1984.)
The success of this formula led Hasbro to repeat it a year later when the Transformers property was developed, having Marvel create the universe and print a comic while Sunbow produced a cartoon based on Marvel's premise. The G.I. Joe and Transformers cartoons were often broadcast in the same programming block, and their similar art style, shared musical scores and voice-actors, and mutual sci-fi action themes made them popular with roughly the same audience. The third season of the Transformers cartoon even featured cameos by characters intended to be (but never officially identified as) Flint and Cobra Commander. The comics were more dissimilar in tone, but they actually shared a bona fide crossover, G.I. Joe and the Transformers. (While this crossover was fully in-continuity with the contemporary Transformers storyline, the G.I. Joe comic ignored it.)
Meanwhile, in the UK, Hasbro had licensed Palitoy to sell similar products, but the marketing was somewhat different. The term "G.I." specifically refers to the U.S. military, so the line was sold abroad as Action Man. When the A Real American Hero line caught on in the U.S., Palitoy responded with Action Force, which was similar in engineering but contained its own unique characters and storylines. In 1985, Hasbro's characters and concepts began to seep into Action Force, and an awkward transitional period commenced. While the new Action Force characters looked like Joes and were given Joe code-names, their identities were changed to be more international, with members now from Europe, Japan, Australia, and French Congo. For example, Flint went from being Dashielle Faireborn, born in Wichita, Kansas,[3] to being David Faireborn, born in Lincoln, England.[4] An Action Force comic was published that featured some of these G.I.-Joe-inspired characters alongside UK-originals, and its universe was very different from G.I. Joe.[5] But as the G.I. Joe property became more dominant, the existing Action Force universe was eventually discarded in favor of one closer to the American comics with a cast almost entirely indistinguishable from G.I. Joes, outside of their still-different bios. During this time, a brief crossover with the UK Generation 1 comic occurred, wherein an Action Force team fought Megatron underneath London. Meanwhile, in a display of incongruity in Marvel UK's approach to the franchises, another storyline in the Action Force comic featured an ad for the Transformers comic...in the background of one of its panels![6]
Marvel UK's Action Force comic also reprinted American G.I. Joe issues, editing them slightly and claiming this was the American division of Action Force (the guys with toys out were the European branch and got the original strips). In time, new UK-original material stopped being produced, and Action Force was rebranded as G.I. Joe: The Action Force. Marvel UK published a promotional comic explaining that Europe's Action Force and America's separate G.I. Joe team had been too divided to fight Cobra effectively. They ceremoniously joined forces, though the notion that there was a strange group of doppelgangers between the two teams was neither acknowledged nor addressed.[7] This story did not fit into any existing continuity, but the strip quickly went back to G.I. Joe reprints anyway, eventually dropping the term "Action Force" from the title altogether.
1990s
Where the 1980s had seen A Real American Hero and the original Transformers toyline ruling toy aisles, comic shops, and TV screens, that glory quickly faded in the '90s. The death of "Generation 1" came in 1991, and when it was reborn as Generation 2 in 1993, Hasbro decided to promote it through the A Real American Hero comic, itself on death's door. Where the previous crossover had been politely ignored in the pages of the more "serious" G.I. Joe book, this one was unavoidable, and the author simply ran with it as though the first crossover had happened all along. But then, when the crossover ended, the universes seemed to split again, as the Generation 2 comic featured worldwide apocalyptic havoc and the obliteration of San Francisco, events that showed no signs of happening in the contemporary Joe issues.
Around the time of the 1993 crossover, Hasbro also planned to produce a Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover toy. Even though a prototype was made, the toy was ultimately never released.[8]
By the end of 1994, A Real American Hero came to a close. The franchise continued to lurch on with two retools: Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles and the later G.I. Joe Extreme. This would extend the franchise for a few more years; Extreme even got its own two-season cartoon series and a short-lived comic. However, sales were naff and the franchise quietly went dormant, bar the occasional Real American Hero collectors' set.
2000s
Around the same time that nostalgia filled the sails of Generation 1 once more, G.I. Joe also enjoyed a comeback. Hasbro began to invest again in new A Real American Hero toys and comics, commissioning Devil's Due Press to continue Marvel's continuity. While these new comics also pointedly ignored the Transformers crossovers nominally in their backstory, Devil's Due happily produced several Transformers crossover miniseries set in a fresh, unique universe of their own. As usual, this universe was based on a mixture of A Real American Hero and Generation 1 elements, but by the end, it had also referenced some older concepts, such as the '70s-era Atomic Man and Adventure Team.
Meanwhile, the comic company with the Transformers license, Dreamwave Productions, produced its own alternate-universe G.I. Joe crossover. The first miniseries transplanted A Real American Hero and Generation 1 concepts into an alternate version of World War II, with Cobra playing the role of the Nazis. A second miniseries followed that universe into the present day, but it was halted after a mere single issue by Dreamwave's bankruptcy and collapse.
Outside of comics, there were scant few connections between the G.I. Joe and Transformers franchises except for a handful of toys. The first were homages in the Unicron Trilogy toyline, of all places: The Energon character Snow Cat was clearly designed to look like the G.I. Joe vehicle of the same name, and the Mini-Con Skyhammer, sold under the 2008 Universe franchise's "Armada Series", was given a deco very similar to a Cobra Rattler. However, this universe has never featured any other kind of G.I. Joe crossover, so the significance of these toys is unclear. The Japanese Binaltech line, meanwhile, told a storyline in the toy instruction booklets that included two Joe villains... General Blitz and Iron Klaw from the Sgt. Savage and G.I. Joe Extreme lines!
Those were followed by the first 6" Titanium Series Megatron, whose on-package bio mentioned subservience to Cobra. The details were sparse, but they seemed to reflect the Dreamwave WWII-era crossover, even though the toy looked nothing like his appearance there.[9] A statue would have been released of the Baroness walking Ravage, but sadly it was not to be.
2010s
In 2010, both G.I. Joe: Renegades and Transformers: Prime began airing on The Hub as sister shows. The showrunner for Renegades is Transformers Animated's Marty Isenberg.
In 2011, Hasbro at last revealed a true mingling of the franchises in toy form for their San Diego Comic-Con exclusives. That year saw a special redeco of the new-mold G.I. Joe Skystriker as Starscream, packaged along with Cobra Commander wielding a 3.75"-figure-scaled Megatron gun, and the Commander's filecard mentioned an alliance with the Decepticons. This was followed up in 2012 with a Cobra HISS tank as the alternate form of G1 Shockwave, packed with a Destro and a "Constructicon" Battle Android Trooper. All three toys had tech specs/filecards talking about the crossover. 2013 saw that tradition continue with a GI Joe Vamp jeep redecoed into Hound, a Skystriker with a new paint job and rocket booster pack to represent Jetfire, a 3.75"-scale Ravage being led on a chain by the Baroness much like the aforementioned unreleased statue, and a 3.75"-scale Bludgeon. While the 2013 set was billed as the "epic conclusion" to the line, a fourth crossover set was released in 2016, featuring a Cobra Rattler redecoed into Powerglide, a HISS tank redecoed into Soundwave, and figures of Scarlett and Zartan.
Having acquired the rights to print G.I. Joe comics in 2009, IDW Publishing hinted at crossovers with their Transformers books for some time. The first one to come along was Infestation, which draws in other titles as well but has the heroes facing the same threat rather than meeting each other, followed by the sequel Infestation 2. A proper crossover was finally released in 2014 in the form of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, an ongoing comic book set in a new continuity separate from IDW's main G.I. Joe and Transformers books.
In 2016, IDW announced Revolution, a 5-issue miniseries that would merge several of their Hasbro titles (excluding things like My Little Pony, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Littlest Pet Shop) into a shared universe. The IDW G.I. Joe comics were subsequently retconned into being in the same universe as the IDW Transformers comics, and served as a kind of "connective tissue" to introduce other franchises like Action Man, M.A.S.K., and ROM. Following Revolution, a new G.I. Joe series was launched, which, due to the addition of ex-Decepticon Skywarp to the Joe ranks, we cover in full on TFWiki.
In late 2019, the human factions were added to Transformers: Earth Wars, with Soundwave transforming into a HISS tank, Hound into a VAMP, Jetfire into a Skystriker and Skywarp into a Nightraven.
2020s
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero in 2022, the Transformers Collaborative line introduced a range of Transformers toys that turn into 3.75"-scale G.I. Joe vehicles, designed to hold figures from the concurrently running G.I. Joe Retro Collection toyline. The first Collaborative release was a Megatron H.I.S.S. Tank and Baroness set in 2022, which was followed by Bumblebee A.W.E. Striker and Sgt. Stalker in 2023.
Perhaps the biggest development between G.I. Joe and Transformers came with the release of the film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which ended with the surprise reveal of human protagonist Noah Diaz being invited by G.I. Joe's Agent Burke to join the team. The idea to finally bring these two together came from director Steven Caple Jr., who wanted to pay off Noah's arc in the film, but didn't feel like other canon organizations like Sector Seven would be the right fit for the character. Caple Jr. pitched the idea to producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who had been looking for an opportunity to bring the two franchises together for years, but it took about another two years to get all the other involved parties on board. Caple Jr. has stated that he intends to introduce a few of the Joes in the next film, but did not give further specifics.[10]
On the comics side of things, IDW's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero series would come to an end with its 300th issue in November 2022, as they would be losing the license (along with Transformers) at the end of the year. The following June, however, it would be announced that Skybound Entertainment had picked up the licenses for both properties, and would be relaunching them both as part of the shared "Energon Universe". G.I. Joe is planned to begin with a series of four limited series focusing on different characters, starting with Duke and Cobra Commander, and will tell the story of both G.I. Joe's and Cobra's formation as a result of the Autobots and Decepticons' arrival on Earth.
Notes
- At JoeCon 2011, Hasbro's Rik Alvarez hosted a "Treasures from the Hasbro Archives" panel, where he revealed that he had then-recently found a box in the company archives containing an assortment of artwork, concept boards, and proposals for what "could have been" in a series of Transformers/G.I. Joe crossovers. Of these concepts, the only one shown at the panel were parts of an Omega Supreme that had been redecoed and intended for release in the G.I. Joe toyline (this was later shown again at BotCon 2011, though no photos were allowed then). Whether these redecoed parts were intended for use as a "crossover" G.I. Joe/Transformers character or as a non-living G.I. Joe vehicle was unsaid.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Chijō Saikyō no Expert Team G.I. Joe (地上最強のエキスパートチーム G.I.ジョー, "G.I. Joe the Greatest Expert Team on Earth")
References
- ↑ Interview with Vinnie D'Alleva at Obscure Transformers, page 2
- ↑ Interview with former Hasbro employee George Dunsay.
- ↑ G.I. Joe Flint's toy filecard
- ↑ Action Force Flint's toy filecard
- ↑ Scans of Storm Shadow's original Action Force origin story
- ↑ Scan of an Action Force comic page showing Transformers as a fictional entity within that universe.
- ↑ Scans of the free comic explaining the G.I. Joe / Action Force merger in-fiction.
- ↑ Unproduced G.I: Joe/Transformers crossover toy at Toy Archive
- ↑ The first Titanium Series Megatron's bio
- ↑ Inside the top-secret plans for Transformers and G.I. Joe — Entertainment Weekly
