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Huge Amazon sale on G.I. Joe and other DVD’s & Blu-Ray’s

Thanks to Twitter user The Snackist for letting us know that Amazon.com is currently having a huge sale on its G.I. Joe (and other ) DVD’s!  Many of them are at rock bottom prices.

If you haven’t caught up on your G.I. Joe media recently, this is a great chance to grab some DVD’s and back up to date.  G.I. Joe: Resolute, G.I. Joe: Renegades, DiC, and Sunbow are all on sale.  Check out some of the links below!

Lots of great G.I. Joe themed trade paperback collections, comics, and other media as well.  Check it out!

Also, the Amazon shop in general has some great DVD/Blu-Ray deals today…  might be worth checking out.

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Discovery is rebranding the Hub – what does it really mean?

Yesterday, word quietly came out that Discovery would be rebranding “The Hub”, the channel they operated alongside Hasbro for the past five years, in hopes of competing with channels like Nickelodeon and Disney. Overall, it would seem the experiment should be considered a failure, as after those five years, Discovery is apparently going to rebrand it as Discovery Family and tweak the format slightly to appeal to both children and families. This rebrand involves buying back some of Hasbro’s stake in the channel and at least from the surface, eliminating the connection to Hasbro’s apparently failed enterprise.

But what some folks aren’t talking about is that Hasbro still owns a significant piece of the channel, and still has the programming block from 9:00am – 3:00pm, so it’s not like Hasbro is just throwing up their hands and walking away.

Also, I do wonder just how much of a “failure” the enterprise should be considered. Look, I have no love for what Hasbro did to G.I. Joe: Renegades, and I think the Hub was the perfect platform to aggressively relaunch and remarket the brand. They totally and completely dropped the ball on that. They actually didn’t drop the ball, they threw it directly into the ground and stomped on it, and I think that stands as one of the most foolish things they’ve done over the past several years.

However, the Hub was the catalyst for keeping Transformers relevant with kids via Transformers: Prime, and even more importantly Transformers: Rescue Bots. Even moreso, the cultural phenomenon of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic likely would not have transpired if not for the Hub, and regardless of whether or not the Hub captured the market share it needed to be relevant (it obviously did not), I’m sure it sold a lot of toys and a lot of broadcast rights to Netflix, so perhaps there were enough nuggets of success in there

All that being said, I still remember how thrilled I was to hear about the emergence of the Hub. I remember calling Comcast and completely revamping my cable package so I could be sure I had the channel. The lead up to and events of the G.I. Joe: Renegades series were some of my most memorable times over the past several years. It’s a real shame that five years later essentially no evidence of those great several months will really exist. I would imagine this doesn’t spell good news for the chances of a future G.I. Joe animated series either. I don’t think the door can be completely shut on that, but the reduced Hasbro stake in the Hub certainly doesn’t do any of us any favors.

Check out the full article outlining this on Deadline.com and to remember the simpler days, check out my G.I. Joe: Renegades Super Section where I posted character outlines, episode guides, and all sorts of fun stuff.

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Why fans of G.I. Joe: Renegades should give the Boss Fight Kickstarter a closer look

I know, I know… I’ve already got a banner up above and a widget over to the left, but what can I say?  I believe in the Boss Fight Studio folks’ and their product, and want to support it any way I can.

And, as a diehard G.I. Joe: Renegades fan, I’ve come across another reason to be excited as well.  Buried within one of the stretch goals are a number of “blanks”.  Vitruvian H.A.C.K.S. figures with no armor, accessories, or extraneous details, perfect for customizers to build upon.  Or if you’re a G.I. Joe: Renegades fan…

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Check out the “Bio Blue” blank figure above, and tell me that wouldn’t be a great base for a Cobra “Bio-Viper”.  In the G.I. Joe: Renegades animated series, the Bio-Vipers were insidious Cobra experiments.  With the transparent blue color the blank figure above looks like an awesome template for those Bio-Vipers.  The Wave 3 Blank Bodies are available with the $210,000 level stretch goal, which seems like a long way away, but it’ll hopefully come up closer than we think.  Already Boss Fight is nearly halfway there, and still 31 days to go!

Support the Vitruvian H.A.C.K.S. Kickstarter campaign!

G.I. Joe: Renegades and Sigma 6 return to The Hub

Seemingly lost to the sands of time for the past while, arguably the best animated series for the G.I. Joe universe ever, G.I. Joe: Renegades returns to The Hub today!

Anyone who hasn’t bought it on Blu-Ray (why the hell not?!) you can now see it on The Hub again.

I know it got a bad rap, and I know I lavish all sorts of praise on it, but please trust me, that praise is deserved.  If you haven’t seen it yet, just because you’ve listened to folks who didn’t like it, at least give it a shot yourself.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

As for the Sigma 6 animated series?  Yeah, that pretty much blows chunks, but if you like watching train wrecks, you can check that one out, too.  🙂

Thanks to Nick and More for the info.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation prep revisited – The History of Roadblock

So, the cool guys at the Cold Slither Podcast Tweeted out a link to one of my old articles covering the history of Roadblock for folks who needed to bone up on their G.I. Joe history before catching G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

That kicked a reminder at me that maybe I should get that post back up on top since G.I. Joe: Retaliation has officially opened and there might be people wondering just who this Roadblock dude is.  You can see the original post right here, but I’ve also reposted it at the Read the Rest of the Story link below.

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