GI Joe is in good hands now. I consider Todd McFarlane the king of action figures more than comic books.
Well let me clarify the deal by shedding who has the current rights to do what. Hasbro keeps licensing out its own intellectual property and after reading what I just did on the way home, Hasbro is scrambling to make money and may be diluting its own product in the long term.
Hasbro Produced
GI Joe Classified - 6" Scale - realistic portrayal of their characters.
GI Joe Retro - 3.75" Modern sculpts produced by Hasbro - currently on hiatus
GI Joe Retro O-Ring - Reissues of Vintage Figures currently on hiatus except for the annual GI Joe Transformers Mashup.
Hasbro Sub-licensed
GI Joe Super7 - 7" Scale - Sublicense issued to Super7 to produce large style characters in the animated style.
GI Joe Super7 - 3.75" Scale - O-Ring - Issued to produce 3.75" O-Ring figures. Only offering failed so far. It was not crowd sourced with the Cobra Mothership that did not get backed.
Reaction - 3.75" - Five Points of Articulation figures in the style of the animated figures.
McFarlane is going to offer 3" Discount level figures with five or six points of articulation and package them with reprints of the comics. It is an interesting concept that has been working for Todd when he got the license to do this with DC books. It's a great entry point for kids to pick up a comic book to read and then have a figure to act out the story.
