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Mount up! Technically, they don't exist. They answer to know one. And when all else fails, they don't. Welcome to the NEW face of GI Joe in 2009, the Rise of Cobra. GI Joe is still the codename of a daring, high trained special mission force who purpose is to defend human freedom against those who threaten it. Sound familiar? This time you heard nothing about America AND Cobra. Why? Well the movie world has Joe as an international force, oddly, something more akin to the cult classic MegaForce and less anything to do with the comic we grew up with. And with no Cobra as the enemy, who would Joe fight to get Cobra to "rise"? That would be our favorite Scottish weapons provider Destro and his MARS organization. Well, if you were like most in the fandom at the time, your head began to hurt as Joe, was for good, yet mostly bad, changing in front of our very eyes. While some timeless characters like Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow remained mostly unchanged, favorites like Breaker are brought back from the dead and Heavy Duty was given an accent other than that of a Chicagoan. Toss in changing the race of Ripcord, which in itself was no big deal AND mixing in the weird Rex-Duke-Anna triangle and the fandom had about as much as it could handle. Joe did well for one week in the theater, but for the most part the fandom turned their back on the motion picture as a failed experiment that almost killed our hobby. In the toy world, the RoC toys sold very well, but Hasbro, for whatever reason, decided to ramp up production and flood the stores with early movie waves. Never mind that figures from the Terminator, Star Trek, and Pirates of the Caribbean movies will still warming the pegs, Hasbro went full steam ahead. These little mistakes undoubtedly effected what we saw in the Pursuit of Cobra line all the way down to the most recent 30th Anniversary wave. We figured it fitting that after a few days of the GI Joe Retaliation trailer hitting, the WOJM would gather around the mics one last time in 2011 to look back on RoC, give our thoughts on the movie, the figures, the vehicles, the licensed product and give our early comparison thoughts to the new sequel. So make the call! Sit down and hear this special Rise of Cobra Retrospective of WOJM! When we're finished, the world will never forget!
Happy Holidays from your friends at WOJM! (the weekly streak continues)
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December 26th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Hey guys,
A great look back at the “Rise of Cobra”. For what it was it was a good pop corn movie and I have it both on Blue ray and DVD ( and have watched it several times)so I do agree it wasn’t the death of line as some have said. Even with all its faults it still in some fashion reminded me of the Sunbow adventures.
There is one thing that has occurred to me and I had to check yo joe to be sure again. I don’t see why the lips issue on SE has been such a surprise to anyone. Yes it was a bad idea but when SE came out in version 2 when introduced with timber for the first time in 85 he had lips. It was a bad design addition but they were there. Not in the card art but on the head sculpt of the figure. It looked terrible then. I just thought I mention it.
Anyway hope you guys had a great Christmas and we`ll see you in 2012
Ryan ( Mapleleaf ) Hildebrand
December 26th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
To answer your question about the Mole Pod, the drill does rotate. I will admit I own the one that comes with the TRU 5-pack and that sucker does have a rotate.
As for the film itself, I don’t hate it but its not a fav. I’ve seen it 3 times (1 in theater, 2 on DVD) It doesnt reach Micheal Bay levels of badness, but it has some big flaws. I think of it kinda like a bad Sunbow episode. You can see it was done with love but it needed work.
That said, I do wish Rachel Nichols and the guys that played Heavy Duty and Breaker could come back. I hope the prediction made after seeing the Retaliation trailer is somehow inaccurate and these 3 arent killed offscreen as some sort of cosmic retribution move to pay back for fan unhappiness
December 31st, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Great way to wrap up the year fellas! These next 6 months are going to be very exciting having WOJM around to join me in my anticipation of RETALIATION.
The build up to RoC is always remembered as a very fond time in my Joe collecting life…the bubbling of excitement from Joe fans around the net and the fact that Joe was getting a ton of new toys!
Anyway, I’m hoping to be able to say Hello to you guys when you come up to the Canadian Joe-Con next year….thanks again for all the entertainment.