Why not Billy!?
 

I'm asked to myself, why a central figure in the Hama's Joe-verse like Billy (Cobra Commander'son) has never had his own action figure from Hasbro... :confused:

Because Hasbro sucks. Repaints work better for them.

Why no Billy
 

They probably had a meeting at Hasbro and found it was not cost effective to make an eye patch!! I think the real reason is that Billy: along with Bongo, Hard Master, Soft Master, Professor Apell, Dr. Burkhart are Larry Hama's tie in characters. Larry was given the job to sell the main action figures that Hasbro created,produced: and make them look good in the Marvel comic book plot. These tie in characters were used to help enhance overall storylines in the comic; but were never intended to become action figures. I think the October Guard were tie in characters but they became so popular Hasbro realized they could make money off them and eventually decided to make them. Eventually in 1993 Hasbro was cranking out silly looking figures the public didn't like and not even Hama's excellent writing ability could save the line. Just a theory.

Except they didn't actually do the guard until 2005, Red Star was done but his comic appearence looked nothing like his figure, Big Bear, Volga ect were not part of the comics

If it wasn't cost effective to make an eye patch then why did Major Bludd have one?

I think it actually has more to do with the moneys they would have to pay Marvel cause these characters are technically owned by Marvel. Hasbro only licenced characters they created, the other characters automaticly fell to Marvel. I know there was some talk when the OG comic packs came out that there was some legal rangling that had to be done and Marvel got a kickback for the OG, also when the DD comics came out they had to do some more wrangling to get Billy in there. Ironicly the characters can't be used anywhere else so they are trapped in limbo until someone makes a deal. Comic character law is very complicated.

Was Larry Hama employed by Hasbro or Marvel?

Why no Billy
 

Hama was for sure employed by Marvel. He certainly must have had meetings with Hasbro. Hasbro would unveil a figure and Hama would find a way to work that figure into the comic book. I distinctly remember in the letter to the editor pages that there were complaints as to the wild colors fo certain figures. His response to readers was for them to contact Hasbro. As for the eyepatch that was a joke. I agree with Zedhatch about the OG being a Marvel licensed property. However, I think most of the characters are Hasbro's. Btw the Stinger jeep is really modelled after a Lamborghini SUV.

Rds, your theory of the licensing issues sounds pretty good. And yeah the G.I.*JOE story line was overal owned by Hasbro. That's why threr never any cross overs, except with the Transformers. How cool would it have been to the Joes fighting along side Captain America and his ilk? Maybe have Hawk try to recruit the Punshier? Or have SHIELD join the fight against Cobra?



It's sort of hybrid of the XR311 and the Lamborghini LM002 which is the civilian version of the Cheetah. You can really see the influance for the new VAMP in the Cheetah.

Interestingly the Baroness was also a Hama-creation, who Hasbro later decided to make a figure of. Have a read of this, interesting stuff.

Thanks to fogger1138 over at HissTank for posting the link:

http://www.nycgraphicnovelists.com/...revolution.html

(original post here: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-j...tml#post1960799)

No idea whether it was a licensing issue, but as Baroness was used perhaps not - more likely the Marvel designers didn't think some of our comic favourites (Billy, Hard, Soft, Blind masters, Kwinn) would be sales hits.

That would explain why she was in the first issue, even the cartoon, way before she got a figure

There's been a number of characters that appeared in the Marvel comics long before they made a figure, we may see Billy yet.

Somehow, Hasbro seems to have complete rights to every character created for the G.I. Joe comic. On the other hand, they don't have the rights to Circuit-Breaker, who was created for the Transformers comic. My understanding is that Marvel specifically decided Circuit-Breaker showed some promise, so they debuted her in an issue of Secret Wars II before she showed up in Transformers, and somehow this makes her Marvel property. This is why IDW's Classic Transformers series is missing issues -- they had to cut out all the issues featuring Circuit-Breaker (and because the series is incomplete, I refuse to buy it!).

Also, for the record, G.I. Joe being a licensed property has nothing to do with their lack of interaction with the Marvel Universe. Remember, Spider-Man appeared in Transformers #3 -- and in the 70's, Marvel had several licensed properties that did interact with the Marvel Universe: Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, Godzilla, and ROM: Spaceknight are four that I can think of off the top of my head. I suspect it was Larry Hama's choice (or possibly editorial's) to keep the Joe world separate from the Marvel Universe. I doubt it was Hasbro's idea, due to the Spider-Man/Transformers story I mentioned, and the fact that ROM, another Hasbro property, was a major Marvel character for several years.

As a side note, back in 2007 Marvel teamed up with IDW to do a Transformers/New Avengers crossover. Truthfully, it was just Marvel trying to cash in on the Transformers money train that was about to take off, because it was released around the time of the first movie.

The funny thing about it is that this story is supposed to be in the normal continuity of both series disavowing Spider-Mans previous encounter with the Transformers.

For all who are interested heres the Wiki link.

This is probably the best explanation as to that type of thing: http://treasuresntoys.com/webcampoktoberguard.htm

I seem to recall, way back when, reading a letter to the editor in either the one and only Joe comic I ever read, or, more likely, in a Punisher comic, where one of the readers asked why Frank Castle never joined with the Joes for a mission and the reply was that because of the nature of G.I.*JOE and the whole Hasbro thing, that they couldn't do crossovers.

Interesting. I know there was a letter in a latter-day G.I. Joe issue where someone suggested Wolverine teaming up with Snake-Eyes, since Hama wrote both titles, but I think their answer was just that the G.I. Joe universe is separate from the Marvel Universe, but I don't believe they went into any more detail than that.