Posted in: Comics | Tagged: christmas, gi joe, hasbro, robert kirkman, skybound

An Open Letter to Robert Kirkman Regarding GI Joe

Dear Robert Kirkman… Bob. Bobby. Mr. Kirkman. K-Dawg. I'm so happy to see you pillage the GI Joe license from IDW's rotting corpse like a character in one of your Walking Dead comics. Well done! I see that you also got the Transformers license, but do I look like I give a crap about Transformers? No, I don't. But GI Joe is another story.

You may have seen my previous article, threatening whoever gets the GI Joe license next unless they heed my demands. But that was when I thought Marvel or BOOM! would probably get it. Threats are all those other companies understand, K-Dawg. But you and I are different. I know I can talk to you as one extremely successful comics industry professional to another and hopefully come to an understanding on certain matters of great import, and that's what I'd like to do here.

Now, we both know that you've probably got some really great ideas for what to do with these franchises, and I'm really looking forward to finding out what those are, shilling for them in Bleeding Cool articles, and telling all of my loyal readers to buy lots of copies. *wink* But I'm sure you also know that GI Joe readers have become accustomed to a certain amount of Larry Hama GI Joe: A Real American Hero comics continuing the continuity from the original 1980s series, and it would be extremely unfortunate if those readers were to suddenly lose access to that wonderful benefit. That's why I'm confident that you'll do the right thing and give Larry whatever he needs to continue writing that comic as long as he wants to, alongside all of your other plans. I believe that you'll do the right thing.

Now, that was all the advice I offered when I thought it would be Marvel or Boom getting the license, but now that I know it's Skybound, I have another idea for you, free of charge. A great idea, I'm sure you'll agree.

We all know that DIC taking over the cartoon license from Sunbow in the 80s after GI Joe: The Movie tragically destroyed what was at one time the greatest animated series ever made. That was before Invincible came around, of course, but the point is that it still holds up well today, as should be expected with guys like Steve Gerber involved. But still, it feels like fans of that classic cartoon were robbed of something: the third season that the Sunbow creative team had planned to follow the movie which never transpired because the license changed hands.

Buzz Dixon once described the concept in an old interview on the seemingly now-defunct JoeHeadquarters.com:

Mike Hill, who was on staff at the time, made a brilliant proposal to send the Joes off after a somewhat new foe called The Coil for the never made Sunbow season three (there was a DIC season three, but they never bothered to ask for any input from me or Flint or Steve and frankly, we were just as glad). As I recall, Mike's idea was that following the Movie, Cobra would be shattered as a world-wide organization. Under the guidance of Tomax and Xamot, a new organization called The Coil (much more criminal in nature than military) would be formed, picking and choosing among the best of the surviving Cobra units. Cobra-La was utterly wiped out, no survivors, except for Cobra Commander, who would be slithering about in the background for the first half of season three as some sinister character of shifting alliances, then be revealed in severely mutated form in the second half. He would be playing the Joes and The Coil against one another in an attempt to destroy both and rebuild Cobra.

Sunbow season three was never made. Hasbro had been funding G.I. Joe out of their own pocket; they got a ridiculous deal from DIC to take over the series and they pretty much let them. The story behind DIC is much too long to go into here; suffice it to say these guys may not have been 100% responsible for the destruction of the animation industry in the late eighties but they sure helped!

Those bastards! But the point is that we were robbed. But it doesn't have to remain that way. Wouldn't it be something if a certain wealthy zombie TV mogul with his own multi-platform entertainment company happened to get his hands on the GI Joe license? Well, he could probably make that long-lost third season set in the real GI Joe cartoon continuity happen in some way, couldn't he? He would be hailed as a liberating hero, correcting a decades-old injustice, and dare I say delivering the exact thing civilization needs to heal itself in these dark times.

What if that benevolent billionaire made GI Joe: A Real American Hero The Lost Sunbow Season 3 happen not as a television show or even a comic… but as a video game! In all of history, what group of colorful characters was more suited for a great action video game, with their colorful costumes, over-the-top personalities, and really cool weapons and vehicles? Imagine if fans could revisit that world, in-continuity, in a game that licensed and expanded on the full amazing soundtrack of the cartoon as an added bonus? It would be, without hyperbole, the greatest video game of all time. A license to print money!

And yet, we've never gotten a game like that in all these years. That's another long-running injustice just waiting to be corrected by someone willing to do what it takes to get the job done who also happens to be the founder of a multi-platform entertainment company with a video game division. Just saying. It would really be something if all of that were to happen. I trust you know what you need to do.

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