Talk:G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero

Main Image

Shouldn't it be more appropriate to use something from an old toy add (the inserts would be a good idea)? RAH is primarily a toy line - the comic and cartoon were meant to support it, not the other way around. Certainly an image from the recent Devil's Due comics, as pretty as they are, shouldn't be used as the most prominent picture in the article. DPr77 06:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The comics and cartoons (and other media) were really in all argument, advertisements for the toys. The toys should be the first and foremost identified thing on this section. The sagas and canon that came from the other media sources should be really left in their respective sections for discussion. We need a new main page picture.

Image Copyright

Guys, I've already changed the image copyright info thou I don't know if it will pass. --Destron Commander 04:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Prominent Joes

I agree with the statement about Kamakura, to a point. Gung Ho certainly should be added but Kamakura definitely stands out as the most prominent and often used character created within the last few years. DPr77 10:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably make another article that divides the two Joe continuities like the Transformers?--Destron Commander 09:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

This article shouldn't be about continuities - GI Joe was primarily a toyline... But then that brings about the question as to whether any characters introduced after 1994 should be mentioned at all, unless they were given a 3 3/4" action figure with RAH-style construction (ie: comic 3-packs, 1997/98 TRU exclusives, etc...). DPr77 06:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that their should be a division made. As to anything after '94, put it under the label of "a real american hero II." Or soemthing. It would be like listing Star Trek DS9 subjects under the general Star Trek heading; same species, different animals.

Good enough for me - since Kamakura was never a RAH figure, I deleted him. On that note, whatever that "list of fictional places in GI Joe" is, I don't think that should be merged with this article, as it clearly refers to the comic and/or cartoon, and should be placed in those articles, if anything. DPr77 03:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The Snake-Eyes 1985 v2 Character is listed as "one of the most popular figures in the entire line, and is considered by some to be the one of the most renowned action figures of all time." Is there any sort citation to back this up? While I agree with this assertion, I feel that, for the sake of Wikipedia, it should have a reference to back up this claim.--Ronb (talk) 15:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed.--Flash176 (talk) 15:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

"Technology"/Toy Design/"The Toys" Section

I have a problem with some these, such as this quote about sub teams like Battleforce 2000, etc: "...which helped keep the GIJOE team more specialized, more interesting, and more fun than traditional real-life "army men" toys" That's an opinion, not encyclopedic fact. The writer should probably be made aware that GI Joe's popularity steadily declined as the toy line became more and more "out there", to the point where it was cancelled in '94. Collectors today generally dislike the "Cobra-la" concept and the movie, and Larry Hama himself reportedly refused to write them into the comic series, despite Hasbro's wishes. DPr77 03:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think popularity levels should be disregarded, or perhaps made into their own subject; adult collectors. ARAH went south because of people who can't get past having anything BUT Duke in an Awe Striker, '82- '85 seems to reign supreme but I think that is due to more the "glory days" of collectors childhoods being in those years (prior to Teenage mutant ninja turtles and Power rangers taking the market lead anyway, to name a couple exapmles--). GIJOE ARAH is not a strict military toy line, nor has any of its previous incarnations or even Sigma six. All are GIJOE, but none are really military toys in the general sense. Action and adventure sum GIJOE up a little better, and whatever crazy tools (vehicles) it takes to have that imaginary adventure, ya know? Some people like that Star Brigade angle, while others dig the guys in green from '82. It's all good, "popularity" levels and things that would make it appear as if anything past '85 was bad and should not viewed should not be present. Rather, I would hope any ARAH fan would be more than happy put a positive spin that encourages further exploration of the entire aspect of arah, not just the popular ones. Ya make it sound like Cobra La was "deth of teh line." What about the Kenner merger? There was more to it all than just colors that ended the line in '94. Perhaps a section about the book "toy wars" should be here, too.

Let's look at the facts. Cobra-La WAS a major turn for RAH, and coincided with the death of the popular Sunbow cartoon series. Sure, GI Joe always had a sci-fi element to it, but it certainly became more prominent after Cobra-La, Battleforce 2000, the Defiant Space Shuttle and Star Brigade were introduced, NOT a fictional but totally realistic mini-tank like the Armadillo. (Whoever edited that section, at least get the years and spelling right, please.) I don't have any exact numbers, and I would welcome them if anyone does, but it's a fact that the latter years of RAH GI Joe are considerably more difficult to collect, as production numbers were much lower. Besides, I never said that was the REASON the Joe line was cancelled in '94, I just indicated that the two (conveniently) coincided. If you have any hard facts, please feel free to add them. DPr77 03:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

So, can you prove that so many of these early designs were based on the actual real life vehicles? Just because the Dragonfly looks like the Cobra, doesn't mean it was based off it. Or do you have FACTS to prove this? That information about real life military hardware is not needed.

All you have to do is look at an AH-1 Cobra and the Dragonfly to know they are one and the same. Besides the fact that Larry Hama was ex-military himself, the evidence is right there in front of your face, so yes, it is a FACT. I've also re-added the bit about the sci-fi aspect of GI Joe designs and tried to make it sound more objective.DPr77

Actually, this whole technology section discussion has got me thinking... Since we're talking about a toy, primarily, it would be far more appropriate to call the section "Toy Design", since we're talking about the vehicles and playsets. I'd like to add a paragraph preceding the ones we already have that gives a brief description of the figure construction, too. Sound good? DPr77 02:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and since it is a toy first and foremost, once I made that change, I realized that it's really a whole lot more important than the characters and such, so I placed that section before the others. I mean, this is a toy, so physically describing the toys and their design aspects is more important than the characters, which were really only written to make the toys themselves more interesting. DPr77 02:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW, whoever made that addition, thanks! But I don't think there was a need to remove the bit talking about the realistic and science-fiction aspects of the line - if nothing else, it really fleshes out the section, and without a whole lot of pictures to go on I think it's very relevant. I've re-added it but edited a lot out of it to make it more concise. I like the idea of calling that section "The Toys" a lot better, too! DPr77 03:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Supporting Characters

These should be put into the comic or cartoon sections, they have nothing to do with the toys.

Although I definitely think the toy should be first and foremost considered with regards to the article in general, I think that overall we can include general concepts (such as this) from the cartoon and comic, as they were an important part of RAH. The characters that were developed from the file cards, cartoon and comic are a large reason why people loved this toyline... Instead of deleting it completely, I'd suggest having small sub-sections that address the comic and cartoon, with links to the main article if the reader wants to go into more detail. A small list of these stand-out characters can still be included here, I would think, as long as it doesn't get too long or detailed. DPr77 20:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sonic Fighters

When was it ever established that Falcon was the leader of this group? Is this being assumed because of his rank? He actually shares the same rank with Psyche Out who was also a member.

"The Toys"

Quoted from the article: "The most notable changes were the second series' addition of "swivel-arm" articulation in 1983 (initial figures had "straight arms"), and the fourth series' ball joints replacing the former swivel necks, both dramatically increasing a figures poseability."

Is it common practice to make up new words for encyclopedia articles? Because "poseability" is not part of the English language. Caped Crusader (talk) 20:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Says who? It's a term I've heard for a good decade now, admittedly in a rather niche area (discussing the number of moveable parts on toy action figures) and was about 28,000 ghits which is rather more than a word made up for an encyclopaedia would get. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Language is defined by actual usage. 'Poseability' has been in circulation amongst toy freaks for a while now. Just take a look at the Google hits. Google is a pretty standard notability test around here is it not?24.47.151.201 (talk) 14:35, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The 1983 Mini-series by Sunbow

There is the 1983 Mini-series by Sunbow. Reference:
(1) http://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/A_Real_American_Hero_(mini-series)
(2) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0231626/ Sautiller (talk) 09:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

What's your point?--Flash176 (soon to be rechristened as Ridge Runner) (talk) 11:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that the article File card be merged into this article. The file card article is not much more than a stub, and pertains primarily to the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero series of action figures. The final section can also be easily merged into the G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 article. Fortdj33 (talk) 18:48, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Common movie line error

"it is also revealed that Golobulus implanted a psychic motivator into Dr. Mindbender's brain to inspire him to create Serpentor."

That's a common misinterpretation of the line. Golobulus says he implanted the idea in Mindbender's brain using the psychic motivator. The exact line of dialogue, "I implanted the idea and the skill in Dr. Mindbender's rather pedestrian brain with this - a Psychic Motivator." The small creature in Golobulus' hand is that Psychic Motivator. He did not implant a creature in Mindbender’s brain. He put the thoughts into his head psychically. I'm going to edit the entry to reflect the correct info, but I wanted a thread here explaining. Medleystudios72 (talk) 16:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit, Fortdj33. Didn't think my grammar was particularly broken to begin with, but your wording is clearer. Medleystudios72 (talk) 17:59, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem, it's not that your wording was wrong, I just thought it needed a little clarification. I made a similar change to the same information in the G.I. Joe: The Movie article too. Fortdj33 (talk) 18:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

A Real American Hero outside the USA

I'm from the Netherlands and I owned a number of G.I. Joe toys, all bought locally, when I was a child (early 1990's). I don't remember the packaging ever saying "A Real American Hero". I may have missed it, of course, as I couldn't really read English at the time and was generally more interested in the toy than in the packaging. Only when reading about G.I. Joe years later did I realize that it was a very American, almost patriotic toy. As a child, I never really thought about its country of origin. This got me wondering: was the "Americanness" of G.I. Joe ever de-emphasized for foreign markets? If so, perhaps that information could be an interesting addition to the article. 82.139.81.212 (talk) 17:18, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking at cardback images from yojoe.com, I see that "A Real American Hero" was dropped from the logo. Some cards show the addition of a tagline such as "de internationale helden/heros sans frontieres", both seen on packages from Belgium. --Khajidha (talk) 20:15, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

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