SDCC COVERAGE SPONSORED BY MAD CAVE
Alright, in my second of three interviews with Hasbro during SDCC ’25, I’m speaking with the G.I. Joe team about the new items they have planned for the G.I. Joe Classified line. With the new con exclusives here and for the future, and their current HasLab campaign, a lot is going on with G.I. Joe.
The interview has been edited for clarity
Julian Lytle: What are the many things you guys are showing off this year? I saw on the Hasbro Pulse social media posts that you guys have been hitting us with a lot of debuts. So what’s new in the G.I. Joe Classified?
Leonard Panzica: We’re expanding on our character Crystal Wall with the new Ghost Vipers. Ghost Vipers are basically like his brigade, and they’re spreading fear across the world. They come with a dire wolf, which is used with dire tech technology that he uses to make projections, as well as a cobra. And you can use the technology to transform each of the troopers into a werewolf or a werecobra. So pretty crazy. A brand new character for the line.
Lytle: Yeah, my GI Joe knowledge is like: I don’t remember.
Panzica: He’s new, baby.
Tony Colella: Yes, we have a lot of people who have been asking us to pull some GI Joes out of Lenny’s head, and we’re doing it. We’re doing it now, and I’m happy for the Grim Viper, another original creation
Panzica: We wanted to make a heavy for the range Vipers, and we wanted to put him more in a colorway that made sense for what range Vipers do. So we went more than they go greens and drabs, but he’s basically a big heavy Range Viper that comes with a Gatling gun, so really cool. He’s got camo painted all over his arms. Really excited to get him in the line.
Lytle: I see you have also like this Modular Defense Post.
Colella: Like the perimeter, yeah, the G.I. Joe base. He comes with the G.I. Joe sentry as well, kind of a re-deco on our steel brigade. The base is meant to kind of work as you buy multiple, you can build out your dream diorama with them. It’s loaded out with a bunch of ammunition, some rockets, things like that, and you can really just kind of build your outpost, if you will.
Lytle: Who are some of the other guys like this?
Panzica: We’ve also got, I think, the one we should talk about that’s new for today, is Cobra-La Pythona.
Lytle: Yes! Pythona is from the animated movie! I know her!
Panzica: Watch [it] over and over again. Yeah, so we needed to get her in line, and we’re going to Cobra lock quite a bit. So she comes with all of the weapons she uses to infiltrate the technodrome. Teradrome, my bad.
Lytle: So basically, she comes to the four?
Panzica: Foreheaded Moray eel, she comes with all the claws that she had to cut through the fence, and all that. She also comes with a cloak, and the cloak will go over her head just like it did in the cartoon.
Lytle: I’m really excited to get an awesome character like that. Is that for regular sales exclusively?
Panzica: That’s going to be the Fall Convention exclusive. So Luca and MCM. And then once that run is over, they’ll go on Hasbro Pulse.
Lytle: Okay. So they’ll be available, for sure.
Panzica: We also have our desert scorpions.
Lytle: There’s a whole bunch of mutant scorpions.
Panzica: That’s right. You nailed it. That’s exactly what they are, mutant scorpions. The idea is that Dr. Mindbender has created scorpions. And the desert scorpions are manning them. But it’s not necessarily a loving relationship between the two of them.
So as you can see, they have to kind of corral them as they take out Joe. And some of the promotional art we have online today shows the Desert Scorpions infiltrating the sentry post, and they’re just overrunning it. It’s crazy. The crazy thing about the Scorpion is that he has about 20-plus points of articulation, with disjoints in his elbows. That’s on the animal, not the Desert Scorpion.
Colella: Yeah, and it’s above the size of your hand, too. The sheer size of it is what really impresses me. Also, with the character that does a scorpion, we’ve got a face swap so that you can get a masked version as well as an unmasked version. You’ve got some soft goods and tons of accessories, so I’m super proud of the set.
Panzica: So the bats, we showed them earlier this year, so they’re part of a retro card back line. We know that people like to collect bats in army builds, so we put them in the retro card back line in their old-school color, which is a really bright color. In addition to those, we also have our green shirts, available in a two-pack. It’s Steeler and Short Fuse. They’re classified versions, but very, very close to their old-school vibe. Short Fuse comes with a mortar. You can use the blast effects to look at the mortars firing off.
Additionally, we have added a mortar backpack for Short Fuse, allowing you to stow it on his back. He didn’t have it in the original, but he felt he needed it this time around. And then, of course, Steeler with the classic helmet with that crazy, like I guess, lens or whatever. However, it actually gives a magnified view of his eyes.
Lytle: Oh, that’s awesome. Great attention to detail. Yes, that’s like part of it. Blood, I guess, yeah, the second DIC era. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah, that’s gonna make some more DIC era or DIC era like a metalhead
Panzica: We have been. We love all of G.I. Joe’s iterations, and we want to get to as many of them as we can.
Lytle: Even Extreme?
Panzica: Extreme. The K.L.A.W. is awesome.
Colella: I love the K.L.A.W.
Panzica: We also have our mainline reveals today, which were Wetsuit with all of his accoutrements from back in the day.
Colella: A very layered figure.
Panzica: We also have a Mainframe. Mainframe is awesome too because he comes with a laptop computer with screens that slide out, and you can stow his backpack.
Colella: He’s coming to Two Pack with Zarana. [joking]
Panzica: Oh well, she’s been waiting for him. So he’s here. We also have Sci-Fi to see up there. We modernized them a bit, but we stayed very true to that green. Also, the blast effect on there has a power-up orb. You put the blast effect on there.
Panzica: Yeah, we’re building the universe, for sure.
Lytle: There’s no way I can make my GI Joes look like the television commercials. It seems like now you guys give everybody the ability to.
Panzica: Well, yeah, we want to see that awesome photography. We want people to be inspired, and we want to give them the tools to make miniature worlds.
Lytle: And what’s this giant vehicle?
Panzica: So this is the A.W.E. Striker. So the A.W.E. Striker was an all-terrain vehicle from the back of the day. We wanted to bring in a GI Joe classified in a classified way. So it’s actually based on modern military dune buggies. That’s why the smaller wheels are in the front, the bigger ones in the back. It’s built for speed, essentially. You can customize it a bit. You can take off the whole roll cage. And then in the back, there’s an engine compartment that you can have him looking like he’s working on his engine.
Lytle: And it comes out later this year?
Panzica: Yeah, that’s right.
Colella: And then the tow behind is the M.M.S. that comes with Hawk. So that’s another piece that you can tow hook onto your Striker. So a separate set, but equally as impressive, I think.
Lytle: Yeah, that’s great. That’s a very impressive set. I’m guessing that over here is the new HasLab campaign.
Panzica: The HasLab Snow C.A.T.
Lytle: I get the emails, and I see it, and I was like, I don’t have space for this. It’s amazing. No way I can fit this anywhere. What went into bringing this back to life?
Panzica: Well, snow adventures are such an integral part of G.I. Joe. If you guys remember, there’s a lot in the comic and in the cartoon. Lady Jaye and Flint go on a particular snow adventure as well. I feel like extreme environments are G.I. Joe. We felt an Arctic vehicle would exemplify them, right? So we went into the Snow C.A.T. with a little bit of a different approach. The idea was to create a play set where the characters can go on an adventure and encounter extreme situations. That’s why the first in a lot is Lady Jaye. She comes with fishing gear, so in case they break down, they’ve got to get food. They’re going on an adventure—also known as the bivouac. The bivouac is there so they can set up camp, so they have to figure out how to call home base. And then, finally, we have Flint, which is the final tier, and it comes with some of the cooking supplies. So, you know, we had a lot of fun with kind of pushing what a 112-scale collection will have in it.
Lytle: Why did you guys make Slither? I would never expect to see something from that random episode of the show.
Colella: Yeah. I think that’s half the reason why we did it. It’s not part of it. It was marketing that really kicked into gear on that one, too. Obviously, you probably heard that we had the close of the concert. [The group had a rock band perform as Cobra’s fake band Cold Slither]. So it was something that we could really build a whole program around. And from the reception that we were getting at the show for the set, along with everything that went down last night at that concert.
Panzica: That’s why my voice is low. It was as if we were screaming and yelling all night.
Colella: It was awesome.
Panzica: It was so metal.
Colella: I mean, to have a band create a full vinyl for you, and then tie that into the product, tie that into the cartoon, it’s just a special moment, I think, in comics. G.I. Joe Comic Con is history.
Panzica: Also, from a lore standpoint, like we were talking to you about the Dyer Tech, we’re trying to create a world of it, right? In the G.I. Joe world, there are bands, right? And in particular, Cobra created a band to infiltrate and recruit people to join it, right? So we wanted to celebrate that part. Yeah, it’s niche, it’s wild, but that’s what’s so fun about it. We’re trying to hit on those things that are so unique to the brand, but also, if you didn’t know what it was, it might be compelling to you.
Lytle: Should we look forward to any more surprises later in the year? You know, around for the next big convention, like New York Comic-Con?
Panzica: I’m not sure for what times, but yeah, we’re always coming up with new ideas. We’re always heading to the news, and we want people to see what we’ve got next.
Colella: Our sculptor literally went home five seconds ago to submit a couple of sculptures, and then he’ll be back in the show after he gets those submitted. So we’ve always got G.I. Joe on the mind.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more coverage from SDCC ’25.
SDCC COVERAGE SPONSORED BY MAD CAVE
English (US) · 