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Thread
:
What secrets lurk in the filecards?
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06-14-2009, 03:30 AM
zuludelta
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
Thanks Tanksmasher.
Here are a couple of characters whose basic ideas for their prospective designs I went over at some length with Master Thespian:
Bulletproof & Long Arm
design notes:
- Here's a little Hasbro history for you guys: Back in 1988, Hasbro released a new toy property called
C.O.P.S. 'n' Crooks
. Applying the lessons learned from the huge success of
GI Joe: A Real American Hero
, Hasbro released the toyline with
, licensed the property out to DC Comics for
a comic book series
written by
Moon Knight
co-creator and definitive
Master of Kung-fu
scribe Doug Moench, and they even brought in
GI Joe: ARAH
comic book and filecard guru Larry Hama to write the toys' pack-in files (Hama actually wrote in more than a few nods to
GI Joe: ARAH
characters, including writing in one of the characters as Beach Head's son). The cartoon was set in the future year of 2020 in the fictional megalopolis of Empire City (a fictionalized New York) and featured an intro directed by a young Peter "Aeon Flux" Chung (Chung also contributed to many of the character designs).
- Despite Hasbro's attempts to replicate the twin media-retail blitz of
GI Joe: ARAH
,
C.O.P.S.
never even came close to approaching
GI Joe: ARAH
's success. My theory is that
GI Joe: ARAH
was so hugely successful that it effectively cannibalized the sales of
C.O.P.S.
toys and merchandise (the demographic for both properties had a lot of crossover, methinks). And of course, there was also that thing called
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
gaining traction with kids at the time.
- Despite the property being a non-starter, I actually liked many of the
C.O.P.S.
character designs. Bulletproof, as far as I can remember, was probably the first lead black character on a Saturday morning cartoon (and not just the token strong guy supporting cast member or the token comic relief or the token combination strong guy/comic relief... I'm looking at you Roadblock). The villains' designs in particular, held a distinct appeal for me. I thought that the toys were pretty ugly though, even by late 1980s standards. They came in an outsized scale (between 6 and 7 inches) that was incompatible with many of the popular action figures at the time (not the least of which was
GI Joe: ARAH
):
Bulletproof & Long Arm, before it all went to shit
- By the end of 1989, the
C.O.P.S.
cartoon and comic book were both cancelled. Hasbro continued to produce new
C.O.P.S. 'n' Crooks
figures, but with dwindling frequency. By early 1992, the line was dead. Not that any of us kids noticed... by that time, we were all at least a couple of months into the arduous task of trying to scrub our brains clean of the memory of
. I still have nightmares about that one.
- In 1992, Hasbro released a new
GI Joe: ARAH
subteam called
DEF (Drug Elimination Force)
. Lo and behold, the leader of the team was a black guy guy named
Bulletproof
. Coincidence? That's what I thought at the time.
- A year later, with the
GI Joe: ARAH
line having its own struggles, Hasbro brought to retail, along with a bunch of other radioactive-coloured crap and dong-tastic springloaded missile launchers, a re-release of Bulletproof (now re-designated as the "Battle Corps Urban Commander") as well as another refugee from the year 2020:
Coked-up Hasbro exec to engineer: "We gotta neon this shit up!
I want 'em so bright kids'll get skin cancer just from looking at them!"
- Although the 1993
Battle Corps
toys weren't intended to be recreations of the 1988
C.O.P.S.
characters (besides Bulletproof and Long Arm, two other figures that shared code names with C.O.P.S. characters, Mace and Barricade, also found their way into
GI Joe: ARAH
), I decided to stick with the older Peter Chung character designs as the primary inspiration for my own redesigns. For one thing, the
C.O.P.S.
versions of the characters actually look more realistic and contemporary than their
Battle Corps
counterparts. They didn't even bother to coordinate Long Arm's
Battle Corps
job with his code name. The "Long Arm" code name, with regards to the 1988 toy, was an overt reference to the idiomatic phrase "
the long arm of the law
;" the 1993 Long Arm character had nothing to do with policing and law enforcement, and although I never owned the figure, from the pictures, it doesn't look like has literal long arms either (maybe they should have just called him "Big Head"). And what were they thinking dressing him up in a bright orange suit? Then again, maybe all the urban areas in Hasbro's "Joe-verse" are painted in bright orange... that would go a long way towards explaining the Alley-Viper's
LSD-inspired colour scheme
.
- I re-wrote Bulletproof's background and turned him into an AFOSI officer. AFOSI guys do a lot of the same work as the Army's Criminal Investigation Command ("CID") but in addition to criminal investigation, they're also the USAF's primary counterintelligence and HUMINT assets (since the Air Force's actual intelligence assets are generally involved with SIGINT, MASINT, IMINT, and TECHINT/S&TI)
- Long Arm was simply outfitted in the Army's new ASU class B uniform, with the bloused pants (an optional uniform feature allowed for Airborne-qualified soldiers) and the optional enlisted man's service cap/combination cover serving as the update to the original's policeman's peaked cap. I still don't like the new Class B ASU, though (too "mall cop" for my tastes) but I think it's excellent for approximating Long Arm's original blue police uniform whilst still making him officially Army in appearance.
Anyway, to read the full filecards of Bulletproof and Long Arm, click on the Filecard Project link in my signature.
__________________
Last edited by zuludelta; 06-14-2009 at
11:31 AM
.. Reason: Long Arm picture updated
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