When Hasbro did its first HasLab crowd-fund for G.I. Joe, it was a Skystriker jet for the 3-3/4 inch figures — a jet for the 6-inch Classified series seemed beyond the realm of possibility or fan budgets. Fast forward to today, and a 6-inch scale Rattler jet for Cobra, the enemy of G.I. Joe, got funded its first weekend and is on track to unlock all the bonus tiers for a mere $325. (Last year’s Dragonfly helicopter was $275.) So if one jet was too big, how was another — which never seemed much different in size at the smaller scale — possible now?
Jet Set
Hasbro’s Lenny Panzica has the answer. “The old-school Rattler, I’m trying to remember, I think it’s like 18 inches long…the Skystriker was 24 inches or something like that, so when you scale up it’s considerable, it’s not like going true half-scale, so at the time we didn’t think it’d be possible to do a jet, and then we considered people’s shelves, and the Skystriker, it has those wing mechanisms and stuff like that. Here, I think, there was an opportunity, hindsight 20/20, after doing all the other vehicles, we were like, ‘I think we can do a jet’ and the Rattler was perfect. So it worked out, and we learned. Every time we do a HasLab, every time we do a vehicle, we learn what we can do, we learn new parameters, we learn new costing structures, and I think we just kinda figured it out over time.”
We casually joke about something huge like the Killer W.H.A.L.E. hovercraft, and his response is unexpected. “You know, ambition aside, we’re just trying to read the room, and for me, we can just study and see what’s possible…and I don’t wanna say no!” Adds his colleague Tony Collea, “Not to give out to much information, but whenever we look at vehicles throughout the entire line, we’ve done cardboard cutouts of test scales. So we’ve looked at things and made comparisons on how big these things are gonna be, and what’s the possibility, so you never know.”
Adds Panzica of the cutouts, “I did a Skystriker and put my kid in it. I thought it looked dope.”
Skeleton Crew
As far as the Rattler goes, why does it only include a maximum of three possible figures when prior HasLabs have had four? “A lot of times when we’re making these things, we have to study what we can afford,” says Panzica, “and without being too TMI, we have a budget, and we had to work toward the budget.” The old toy had wings that tilted upward for vertical takeoff; the new one also allowed them to fold upward in the middle. This was mainly out of concern for collector shelf space rather than a specific aesthetic choice.
In other announcements, an anniversary para-trooper will come with a folding parachute, but don’t expect it to “work” like the old vintage ones. “We tested that,” notes Panzica. “The parachute’s about 10 inches in diameter, so at a particular height – I will not say what height because I don’t want people doing it — it will catch. You’re never gonna catch great – there’s a particular distance that it’ll go oh, I have some wind, but I have a heavy action figure on me. It would have to be ginormous for it to work properly.”
Collea jokes that if you send a broken figure into customer service they will know if it broke because you tried that. So why make a folding parachute at all? “It’s more for aesthetic,” says Panzica. “I had this vision of people doing photography, and then he’s landed, and he’s pulling it behind him and putting it back in there and stuff.”
Hogging
One of Panzica’s favorite characters is the Dreadnok Road Pig, and for release, he’s been embellished with new riot gear, a boar skull mask, extra tattoos, and a dog (“Everybody needs a friend!”). But with all the Dreadnoks nearly done, doesn’t this biker gang feel a bit lacking without something to ride? “I do agree with that sentiment, and I can’t talk to future stuff, but we’re always thinking about stuff like that.”
Another character who has been plussed up is the Cobra falconer, Raptor. In the vintage line, he was essentially a birdman cosplayer, but now he has robot wings, like the Vulture in Spider-Man: No Way Home, though Panzica denies that was the primary influence.
“That kind of design, I feel like you’ve seen a lot in ’80s cartoons and anime,” he says. “It was more like mecha wings for me, and also, I literally was looking at the way falcons move their wings. I wanted to get the falcon dive, and also when he’s shielding himself, yeah, from a lot of movies, but at the same time, when you see a gargoyle on a building, how they cover themselves, I was kinda pulling from that, but of course pop culture’s influencing. At the same time, it is a lot of anatomy from a bird, but in robot form, which comes from a lot of mecha, so it’s pulling from all sorts of directions that are inspiring us.”
Full Force?
A recent figure two-pack included Quarrel, who was originally a repaint of Scarlett for the British Action Force line by Palitoy. Will we see more references from that world? “I think where we can, you will.”
We couldn’t let the team go without reminding them of our question from last year: is it purely coincidence that Sgt. Slaughter’s signature hold is the Cobra Clutch, and G.I. Joe’s enemy is named Cobra? Collea says Slaughter himself told them it was indeed coincidental, or as Panzica puts it, “The universe coalescing to make amazingness.”
Check out more images in the gallery below.
