The location for the 2012 GI Joe Collectors’ Convention will be New Orleans, Louisiana. The con will take place starting June 21st through June 24th. Hotel information will be coming soon, but at least you can start planning where you won’t be during those days. The June/July convention time slot is usually saved for Botcon, the official Transformers Collectors’ Convention, both run by Fun Publications. The significance of this should not be lost. The GI Joe movie sequel, GI Joe: Retaliation, premieres one week after the date of this convention.

IDW’s first crossover event, Infestation, was massively popular. By which I mean it sold a lot of books for the company. I’ve heard mixed reviews from fans of those other books, but I liked the Star Trek and Transformers tales enough anyway. I fully intend on buying the hardcover collection when it comes out soon.
IDW is never one to let a license opportunity go to waste, so they’re going to start Infestation 2 in January. The original book features dimension traveling zombies as the story thread holding the diverse worlds’ stories together. This volume with feature HP Lovecraft’s Old Ones. So get ready for Leonardo to cut some tentacles.
Actual story details are very slim right now, we just have the announcement from IDW. However, the creative team of Chuck Dixon and Guido Guidi have been announced for Transformers, and that book will be set in the duo’s famous “Hearts of Steel” universe. This alternate story line puts the Transformers at the dawn of the Industrial revolution and featured many popular characters a steam powered rail cars and battle ships.

Infestation 2 begins on January 25 2012 and will run weekly through April 11 2012.

Sideshow Collectibles has posted a video to share some background on two of their upcoming releases in the GI Joe 12 inch action figure line. Zartan and Rock n Roll are featured along with a great look at some of their accessories and the designing decisions behind them.

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This weekend is GIJoeCon in Orlando, Florida. The Terrordrome is live tweeting from the Renegades panel and has reported that GI Joe Renegades will indeed end after just one season. This confirms the fears of fans who have been dreading the end of the series after it was announced the show would be going on hiatus after the first season. The show will essentially end before the toys ever make it to store shelves. Most unfortunate for everyone involved. On the bright side, a question asked during the Q&A confirmed that Renegades will have a DVD release.

A new GI Joe animated series will come out in 2012 based on the GI Joe 2 movie.

JoeCon 2011: Renegades Panel – Renegades on hiatus for GI Joe 2. But GI Joe animation will return, didn’t say Renegades will return though.

JoeCon 2011: Renegades Panel – They just keep saying “animation”, not “Renegades”, so probably not returning as Renegades.

JoeCon 2011: Renegades Panel – To add on to previous statement, it is all “industry talk” and Renegades is done after Season 1.

JoeCon 2011: Renegades Panel – Look for a new series based off of GI Joe 2 in 2012.

JoeCon 2011: Renegades Panel – Ok, Renegades is done, but when the “animation” returns, it will look the same, same characters…

JoeCon 2011: Renegades Panel – …but will be more closer to GI Joe 2 in story. So same look, but farther along story than Renegades is now.

Thanks to the Terrordrome for keeping us up to date on this news.

This weekend marks the 18th celebration of GI JoeCon. Kicking off tomorrow with the traditional parachute drop from the top of the convention center, eager fans will be waiting below to get one of these exclusive paratroopers! Held in Orlando, Florida this year from April 1st through 3rd, JoeCon is sure to have many great announcements about upcoming product, media and tie-ins! Check out the full press release after the jump.

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Disappointing news all around for Joe fans. It seems the GI Joe: Renegades, the newest animated incarnation of Hasbro’s All American Hero currently airing on The Hub network, will be going on hiatus after its first season runs to completion in the summer. General’s Joes had the news up after noticing Renegades being suspiciously absent from The Hub’s Upfront presentation for its future programming. The news was confirmed from The Hub’s own PR. Transformers: Prime, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and other programming seems to have escaped the same fate. The reasoning given was to put full focus on the upcoming live action sequel to the Rise of Cobra movie.

From the Hub:

“…we’re very pleased with the performance of G.I. JOE RENEGADES on The Hub. The series will go on hiatus at the end of season one while the second installment of the G.I. Joe movie franchise is being produced so Hasbro and Hasbro Studios can ensure the creative and storyline continuity that fans of the films and the series expect. We’ll have original episodes into the summer and we envision resuming new animation following the movie.”

Many fans of the show see this as its death knell similar to Transformers: Animated. I don’t think that is a fair comparison, though, since this is airing on Hasbro’s own Hub network and they have stated that they have stories going out as far as five seaons. Its hard to say what the fate of the show will be, but the toys haven’t even made it out to retail yet in another show of unfortunate timing for this series.

Hasbro just released the official images of the items revealed during their press event. Among them was the big announcement of a brand new Skystriker jet. Further they announced that this year’s San Diego Comic Con exclusive would be a repainted version of this jet to look like Starscream with Cobra Commander as the pilot who will carry a gun that is Megatron in gun mode. Its kind of a big deal.

I thought this image needed its own post. And it does.

Please, please, please don’t let there be another Sgt. Slaughter massacre on HasbroToyShop this year.