Its here! Toy Fair 2012 kicked off yesterday in traditional fashion a day early with a Hasbro media event done the day before the show begins. In it, they show off a great deal of what their fans have to look forward to over the next year or so. There was so much information from the panel that I needed to break it down into sections. This post represents all of the GI Joe information I could scrounge together reading the coverage from other sites. I like to think I filled in a lot of gaps by using so many resources, but i will allow you to be the judge. Read on after the jump for more!

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Major Breaking toy news: Hasbro has landed the rights to produce toys based on the popular science fiction series Star Trek. No formal details were announce other than they would launch with the next Star Trek movie in May 2013.

A posting on StarTrek.com does make mention of KREO toys being part of the agreement, meaning ships from the Star Trek universe will be represented with the brick building toys.

This news comes just a few days before Toy Fair in New York City, which typically showcases major new releases from toy manufacturers and designers. It is unlikely that any new Star Trek toys will be on display since the first release isn’t due for over a year.

Previously, Star Trek toys were handled by Playmates. They launched a relatively well received line for the 2009 Star Trek movie, but the second wave of figures was delayed to to June 2010 and then ultimately cancelled.

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This isn’t an actual game per se (although if you’re reading this Capcom, don’t let me stop you from making it), but rather it sums up one of the first North American attempts to make action figures based on Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. These figures made use of Gi-Joe molds. In fact, the original series of Street Fighter action figures were advertised as being part of Gi-Joe, with M. Bison and his Shadowloo grandmasters being part of Cobra.
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This news hits a little close to home. A global labor rights group has published a PDF declaring that Jet Fair, a manufacturing company in China, has been running a factory remarkably below standard work conditions. The group that has released the PDF is called the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. Some of the accusations levied against the Jet Fair factory include, but are not limited to: excessively long work hours, rat-infested and bed bug-ridden dormitories, overly restrictive rules regarding behaviour, sub-standard food, safety violations and poor pay. This particular factory is the location where the new Transformers Prime figures are being assembled.

Hasbro is a company that works very hard to maintain its reputation as responsible corporate citizen and a globally conscience company. This report clearly aims to tarnish that reputation, true or not, and you can expect swift reaction from the company to right it’s course. The report definitely seems to finger Hasbro as the responsible party for this instead of blaming Jet Fair, which seems more than a little unfair.

The PDF laying aim at the Hasbro partner can be seen here: PDF

I was worried these clips would stop coming after the initial launch of the line this summer, but I’m delighted to say a new holiday themeed KREO stop motion clip has been released. Watch it above and let us know what you think of these adorable clips and the KREO construction brand in the comments.

Battleship is the Hasbro board game property based on blindly determining the location of and sinking your opponent’s fleet of ships. More recently, a variation of the game was released called Battleship: Galaxies, which appears to be based on this movie’s plot. I cannot decide if this looks like Transformers 4: Lost at Sea or a GI Joe/Transformers crossover. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Back in July we found out the fans won out with their demand to continue the original Transformers comic series, picking up from issue 81.

That book is being “ReGeneration One” and is being written by longtime TF scribe Simon Furman with Andrew Wildman providing artwork in his original early 90s style. IDW comics publisher Chris Ryall has tweeted a colored interior page of the book without text. Ultra Magnus makes his US debut and Optimus Prime retains his Action Master form in this direct continuation of the events in the Marvel Transformers comic #80.

See here the cover and that interior page from issue 80.5, available on Free Comic Book Day

I decided to continue this little format experiment. Here are some highlights from the world of action figures during the month of November 2011.