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8/7/2025, 9:28:00 AM
I can just picture a sync meeting between Marvel and Hasbro reps circa 1992, I imagine it going something like this
>FIREFLY HAS A NEW COSTUME.
>W-wait... he's been dead for years. It's not-
>FIREFLY HAS A NEW COSTUME AND IT IS EXTREMELY SILLY. HE AND SCARLETT ARE NINJAS NOW.
>...What?
>THE JOES AND COBRAS WILL HAVE A BIG BATTLE. IN SPACE.
>I don't think this will...
>MAKE IT SO.
At least it seems Hama was able to negotiate some sort of compromise since in the comic it's just a small side story about a bunch of Joes teaming up with Oktober Guard shuttling off to stop an asteroid that was diverted toward Earth by a rogue Russian scientist, with no Cobra involvement.
Looking at the toy line, it looks like Hasbro wanted "Star Brigade" to be a full-blown Star Wars knock-off starring most of the big and famous Joe characters including Duke, Destro and Cobra Commander, damned if it made any sense. Oh, and there were aliens too. I can sort of understand Hasbro big-wigs being spooked by TMNT and ordering the ninjas to be a bigger focus. But Star Wars and other space stuff wasn't really big at this point in the 90s so I'm not sure where Star Brigade came from. It was at least 10 years too late to cash in on that fad.
The cartoon people had it easier, since they treated the whole cartoon based on army toys thing as a joke from the start. Must have been fun being Hama, watching all the lore you spent a decade carefully constructing evaporate because of some gay plasticmen appearing on toy store shelves. It seems he was always a fan of sci-fi and Robert A. Heinlein though so he probably at least had fun writing the space issues. I hope. (He directly referenced Heinlein in the Star Brigade issues) But this random space shit was probably the last nail in the coffin that caused the readership to dwindle to the point the comic was cancelled.
>FIREFLY HAS A NEW COSTUME.
>W-wait... he's been dead for years. It's not-
>FIREFLY HAS A NEW COSTUME AND IT IS EXTREMELY SILLY. HE AND SCARLETT ARE NINJAS NOW.
>...What?
>THE JOES AND COBRAS WILL HAVE A BIG BATTLE. IN SPACE.
>I don't think this will...
>MAKE IT SO.
At least it seems Hama was able to negotiate some sort of compromise since in the comic it's just a small side story about a bunch of Joes teaming up with Oktober Guard shuttling off to stop an asteroid that was diverted toward Earth by a rogue Russian scientist, with no Cobra involvement.
Looking at the toy line, it looks like Hasbro wanted "Star Brigade" to be a full-blown Star Wars knock-off starring most of the big and famous Joe characters including Duke, Destro and Cobra Commander, damned if it made any sense. Oh, and there were aliens too. I can sort of understand Hasbro big-wigs being spooked by TMNT and ordering the ninjas to be a bigger focus. But Star Wars and other space stuff wasn't really big at this point in the 90s so I'm not sure where Star Brigade came from. It was at least 10 years too late to cash in on that fad.
The cartoon people had it easier, since they treated the whole cartoon based on army toys thing as a joke from the start. Must have been fun being Hama, watching all the lore you spent a decade carefully constructing evaporate because of some gay plasticmen appearing on toy store shelves. It seems he was always a fan of sci-fi and Robert A. Heinlein though so he probably at least had fun writing the space issues. I hope. (He directly referenced Heinlein in the Star Brigade issues) But this random space shit was probably the last nail in the coffin that caused the readership to dwindle to the point the comic was cancelled.
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