By the late 70s, Hasbro's GI Joe line was wavering. The American public no longer had an interest in war-themed toys (thanks to that police action) and a little movie called Star Wars had kindled a desire in the hearts of kids across the globe for cool sci-fi toys. It's even rumoured that the oil crisis was cutting into the production costs of manufacturing 12'' action figures, although perhaps this was simply an excuse to get in on the 8'' doll market Mego had cornered for some time.
Hasbro's response was simple: reinvent GI Joe as a space-based adventurer. Gone were the military uniforms and enemy soldiers, to be replaced with light-up space weapons and strange, menacing aliens and - perhaps worst of all - his name was changed to SUPER JOE!
Despite the cool designs of Gor and Shield, Super Joe wasn't really that successful. I owned a number of figures from this line (although it was known as Commander Power in the UK) and I can see why they were so unpopular. Radical changes aside, the figures themselves were also very poorly manufactured, with brittle plastic and weak joints making them feel as if they were going to break at any moment (which mine did a few months after Christmas. And I'm the same guy who still has undamaged Micronauts from 1977...)
At least the packaging art was good.
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