Maybe something you ignored. At least it was quite a big here in Finland in the 80's/ early 90's.
With all due respect, Finland is so far off the beaten track when it comes to "European culture" that it might as well in Asia. Things that flop spectacularly in the rest of Europe do well there, and music that's been dead for literally decades in the US/Europe is alive and well there (not that there's anything wrong with that - but you can't assume what's true in Finland is true anywhere else in Europe). So no, not something he ignored unless he's a fellow Finn.
In the rest of Europe, GI Joe, including the UK, made a few half-hearted attempts to succeed, but winked back out of existence pretty rapidly. I understand it did ok in Israel and a few other places, though.
So it is indeed essentially an American thing, with a few other random nations. You'd have had to make an effort to track it down in the UK. Things like Thundercats, MASK (yes even MASK), He-Man, Transformers and so on utterly eclipsed it here.
I do hope that WotC do SOME kind of modern-style game, because the 4E-style of game, albeit minus the obsession with position/repositioning and minis, ideal for a modern-day/futuristic "cinematic"-style game. Metagaming-style stuff, which can feel a bit dodgy in the confused-as-to-whether-it's-cinematic-or-not world of D&D is perfect for that. I think you could more or less fold Defender and Controller into one in a modern-day setting, I'd suggest, too (given that a Ranged Defender would essentially resemble a Controller).
