Back when the GI Joes debuted in the 1960s, they did have what I would call a broader cultural cachet. And I think what you're describing is that they are increasingly anachronistic and I think that applies even to their 1980s reboot.
There's definitely a limitation to GI Joe being a military organization and as such the stories which can logically by told about it.
I remember in one of the first issues I read some Central American soldiers are remarking on the raid (by the Joes) they had just survived and speculating that it must have been the Americans, because if it had been the Soviets they'd be dead, and if it was the Israelis they'd have never known they were there, or some such. Relatively adult and topical military/foreign policy humor for the day.
What was this 'broader cachet'? I grew up in the '60s, and even had some G.I. Joe stuff (we made our own parachutes for ours and hurled them off of high buildings and such, lit them on fire, etc.). I remember we also had a plastic Jeep they could ride in (not one that was canonical Joe equipment, but it worked). I don't recall any context outside of being male, American, and at least in the 60's white, soldier dudes. They did introduce Joes of Color and whatnot at some point. Honestly, back in those days I think they were more marketed as kind of cool detailed toys that had lots of equipment and whatnot, and kind of appealed more to a fascination with guns and 'army stuff' vs really testosterone-soaked action. Still, I'd call them a pretty niche appeal toy and I personally don't know what the broader cachet would be. Hasbro probably could have tried to introduce 'Joes' in other roles like firefighter, doctor/EMT, police, etc. (it would be hard to imagine less 'action oriented ones' TBH). I don't recall that ever happening. Of course I am no expert on 80's Joe stuff, I was rather aged out of that kind of stuff by then... lol.
Yeah, as I just mentioned in another post, the EARLY Joe at least was very much an 'army tech' kind of a thing, where you got tons of guns and helmets and vehicles, and other 'army stuff' to play with, and I don't think the focus was that much on the action part of it, beyond "these are army dudes, they do army stuff." Later with the cartoons and whatnot they obviously had to make it more about the action, to a degree. I think maybe (though I really have not more than glanced through it) the comic was more following on that, vs the cartoon took things in a more fantastical almost super hero direction. I mean, the early G.I. Joe didn't even have stuff like 'Cobra', it was just about realistic army soldiers. I remember the ones I had were equipped with very detailed hand guns, rifles, holsters, uniforms, packs, boots, helmets, radios, etc. that were basically very authentic looking. There were tents, a vehicle of some sort, foot lockers, etc. It was almost more 'army life' vs combat and action.There's definitely a limitation to GI Joe being a military organization and as such the stories which can logically by told about it.
That being said, it was interesting even back in the '80s contrasting the cartoon with the Marvel comic, which Larry Hama (a Vietnam vet) wrote between '82 and '94, and which used actual weapons (rather than laser guns) and military terminology, full of remarkably realistic details which were a little incongruous alongside licensed toy images.
While the comic certainly still wasn't what you'd call realistic or mature, it was definitely much moreso. And they had the Special Missions spin off series, which was specifically written to be more mature and morally-ambiguous. The Joes being tasked with more conventional counterterrorism missions, often against real world forces or more realistic terrorists rather than Cobra.
Given some of the other surprisingly high-quality reboots we've seen in recent years, I wouldn't be surprised if one was managed with GI Joe. Although definitely the geopolitical landscape has changed a lot since the end of the Cold War, and more Americans are skeptical of the military in general than once we were.
The 80s GI Joe revamp was done by Larry Hama at Marvel comics - Marvel was pitching themselves as what we'd call an IP development company or something along those lines these days. Hasbro came to Marvel and said they wanted to revamp GI Joe and make it into an action figure line to compete with Star Wars, Hama dusted off an old pitch he had for a Nick Fury SHIELD series, reworked his SHIELD pitch into the new GI JOE organization and Hydra into Cobra and off they went. This allowed Hasbro to create a slew of unique characters with different "gimmicks" and uniforms for their action figure line, as well as a ton of fantastic vehicles, bases, and other toys within that setting.
I mean, if Hasbro has learned anything over the past 20 years, it's that you can bring in adults with quality programming aimed at kids.
Hiring, office space, technical knowledge, etc have all dramatically expanded in the past two years.
It was still at a time when military service of some sort was a widely held social expectation and GIs a more romantic ideal - they were the heroes of WWII, after all. My father and almost all of my uncles served in some capacity (from active to reserves) in the 1950s and into the early 1960s. Plus, they were right on the heels of Kennedy and his "ask not what your country can do for you..." that inspired a lot of young men to volunteer and get sent to Vietnam. That whole milieu was largely blown away by the disillusionment of Vietnam but you can see it in the experiences of the late Silent Generation cohort.
OK, yeah, I agree on that, the military was a much more significant part of society, and yes, kids looked at it in more of a romantic, or heroic, kind of light. I mean, when I was a kid WWII was only 20 years previous. Nobody in my close family happened to be the right age to serve, though I guess some of my parent's uncles were. In any case, you would surely know and be close to people who fought there, or in Korea. By 1980 things had changed A LOT, Vietnam took the shine off the whole 'military industrial complex' and the idea of fighting wars being anything but nasty and ugly. Plus the military went all-volunteer. Today, outside of areas around bases, you just don't find the military is really a part of things to the same degree. So, in that sense maybe something like G.I. Joe had a bit wider audience back then, though I think it was always a fairly niche toy. I mean, our LEGO was about 10x more popular than the Joes, that and wooden building blocks.
I think this undersells it pretty dramatically. We're all used to MtG being the golden goose and DnD being funded by it, but I think if you look at the growth, the amazon rankings for the PHB still, etc, the picture is pretty clear that DnD is doing well enough that it could keep another property afloat, if need be.
