GI JOE: RENEGADES Season 2 Story details shared along with how Toys caused its cancellation

GI Joe: Renegades was an animated show that only ran for one season of 26 episodes on The Hub from 2010 to 2011 before being cancelled. It was actually quite decent GI Joe series and it seems that if given the chance to continue, it would have taken fans for a crazy ride!

What I liked about this series was that it focused on a smaller group of GI Joe characters and the story followed them as they are forced to become fugitives, after uncovering suspicious activity at a Cobra Industries pharmaceutical facility. The media label them renegades for terrorist crimes they did not commit and they are pursued by the military and Cobra mercenaries. They must fight a secret battle to clear their names and expose the insidious enemy that is… Cobra.

The series left audiences on a cliffhanger, but now we have insight into what would have happened in the story if the series had continued! The information was shared by the writer Henry Gilroy in an interview with /Film, and explained that Cobra Commander was Osama bin Laden. He said:

“We had a second season where literally Cobra Commander was Osama bin Laden, who is basically on the run […] They were terrorists… Then the Joes were brought back as government special agents who were hunting down the Cobra terrorists, so that would have been really fun. We had… really funny stories about it, but this one, c’est la vie.”

It’s a shame we never got to see the story for this series to continue to unfold. In case you’re wondering why the series was canceled, Gilroy explained that it was because of Hasbro’s 2009 film GI Joe: Rise of Cobraand toys.

One of the issues concerning The rise of the cobra is that it had a similar storyline and a corresponding toy line. When asked Hasbro about it, it was explained, “We were like, ‘Wait a second. You guys can’t do this. Here’s what…’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ “Hasbro also has a rule that they can’t have multiple toy lines from the same ownership at the same time, and they’ve decided to focus on the movie side of things.

Then there were the other GI Joe action figure ideas they were looking at. Hasbro wanted GI Joe figures inspired by the Avengers! Gilroy explained that one executive asked:

“Can you turn all the Joes into Avengers?” The executive also asked if Snake Eyes might be more like Wolverine or if Roadblock might be more like the Hulk. I’ll be like Iron Man and Hawkeye.’ All those weird things, where the toys come first and then you write your story.”

You have to love how some of these great companies work. They make some of the dumbest decisions. At least right now, the GI Joe action figure line is on its way and he’s doing some really cool stuff!