Well, the answer is Hasbro. Hasbro keeps a pretty tight reign over the G.I.Joe comics franchise, and they have a tendency to change companies. And under the terms of their contracts, publication rights transfer back to Hasbro when they pull the comic liscence. So the reason Marvel's old trade paperbacks of the Marvel comics are out of print is because Marvel simply doesn't own the rights to those comics any more.
But here's the good news. Hasbro is trying to get those books back into print with the new publisher, IDW.
The first G.I.Joe trade paperback, collecting issues 1-10, will be coming out in January.
In April, they're going to be releasing a special hardcover of G.I. Joe: The Best Of Larry Hama
. This will include issue 21, the famous "Silent" issue, which featured Snake Eyes trying to rescue Scarlett from Storm Shadow, and was told entirely without dialogue, and issue 85, a follow-up called "SFX," which was told with only the sound effects (like "Whoosh" and "Zip").Other issues included are 26, the part one of the first Snake Eyes origin story, issue 63, where Snake Eyes and Scarlett rescue Stalker, Snow Job and Quick Kick from a gulag-style prison, and issue 86, the anniversary issue where the Joes meet "Just Another Guy Named Joe."
In the meantime, they're putting out more of the G.I.Joe Comic 2 Packs--the ones where you get a couple of figures bundled with a classic comic book.
