When
I first started taking the bus to school there was this older kid
that was mean to me. I don’t remember exactly how, but he was being
a jerk. I went home and told my mom about it and she – ever the
good-natured optimist – said I should talk to him and ask him why
he was being mean and tell him I didn’t think I deserved it.
Ridiculous, right?
Only
it wasn’t. Because I did exactly that and I guess something got
through because we ended up hanging out. It turned out he collected
GI Joe just like I did. Not only that, he was a member of some sort
of fan club that got special magazines and offers. One of those
magazines had an article about using a Sharpie to color in some of
the unpainted details on GI Joe figures like sculpted pistols and
grenades.
That
kid’s name was Peyton and he ended up being my best friend for
years. His house had a huge playroom in the basement and we would set
up the Joes on one side and COBRA on the other. We’d take turns
being one or the other. GI Joe would send out patrols looking for
COBRA and COBRA would attempt to either ambush the patrols or attack
the base. We staged some epic battles and launched some memorable
missions.
And
then the first animated GI
Joe: A Real American Hero
miniseries happened and blew my little mind.
I
had had it all wrong. And it was all so
much better
than what I had been pretending. Those rifles didn’t shoot bullets,
they shot color-coordinated
lasers.
And Colonel Hawk wasn’t the leader. It was this guy with a flat-top
haircut and a tan shirt named Duke. A tan shirt! Nobody else had a
tan shirt!
Side
Note: Oh, and by the way – where the heck was a Duke action
figure!?! (We got one later)
Scarlett
didn’t have some awful mom haircut, she had a ponytail. And was a
total hot babe. Scarlett was my first redhead crush and it always
made me mad that the figure did not live up to the hotness of the
cartoon version. Lady Jaye, on the other hand, worked in both
mediums.
Other
major revelations of the GI Joe cartoon were that Snake Eyes didn’t
talk, Destro had the coolest voice ever, Flash was not a major
character at
all (I
would have sworn he was thanks to his awesome red padding, visor, and
the fact that he had a laser gun. But in the cartoon everybody
had laser guns.), and Cobra Commander sounded utterly ridiculous.
That
firs miniseries was called A
Real American Hero
or The
MASS Device
depending on when you saw it and it changed my life. Up until that
point I had done only the bare minimum of voice acting when I played
with my toys. Darth Vader, C-3P0, and R2-D2 along with various
creatures were all that really got the effort required to attempt
mimicry. But the GI Joe cartoon compelled me to really dig in and
make my figures speak like their animated counterparts. I would
absolutely love to have recordings of young me attempting to imitate
Destro, Major Bludd, Cobra Commander, Shipwreck, Quick Kick, and all
of those other distinctive and often outrageous voices. And I did
them all. I honestly don’t recall what I did about the females. I
guess I did lady voices because I know I wouldn’t have just done a
regular voice and I doubt they just didn’t talk.
It’s
hilarious how similar – and yet still great – the four GI
Joe
miniseries were. The
MASS Device,
The
Revenge of COBRA,
The
Pyramid of Darkness,
and Arise,
Serpentor, Arise!
all involved the Joes and COBRAs racing around the world trying to be
the first to get to something; whether it was a piece of the Weather
Dominator, the elements that powered the titular MASS Device, or
genetic material (ew) from a deceased conqueror or tyrant.
Side
Note: I think the best illustration of just how deluded Cobra
Commander was is that he even allowed Destro and Dr. Mindbender to
make Serpentor. If that guy had any self-awareness whatsoever he
would have known that he was a complete assclown and that any
combination of great leaders would immediately usurp him as leader of
COBRA. The great mystery of the cartoon was how that version of COBRA
Commander ever managed to get a terrorist organization together in
the first place.
GI
Joe: A Real American Hero
produced some of my favorite cartoon memories from the 80s. Like all
80s cartoons, maturity and perspective have rendered them much more
absurd than I remembered. I don’t know if it’s the quality of the
voice work and animation or just nostalgia, but I can still watch GI
Joe
regardless of how silly the Fatal Fluffies might be or how many times
Bazooka’s actions should have resulted in a squad of Joes being
decimated. There’s something about that cartoon that endears it to
me more than any other.
And
then I discovered Marvel’s GI
Joe: A Real American Hero
comic book. And it was just as revelatory as the cartoon had been
when I first saw it. There was real military action. The guns fired
bullets. People got shot. And – unlike the animated series – the
story just kept going. From issue to issue the comic followed various
characters from the Joe and COBRA teams as their conflict continued
on. It was fascinating and engrossing and the first comic I actually
attempted to collect. I say “attempted” because I would get every
new issue I could when we were in Kroger or Waldenbooks or whatever.
The idea of comic book stores was not something I was aware of back
then.
I
often credit Uncanny
X-Men as
the first comic I collected, and it was the first one that I bought
on a monthly basis thanks to Marvel’s subscription service. I kept
that one going until I did find a comic book shop (Titan Games &
Comics in Duluth, GA). But GI
Joe
was the book that introduced me to the idea of following or even
buying comic books. And I think that is precisely why licensed comic
books are not only a good thing but a vital part of the industry.
They truly can bring in the uninitiated and turn them into fans and
lifelong devotees.
So
the GI
Joe
comic was great. Why was it great? Larry Hama. You can read all of
the facts about Hama’s life on Wikipedia
or something. The important thing is that he is the man that made the
1980s GI Joe toy line what it was. He wrote all of the file cards and
comic books with little to no editorial interference from Marvel or
Hasbro. The only direction he received was which vehicles and
playsets and characters he needed to use at certain times. Other than
that Hama basically had carte blanche to create an ongoing narrative.
His run on GI
Joe is
second only to Chris Claremont’s legendary Uncanny
X-Men
on my list of favorites. I’ve read the first eighty or so issues
several times over since I was a kid. I own the single issues as well
as the trades that Marvel and IDW released.
And
folks, I hate it, but I have run out of time. It looks like we’re
going to get a repeat of Predator Week here and I’m going to have
to do one more GI Joe post next week to talk about GI
Joe: The Movie,
the post-Marvel comics, and of course, Rise
of COBRA.
-Phantom
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