G.I. Joe Classified Series

Fletch said:
I remember reading somewhere that Hama was disappointed by the introduction of Duke. He'd always thought Stalker was in charge, and didn't like him being replaced by a white dude.

It's a vague memory, though, so I may not be 100% on that.
Click to expand...
I was just gonna bring that up. IIRC if Larry had had full creative control, Stalker would've been in the Duke role but I think (because 80s) the studio wanted a blonde white guy as the face of the franchise. One of the reasons Stalker's one of my favorites - he got robbed (and his connection to Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow is so much more developed in the comics).
altcunningham said:
Anyway, this group is cool and I've seen good discussions so I cherish all of you.
Click to expand...
If you told me my favorite place to hang out online when I hit my late 40s would be a forum about GI Joe action figures I would never have believed it, but here I am.
 
Great conversation. My love of GI Joe stems from watching the cartoons and collecting the figures in the 80's. I also read just a handful of the Marvel comics around the same time, and that's pretty much where my knowledge ends. So, I have a question regarding lore. What is the best source? I'm assuming the original GI Joe ARAH comics run by Hama? I want to dig in so I appreciate more of the characters I'm unfamiliar with and also learn more about the ones I already love.
 
I don't have any particular Duke hate (unless it's the aforementioned Dook) but he really does feel like an audience cipher where as so many of the other characters are so vibrantly weird or interesting. I think that's why I latched onto Flint when he popped up later - he's still a handsome white guy aesthetic, but his file card sang to me and he always felt like he was kinda... not above the story but looking at the whole thing from a different angle. Also, probably my first encounter of "also my girlfriend can kick your ass" relationship. Lady Jaye's always been a favorite. (There's a reason I kept buying copies of her til I finally got one without ROM problems, man that figure was jinxed for me).

akajomiha said:
Great conversation. My love of GI Joe stems from watching the cartoons and collecting the figures in the 80's. I also read just a handful of the Marvel comics around the same time, and that's pretty much where my knowledge ends. So, I have a question regarding lore. What is the best source? I'm assuming the original GI Joe ARAH comics run by Hama? I want to dig in so I appreciate more of the characters I'm unfamiliar with and also learn more about the ones I already love.
Click to expand...

I'm betting others will have better / more extensive answers, but I was reading (and still have!) much of Hama's Marvel comics run as a kid and consider that my best/reliable source. That's canon to me, with the cartoon being, in my mind, a fun, softened for kids version of the comics, close enough but still an alternate interpretation. (And man, some folks have done yeoman's work summarizing the comics on various wikis if you can't get the comics themselves.)

I'm biased, though. I table at tons of comic cons and the only time I ever got star struck in artist alley was running into Larry Hama at NYCC. I visibly panicked.
 
akajomiha said:
What is the best source?
Click to expand...
HA! Welcome to the ongoing war of “CARTOON IS BETTER!!” “NO COMICS ARE BETTER!!”
The Cobra Island Civil War had less antipathy.
🙃
For me, the file cards are where to start, then the comics (by which I mean the original Marvel run, although later comics are also good), and then finally the cartoon (which had fun characterizations of guys like Shipwreck who didn’t get much love in the comics, and also has the ongoing gonzo performance of Chris Latta as Cobra Commander, who just got crazier and more fun as the show went on). The comics are “serious”, although highly satirical and sometimes absurd (Hama is a wry, funny guy with a taste for topical parody), and the cartoons are crazy 80s fun, sometimes just ridiculous and sometimes legitimately witty. A few episodes (Memories of Mara, The Synthoid Conspiracy, and There’s No Place Like Springfield) are kind of a mini-movie that’s like The Manchurian Candidate meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, “Worlds Without End” is a dark-as-hell trip to an alternate dimension where we see the corpses of dead Joes and Steeler trips balls, and of course The MASS Device is peak Snake-Eyes and I can’t to this day watch the “hand on the glass and fade into the smoke” moment without going Niagara Falls.
The comic though: damn. Storm Shadow’s arc. Zartan’s arc. The Snake-Eyes/Dr Venom/Quinn feud. SAW Viper. Serpentor’s eye. The resurrection of Megatron. The landlocked freighter. Fred VII. Cool Breeze.
There’s just too much. It’s so damn good.
 
ALSO:

“Silent Interlude” is legitimately and deservedly famous as one of the greatest single comic issues of all time.

No dialogue. MASSIVE plot bombs. Poetic action. And a famous tattoo.
 
Y'know, I always default to cards/comics but @AceofKnaves you make a hell of a case for the cartoon too with some of those top-shelf stories. I FORGOT about Worlds Without End, and the mini-series really is so much better than a cartoon that was intended to be a commercial for a toy line had any right to be.

Landlocked freighter arc might be the first time I literally threw a comic across a room though. That was DARK.

And yeah, I've actually used Silent Interlude as an example in some of the writing classes I teach for what you can do with a medium.
 
Honestly, the file cards are the best. Just tiny little sparks for the imagination.

Not to derail what has been a really fun conversation about characters and story, but I got to wondering what the Haslab might use as stretch goals and, assuming it is the Snow Cat given the hints... Does this look like everyone who was arctic-based from the Joes? Any guesses / fears who they might include?
  • Snow Job (maybe an alternate costume?)
    Frost Bite (no doubt included)
  • Iceberg
  • Blizzard
  • Avalanche (BF2000)
  • Stalker (Tundra) (This one stresses me out... I could see them hiding his alternate costume and kayak in a Haslab)
  • Windchill (doubtful as another driver?)
  • Subzero
  • Coldfront
  • Snowstorm
  • Bushido maybe?
 
I’m gonna guess that major single-card ARAH guys like Iceberg and such won’t be locked behind a HasLab: the team has said they won’t do that.
Now Frostbite is a given for sure. Beyond that, if the Dragonfly is any indication, we’ll get alt-versions of characters and maybe an international/niche figure. Dragonfly was Night Force, but Snow Cat seems even more obvious: Arctic themed alt-costumes. Interestingly, the comic and cartoon give us some options that are fan-favorites:
-Arctic Snake-Eyes from the comics. He was a mainline release in the 25th line. Easily done with existing parts.
-Arctic Quinn. Assuming a “safari shorts” version will be more widely available.
-various Sunbow-style Arctic Joes. Most of them dressed in winter gear in various episodes, I think Duke, Lady Jaye, Gung-Ho and Shipwreck would all be good choices, and more as well.
Now here is where it gets interesting:
Arctic Cobras.
Now they may want to save these for an Arctic Cobra HasLab, but I’m not really sure what they would be. The Wolf? Anyway, Cobra has *iconic* Sunbow Arctic looks:
-Cobra Commander
-Destro
-Dr Mindbender
All three of those have very popular cold weather looks from the cartoon, in the case of Mindbender some folks prefer the big fur-lined coat to the bare chest. Depending on how they do the parts, Mindbender could mostly be a “pre-paint” of a mainline “lab coat”/Devil’s Due comics version of the good doctor.
 
Lots of cold weather alt options without putting new characters in the Haslab. Just please no patches. Or go cheaper and keep it at Frostbite.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top