Awright, we've regrouped and we are going to assault the beach again.....

GI JOE #1



You could lose a body part, firing a rocket launcher from the hip. Herb Trimpe is about 2 models behind, on his M-16. The A2 model was being issued, at that point. It had tubular barrel guards, rather than the triangular ones of the Vietnam era. It also only fired semi-auto or 3 round burst, rather than full auto, as they found it mostly wasted ammo, except in the hands of experts.

Pretty sweet, dynamic cover, I must say. That will make you pick it up and look at it...even buy it.

Roll Call: Larry Hama-writer/platoon leader, Herb Trimpe & Don Perlin-pencils/squad leaders, Jack Abel, Bob McLeod and Al Milgrom-inks/grunts, Jim Novak & Rick Parker-letters/support weapons, Glynis Wein-colors.company clerk, Tom DeFalco-First Seargent, Jim Shooter-"The Old Man"

Mission Report: We first see the JOE laser cannon, the Heavy Artillery Laser, or HAL.....



Costs the manufacturer $25,000 to build, costs the government $1.8 million and it takes 6 months to get repair parts. The project manager gave a kickback to the DOD Weapons Procurement Officer and a job, after his 20 years. Troops prefer a good old fashioned field gun.

We next see the JOEs plant the flag on Mt Suribachi.....



Politicians get photo ops to feed to the folks back home. Military gets an extra Hershey bar.

Monday, 0830 hours (8:30 am, for you goldbricking civilians), on a train, somewhere between Washington DC and New York City. The engineers remark about the load of Secret Service types in black suits and fedoras (in 1982?) and soldiers in Olive Drab (in 1982?), guarding one Dr Adele Burkhart, a leading nuclear physicist, who was head of the Doomsday Project. She claims she didn't know it was a doomsday project (not much of a scientist, then) and is going to testify before Congress. Some of the military types are a bit hostile. The doctor holds a press conference, on a moving train. She is interrupted by loud noises, as Cobra attacks the train....



A pair of reporters whip out weapons, disguised as cameras, ala James Bond. The woman, The Baroness, grabs Dr Burkhart and puts her barrel to her head and tells the defenders to lay down their arms. Dr Burkhart pleads for them to cooperate, as she doesn't want bloodshed, on her account. The Baroness straps a backpack onto Dr Burkhart and inflates a helium balloon, which carries them into the sky, where they are intercepted by a Cobra helicopter (a helicopter operated by Cobra, not an AH-1 Cobra gunship), which looks like a Soviet Mil Mi-2, as seen in For Your Eyes Only, in the climax. Washington is alerted and General Flagg questions why they don't just botch a rescue attempt and let Cobra assassinate Burkhart and solve their problems. General Austin (Hell, son; Stone Cold got a promotion...) says she is too valuable to Cobra and they would pump her for info, first. They scramble Counter-Terrorist Group Delta, codename GI JOE. We see the names of the JOE Team members: Hawk, Zap, Scarlett, Grand Slam, Flash, Clutch (Cargo), Short-Fuse, Steeler, Stalker, Breaker, Rock N Roll (Express), Bette Davis Eyes....er, Snake Eyes and Shooter (he's the tall one with the acne scars).

We cut to the outskirts of Ft Wadsworth, as Col. Clayton Abernathy (of the Newport Abernathys, of course), codename Hawk, is being driven to the base by Clutch, in the VAMP (Vehicle Assualt/Multi-Purpose), which looks like the love child of a HUMVEE and a dune buggy. Hawk tells him to slow down, but Clutch says he is following General Austin's orders. "Iron-Butt Austin? Step on it!" They roar through the gate and into the morot pool and slam on the brakes, over the hydraulic lift (must need an emergency lube and oil change). However, the "lift" starts descending into a shaft, leading down into the bowels of the base, to The Pitt....



The JOE team is busy training, like in a Bond film....



Hawk calls for them to assemble in the briefing room, in 5. They stumble in and he lays out their mission. Intel says Dr Burkhart has been taken to a Caribbean island, where Cobra is believed to have a base, inside an old Spanish fort.....



The base has a radar installation, an airfield and an estimated strength of a battalion, approx 1200 men. They have barb wire entanglements, tank traps, machine gun bunkers and an electrified fence, which means an assault would be costly. Grunt, Stalker and Short-Fuse are detailed to hit the airfield, eliminate all but one aircraft. Flash and Breaker are tasked with sabotaging the radar. Scarlett and Snake Eyes are assigned to take out the generators for the fort and fence. Hawk will lead the main assault force in a beach landing. He shows pictures of Cobra Commander and the Baroness and warns that they are sneaky and dangerous. he then shows a photo of Dr Burkhart. Short-Fuse questions why they are risking their lives to rescue a "traitor?" Hawk reminds them of their oath....



At 1920 hours (7:20 pm.....just subtract 12....), we see Cobra Commander strap Dr Burkhart into a Barcolounger 3000 and begin his interrogation. Dr Burkhart says the military will just bomb the island into the Stone Age to get rid of her. Cobra Commander doesn't buy that. A Cobra tech alerts the Commander that radar has spotted a submarine, off shore. he details a heavy weapons platoon to set up a defense, near the fishing village and execute the "contingency plan."

The Cobra troops spot the JOEs in a rubber raft, headed ashore, but then see what looks like a rocket being launched. It turns out to be Stalker, in a JUMP (Jet Unit Mobile Propulsion), a rocket pack and he drops grenades on them and strafes with a laser rifle.

Who needs firearms when you have laser rifles?

The break up into their assigned teams and head for their individual objectives. The survivng Cobra grunts report in and the Baroness calls them cowards and criticizes the Commander's choice of men. He replies that he is surprised anyone survived. it is all part of his master plan and says the beach was just a feint to lure the JOEs in to the fort and we see the assembled strength of Cobra.

Breaker and Flash cut through the steel piping, which houses the power lines for the radar installation, knocking it out. Scarlett and Snake Eyes sneak through the defense perimeter and scale the walls of the fort. they see Dr Burkhart through a window and Snake Eyes signals that he could end their mission with one shot, but Scarlett says orders are orders. they continue to their objective, the generator room. Stalker's team moves in on the airfield, while Hawk and the lading force hold offshore, in a hydrofoil Landing Craft Tank (HLCT). Um, that won't work..the foil would interfere with beaching the landing craft. Should have made it a hovercraft, like the Marine LCACs (Landing Craft Air Cushion). Stalker's team lays down a mortar barage on the airfield, destroying the MiGs parked there. As they move out, a Cobra grunt pops out and reports to the Commander that the JOEs have destroyed the dummy planes.

Scarlett and Snake Eyes eliminate (kill) sentries and make it to the generator room, where they lob in grenades. The other teams link up and await the beach assault, which comes in and unloads the MOBAT tank (which looks like an M-1 Abrams). It then turns all Megaforce.....





Clutch brings up the HAL, with the VAMP. meanwhile, Cobra Commander orders the Baroness to take "Dr Burkhart" (quotes are his) to the airfield, in what looks like a WW2 Mercedes-Benz staff car. The advance team finds the fishing village wiped out and get a mad-on for Cobra. they set up an ambush of the staff car and Dr Burkhart is revealed to be The Baroness, who they take prisoner. Hawk's team gets into a tank battle and the HAL evens the odds, while Rock N Roll deals with the infantry with his motorcycle Gatling gun and M-16. Cobra Commander calls up his escape helicopter and prepares to board it with Dr Burkhart, telling her the fort is rigged with explosives, to destroy the JOEs, when they enter it. Outside, Cobra troops pop out of a spider hole and fire a rocket into the rear of the tank, taking it out. Zap returns the favor with a rocket of his own.

Scarlett and Snake Eyes don't wait for the assault force and head for the room where they saw DR Burkhart, but find Cobra Commander waiting for them, with a gun at her ehad. he forces them to disarm and steel doors crash down, sealing the room. Dr Burkhart yells that it is a trap and gets between Cobra Commander and the JOEs and gets shot.



Scarlett hurls a shuriken, which imbeds itself in Cobra Commander's forearm and he drops his weapon. The JOEs order HAL to "Open the pod bay doors!" and blast through. dr Burkhart is only winged and she warns them of the explosives and hawk orders Cobra Commander brought up to defuse them and turns around to find them gone, a blood trail leading to a secret exit. The JOEs pile into the helo and take off, before the explosives go off. Cobra Commander and the Baroness escape via a WW2-era Storch observation aircraft (a German one). Dr Burkhart thanks them for rescuing her and apologizes for doubting the military.

We then get a file on The Pitt....



...and a back-up story, "Hot Potato."

Hawk, Stalker and Clutch are in disguise, in a cafe, somewhere in the Middle East. They are waiting for Scarlett, Snake Eyes and Rock N Roll to rendezvous, with taped evidence that Colonel Sharif, leader of the Emirate and the Guardians of Paradise, is colluding with Cobra. The recon team is in trouble, though....



Scarlett has been wounded and the Guardians are in close pursuit. She orders Rock N Roll to take the tape and get it to Hawk. he argues and says he can carry her, if he leaves behind his machine gun and ammo. She tells him he will leave the weapon, but take the tape out and holds her weapon on him and Snake Eyes does the same. He curses and starts jogging the ten miles to the rendezvous point. Scarlett then turns her weapon on Snake Eyes and tells him to follow. Se then takes up her position, with the GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) and waits until the Guardians are in range and opens fire on them. Rock N Roll hates this, but pushes himself hard, followed by Snake Eyes, he pulls up and looks back and Snake Eyes is gone. he curses again and doubles times it to the RP. Snake Eyes goes back to help Scarlett. She smiles and they lay down suppressing fire.

At the cafe, a rock flies through the window, with the tape. They hear a motorcycle start up and rush outside to see Rock N Roll take off, back towards Sacrlet. Clutch goes to follow; but Hawk orders him to get the tape out. Scarlett and Snake Eyes are out of ammo and Scarlett has two rounds saved in her back-up pistol, when the cavalry arrives...



They pile onto the motorcycle and haul @$$, wen Col Sharif orders an airstrike and a Mig-15 starts a strafing run. It bears down on them and.....



...is blown out of the sky by the armament on the VAMP. Hawk and Clutch are in it and we see Stalker on a commercial airliner, headed for Washington, with the tape. the "hot potato" is safe and they move out to the border.

Analysis: bang up first issue, which establishes the characters and the premise, with a typical special operations rescue mission, then a further adventure to bring recon intel out of a hostile country. We meet the individual team members and see their specialties, though we don't know much about them, beyond their code names. However, we see that they are highly trained and skilled operators and they get the job done, even while Cobra lays a trap for them. It sets this up to be an exciting, action-packed series and certainly sells some toys, as the characters and weapons are all based on the first wave of the upcoming toy release. The comic is a great selling tool and the commercials broadcast help direct attention to it and sales were huge. That then pointed to the toy launch and then the cartoon mini-series, which is a 24 minute commercial for the toys and their adventures, just as the comic is the same, in 32 pages. However, the comic isn't subject to Broadcast Standards & Practices and the Comics Code is a little looser on bloodshed, so people die and get hurt.

Larry Hama does a nice job of creating exciting plots and introducing the characters, with an authentic feel for their tactics, weapons and personalities, based on his own experiences in the US Army, in Vietnam. However, he never goes full military jargon, just enough for some color, so than the intended audience can follow along. However, he does indulge in a bit of education for the reader, no doubt influenced by his time in Vietnam and the reception back home. Hawk reminds us of the oath that all sevice members take, "...to protect and defend the Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic." We don't take an oath to defend the President or Congress or even the flag, we take an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land, which sets forth our system of government and the laws that both empower and limit it. A soldiers job is to serve the greater ideals of the country, not the politicians who lead it, though they take their orders from the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States, via the chain of command. However, as I was taught as a midshipmen, a servicemember is duty bound to refuse to obey an unlawful order, such as a call to disrupt the certification of an election or to massacre unarmed civilians. The excuse of following orders does not hold when the orders violate the rules of engagement, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Uniform Regulations and the Constitution of the United States and the laws governing the country under it. Service members like the Navy dog handlers, who refused orders to use their dogs to attack and intimidate prisoners, at Abu Graib and the pilots who placed their helicopters between marauding soldiers and the village of My Lai acted in the highest traditions of that oath. As Hark points out, it is Dr Burhart's right to show dissent for government policy and to address her grievances to Congress, via testimony before a committee. She has beed kidnapped by terrorists and their job is to rescue civilians in harms way and defend them and the country from terrorists, like Cobra Command.

We don't really learn much about Cobra, other than they are well armed and organized and are involved in geopolitics, around the globe. Cobra Commander and The Baroness are the only figures named. the rest are all faceless cannon fodder, though they were highly advanced in protocols for infectious diseases, thanks to their facemasks. Cobra is a pretty fascist-looking organization and a Cobra technician gives a Nazi salute, when reporting to Cobra Commander. The weapons they use, though are fairly advanced, if nondescript. Herb Trimpe uses designs based on foreign aircraft and pretty generic tanks and rifles, differentiating them from the JOEs and their equipment, which bears some influence from the actual military, and prototypes of advanced weapons and vehicles, or sci-fi extrapolations of ideas being researched, like laser and particle weapons.

Hot Potato has a nice tension and ticking clock to it, which propels the story along at a rapid pace, even with a paper-thin plot. Get the tape out before the enemy get it. That is the plot and the rest is character-driven tension and sacrifice. We learn that the JOEs can fall into danger, but they look out for one another.

Hama engages in a bit of pro-military propaganda, but it was the era for it. Dr Burkhart believes in peaceful use of her research and thinks that any government that would build a doomsday weapon has little regard for human life and the military is a tool in their hands. Hama shows they have their own beliefs and consciences and shows that they are willing to lay down their lives to protect Dr Burkhart, even as she insults them. That is what service means. She comes to respect them and even returns the favor, sacrificing herself to warn the JOEs about the trap. She survives, a bit wiser and more open-minded. Not everyone in the military is Rambo and John Wayne, wrapped up in Clint Eastwood cynicism. They are professionals, doing a job, for very little pay and adulation. Some are valiant, some are not, some are ultra-conservative, some are more liberal. Some are incompetent, most are not Some are born leaders, some develop into one, some never do. Just like in the civilian world. they are a microcosm of society, though in recent decades, few of the wealthy appear in their ranks, compared to previous wars, especially WW2.

In essence, this is a modern gloss to a war comic, while also providing a licensed property with exposure. However, it is a dynamic series that delivers adventure and thrills, without getting excessively bloody, though with more casualties and peril than the cartoon.

The art is not particularly stylistic, but acts in service to the story and maintains a clarity to keep the characters and vehicles clear, to help sell the toy line and proved adventures to re-enact, in play. Herb Trimpe is a veteran, though he doesn't quite have a Russ Heath eye for the details. Same with Don Perlin, who was drafted into the peace-time Army, in the 1950s. Marvel has a pretty good team on this, for what they set out to do. It's not quite the classic of a Sgt Rock or Enemy Ace, but, it isn't that kind of book. Like Micronauts and Rom, it first serves a license-holder, to help sell their product; but, it does so by creating compelling characters and stories which entertain, in their own right, which does more than the care Bears comics did.

That is all for now.

BA-TTALION....DISMISSED!

The secret service types in black suits and fedoras become something of running gag for Hama. They turn up as NSA agents in the Special Missions title.

Do you think you'll make it through all 155 issues? It gets pretty rough towards the end. 

“The Old Switcheroo” (issue #7) is perhaps my favourite G.I. Joe comic story ever.

I liked the Special Missions series too. The causalities were high, and the crossover issue (#8 I think it is) with Outback was one of my favorites. I enjoyed that it was the B-list Joes that were featured (Lowlight, Dusty, etc) and made them cooler. But Issue 26 with the Oktober Guard is the best of the series. I was upset as a kid that they never made figures of the Guard. 

I liked the Oktober Guard, even though it had a similar problem as Baron Strucker's Blitzkrieg Squad, in Sgt Fury...a bit too many stereotypes.  I did wish that they had been depicted in modern Soviet combat uniforms and not the stereotypes from WW2.  Most of the weaponry drawn was obsolete before the comic came out.  I suppose it was too much to expect a bunch of comic book people to pick up a modern firearms reference and maybe Jane's Defense, to be up to speed on the modern Red Army.  Easier to copy old movies.....or Red Dawn.

WOLVERINES!

How did Marvel never get the rights to adapt that?  They could have inserted Logan into the story.......