It's so sad when they turn heel though.

That was part of why I didn't continue with the series, though time and access was more of an issue.  I've come to appreciate Herb Trimpe and Don Perlin, and, later, Mike Vosburg, as storytellers; but, I grew up with the DC war book artists:  Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, Gerry Taloc, Sam Glanzman....it was a whole 'nother level.  Even though it was closer tot eh SHIELD stories I loved, it wasn't Steranko, or even Ron Wilson or Bob Brown.  Still, they had to carry a double duty of telling compelling stories to sell comics and keep a consistent look to sell toys, serving two masters (though Hama says Hasbro was pretty hands-off, in regards the comics).

It must have been in the settlement, because that's exactly the sort of thing Vince would do

First, a little mood material for this issue.....







and just for fun......



GI JOE #6



GI JOE vs CCCP IVAN

The winner to face the SAS, in the finals.......

Roll Call: Larry Hama-writer, Herb Trimpe-pencils & plot, Jack Abel-inks, Jim Novak-letters, Christie Scheele-colors, Tom DeFalco-editor, Jim Shooter-Pentagon

Mission Report: The Joe team lands at McGuire Air Force Base, in New Jersey, after returning from a mission. They return to Ft Wadsworth and the Pit. The JOEs are starting to unwind, when Hawk turns up to ruin their day with a new mission, strictly volunteer, and being a bunch of gung ho Army types, these nitwits have already volunteered. Hawk tells them about the mission......to Afghanistan!



Herb left out Kafiristan; but, they've been pretty quiet since Peachey Carnehan and Daniel Dravot left there.

Well, since Peachy left there.



Their mission is to insert into Afghanistan, via air, link up with the CIA and Mujahadeen, assemble the Rough Terrain Vehicle (RTV), load the crated Soviet recon aircraft), pass through the Hindu Kush mountains, undetected by the Soviets, and cross over to Pakistan and rendezvous in Karachi, with a false flagged ship and load the contents onto it....while staying ahead of the Red Army and Cobra.

Sounds like a milk run.

Hawk calls for volunteers and gets everyone's hands, then shows the assignment s he already made: Steeler to pilot the RTV, with Scarlett as shotgun, Clutch running flank, in the VAMP, and Grand Slam, Breaker and Stalker there to make it 6. They go back to McGuire and load their gear aboard the transport and take off, while someone puts in a call to Cobra, from the Pit communications centers....





The figure alerts Cobra about the JOE mission.

The team makes their airborne inserting into the Hindu Kush and are met by a mujahadeen group, along with the CIA contact, who mentions the Oktober Guard, an elite Soviet unit, operating in the area. He shows Stlaker the crated aircraft and they get to work assembling the RTV....





They load the crate and get haulin. They fail to see two observers in the mountains, watching them cross the treacherous terrain. They run smack into a ravine, that isn't on the map; and, while they trade jokes, come under fire. The JOEs return fire from the VAMP and RTV and a Russian-accented voice tells them top surrender. They use the RTV's lift crane to snare the VAMP and roll across the ravine, at it's narrowest point. Faster than you can say "Nikita and Uncle Ivan"...



They are under assault by the Oktober Guard, in their ATV.....



Scarlett hits one of their balloon tires with a crossbolt, preventing them from sealing back up and the Russkies are dumped out of their stolen GI JOE Adventure Team toy.....



The Commies have them pinned down, until Steeler deploys the RTV's defenses, which include taking the high ground....



The Battling Bolsheviks are:

Colonel Brekhov-Team Leader, carrying an AK-47
Horror Show-the big bruiser, with the tanker's helmet and RPG-7
Stormavik-the dude in the Airborne blue beret and striped shirt, with the Ppsh-41 "burp gun"
Daini-the female, with an AK
Shrage-the support weapons man, with the RPD light machine gun.

The sneaking Reds go on the attack, to get out from under the fire from the RTV and Scarlett kicks Stormavik's Marxist-Leninist keister, while Horror Show seems amused by the JOEs dogpiling on him. Steeler battles Shrage and Stalker and Col Brekhov go at i, while Daini watches, until Col Brekhov points out that they have company....



Uh, oh!

Analysis: Great issue, which debuts the Oktober Guard, the Soviet equivalent of the JOE team. more about them, in a moment.

Larry Hama or Jim Novak makes a goof here, as Grand Slam is listed on the mission board, as part of the team; but, it is Flash who mans the weapons onboard the RTV and not Grand Slam. Grand Slam operated the HAL, Heavy Artillery Laser, which suggests someone got the two characters mixed up, since they are both laser specialists.

The RTV seems to be a cross between the Landmaster all-terrain vehicle of Damnation Alley....



and the US Army Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT)......



The HEMTT and the Pallatized Load System (and the USMC's Logistic System Vehicle replacement) are heavy duty logistics transports, designed to moved large scale equipment loads, usually carried in a transport container, across rough terrain. During the Gulf War and Invasion of Iraq, these vehicles moved heavy loads of ammo, equipment and supplies along with armored units and mechanized troops, across the desert, to establish forward bases. They blow away the old "Deuce and a Half" trucks of WW2. It looks like this was designed especially for the comic, as there was no equivalent toy, from Hasbro.

The Oktober Guard suffers a few problems which are typical to Marvel's approach to this kind of stuff and a certain American arrogance when it comes to enemy soldiers, as presented to the American public. They are shown to be basic stereotype Russian soldiers, straight out of WW2 propaganda posters. The uniforms are almost uniformly WW2-era or at least Korean War vintage; they were not 1980s Soviet modern issue. Neither were most of the weapons. This comic is from 1982 and the then-current Soviet Army issue weapon was the AK-74, and updated model of the famed Kalshnikov AK-47. The AK-47 was introduced in 1949, based on concepts from the German STG-44, the "sturmgewehr" or assault rifle. It was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, which gave the weapon its name. In 1959, the Soviets upgraded to the AKM, which looked very much like the AK-47, except for the muzzle break (at the tip of the barrel) and certain parts of the upper receiver. The AK-74 was developed in 1974 and was issued to the Red Army, with whom it saw service, in Afghanistan....



As with the AKM, it closely resembles the AK-47, except for the muzzle break, which is larger, and the magazine is made of a polymer, not metal. There was an airborne variant, with folding stock. The AK-74 also used a lighter 5.49x39mm cartridge. It was smaller, lighter and had a higher velocity than the old 7.62x39mm round of the Ak-47 and AKM, allowing moree ammo to be carried and the weapon to be lighter.

The Ppsh-41 submachine gun, carried by Stormavik, is also WW2 and Korean War vintage. long ago replaced by the Soviet. It had the largest production of any small arm in the Soviet Union and was iconic in Red Army propaganda images and images from the war. It had a very high rate of fire, but the old style wooden stock gave it some weight to help counteract the muzzle climb, when rapidly spraying bullets. The Germans had a similar MP-34, which was replaced by the more iconic MP-40 or Schmeisser submachine gun. By this point, the Soviets were using a compact carbine version of the AK-74 (the AKS-74U), with shorter barrel and folding stock, similar to the US Army's M-4 version of the M-16 (known as the CAR-15, in the civilian world and the XM-177, in the Vietnam era).

The RPD was a Korean War era Soviet light machine gun, which was belt-fed and usually had a drum magazine, to hold the ammo belt. It was replaced by the RPK, which used a box magazine and then the RPK-74S, int he Afghanistan era.

I suspect Colonel Brekhov also carries a Tokarev pistol, which would be their WW2 sidearm, rather than the standard issue Makarov 9mm of that era.

I get the feeling that Hama and/or Trimpe were basing their weaponry off old Cold War photos from the 50s and early 60s, not footage from Afghanistan. The uniforms are wrong, too, as they should look like this.....



(those Osprey men-at-Arms series books were great visual references for military history, especially uniforms and equipment, or arms and armor, for pre-firearm armies)

Note the AK-74, camouflage utilities, the SPETSNAZ "smokey the bear" hats, the lace-up boots on some, etc.

Horror Show is depicted wearing a tank trooper's helmet, which had padded ridges to protect against head trauma, while the US and NATO armies had moved onto hardshell helmets after WW2 (and used a leather and hardhsell combination during the war, like a football helmet). He also carries what appears to be an RPG-7 rocket launcher, which were synonymous with Soviet equipped rebel armies (as was the AK-47). The Soviets were still using the basic laucher, but had more sophisticated munitions for it. They were very mobile and were of great use in ambushes of vehicles but were not as penetrating as NATO rocket launchers. NATO had generally gone the US route, with disposable launchers, like the LAW Rocket, of Vietnam, or large systems, like the TOW anti-tank missile launcher. The Afghan war became iconic for the mujahadeen use of CIA-supplied Stinger shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, which countered the threat of the Soviet Mi-24 Hind gunships. A group like the Oktober Guard would be more likely to deploy from an Mi-24 than to be using a ground vehicle, as that was standard Soviet doctrine, for mountain fighting. The Soviets deployed SPETSNAZ special forces units and vystoniki rangers from these helicopters, which could carry a squad, in addition to its guns, rockets and bombs. They made for a very effective fighting platform and would be more mobile than that ATV that Trimpe drew.

To be fair, unless you kept on Soviet military developments or had access to references like Jane's Defense, you went with media images or stuff available in public libraries, which were probably outdated references. However, there was plenty of news footage from Afghanistan, to show the modern uniforms, though the big images were of the Hind gunships and the Soviet armored troops, rolling into Kabul. The journalists were not out there with the SPETSNAZ and airborne troops, hunting mujahadeen fighters, though some did spend time with the rebels and with Pakistan Intelligence people, who trained them, in conjunction with the CIA (creating the nucleus for what became Al-Qaida). The Soviet recon aircraft us pure sci-fi, though, looking more like something from Star Trek. Or would that be Cosmo-Trek? Picture a Soviet- cast of space heroes, with a token American ensign and a Spock who liberally quotes Marx and Lenin.

The climax of the story, as the JOEs and the IVANs find themselves with a common enemy, Cobra, matches an old military adventure plot, especially as seen in the tv series, The Rat Patrol, where enemy soldiers find themselves united against a common foe (n the tv series, it was bedouin brigands), where Hauptman Deitrich (Hans Gudegast, aka Eric Braeden) must work with Sgt Troy (Christopher George), in "The Chain of Death Raid."


(The tv "grandad" of SAS: Rogue Heroes, even though TRP replaced the SAS with Americans)

This would have made a great episode for the cartoon, but then they'd have toe explain geopolitics to kids and dumb it down even more than the Reagan Administration did in press conferences and on the campaign trail (with the US media happily obliging them). Hard to believe that 20 years before, tv was depicting a Russian and an American working together, to stop the fascist forces of THRUSH, on The Man From UNCLE and that was on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis!

Next up, the JOEs and the IVANs must work together to escape and defeat Cobra. Then, the Oktober Guard runs into Rambo, while the JOEs face Dolph Lundgren. The winner meets Chuck Norris, in the finals.

Stormavik is not too far off the Soviet Naval Infantry uniform, although the beret should be black, not blue, and the beret badge is more detailed than shown here and the beret should have the anchor patch on the side.

ps I also meant to remark about the JOE airborne insertion. Herb draws it like a standard static line jump, with the aircraft flying over the drop zone and the JOEs hitting the silk, landing and regrouping. Given that it was hostile territory, under the command of the Soviet Union, during a time of tensions with NATO, it is unlikely that they would penetrate Soviet-controlled airspace like that. The JOE aircraft looks like a modified C-141, which isn't going to sneak under Soviet radar. More than likely, they would have done a HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) jump, from outside the Afghan border and freefall towards their drop zone, before deploying chutes. The problem of that is airdropping the RTV components. Realistically, that would have had to have been transported, via ground route, across the mountains. Not a likely scenario. You might have gotten away with a heavy lift helicopter dropping in the cargo load; but, that wouldn't easily be able to hug the terrain. So, we are left to rationalize it as the Soviets had a gap in their radar, the drop coincided with a diversionary attack by rebels, which temporarily knocked out Soviet radar coverage, or the JOE aircraft had stealth technology. Take your pick.

Or Ivan was in the latrine at the time of the drop.