GI Joe General

[JediTricks]

2 of the 5 writers on GI Joe Rise of Cobra are now claiming that Retaliation is all stolen from their ideas and are suing for it: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/07/ ... len-sequel
I wonder if this will impact the next sequel's production. Retaliation was written by just 2 writers according to its credits, neither of which came off the first movie.

Was it the Marvel comics that had a creepy Venture Bros "A Nice Place to Live" artificial robo-town for Cobra's base? Or was that for something else, like maybe a bomb testing site? I think it was called Springfield.

Anyway, yeah, I mainly asked because I noticed Cobra had that 80s cartoon thing of not being *explicitly* foreign- take a look at the early Autobots and Decepticons, and compare which side had more racial diversity; goodies win every time- so wondered if they'd ever just come out and said, "Yeah, Cobra's American. They all live together in this big house in Maine with a gun for a chimney and a labyrinth under it" or something.

Yes, it was the comics that made Cobra's home base Springfield, although it wasn't an artificial robo-town, it was meant to be a small anonymous town that was suffering economic downturn and Cobra Commander came in and charmed the people and saved the town. The robo-town was the cartoon's spin on it, and that was an island.

Cobra was studded with foreign-types in their upper echelons, The Baroness is clearly "foreign", Destro's Scottish heritage is played up, Storm Shadow is ethnically and trained Japanese, Xamot and Tomax are I guess Coriscan, Major Bludd is Australian... but in a way, that's almost a good metaphor for an American evil force, they are "America the great melting pot" and their goals are to make money and take over, that's a twisted view of the way America is seen, so it makes sense that Cobra would be a home-grown evil group. Cobra Commander is definitely American, he comes from sleazy humble beginnings as a used car salesman to create a global terrorist organization, and he doesn't care where his guys come from, he just wants results.

[Gomess]

Is all that true of the cartoon, though? That was my main point of reference.

I suppose it would be hard for them to make Stormshadow not Japanese...

He's Japanese, right? "Ethnically and trained" makes me wonder. 'Cos if he's your everyday 'Murrican in appearance and voice in the cartoon, then it's all good. Fits my little profile.

The Baroness is presumably Evil German, which I can't believe I forgot about- even Gobots' Renegades had one.

[Onslaught Six]

I think Storm Shadow may have been born in America--he was in the same army unit in Vietnam with Stalker and Snake Eyes, which seems to indicate that he was, at least at one point, an American citizen. But his ninja clan is Japanese, so.

2 of the 5 writers on GI Joe Rise of Cobra are now claiming that Retaliation is all stolen from their ideas and are suing for it: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/07/ ... len-sequel
I wonder if this will impact the next sequel's production. Retaliation was written by just 2 writers according to its credits, neither of which came off the first movie.

The funny part is that their main claims are the Zartan-as-President plotline (which, uh, that's called a "sequel hook") and the idea that Zartan was the real killer of the Hard Master...which was in the comic books two decades earlier. It'd be like Frank Miller trying to sue because Batman Begins used parts of Year One as inspiration, as if Year One was the first Batman story ever.

[Gomess]

My immediate reaction upon reading the first couple years' Joe tech specs (or whatever they're called; file cards?) is that a lot of its characters are surprisingly interesting to me.

I'm amazed I never heard of Cover Girl or Gung-Ho before. And there's a *Welsh* Dreadnok? Sign me up, bach

[Onslaught Six]

That's one of the main strengths of GI Joe, really, and I think that's something Prowl misses--to Prowl, they're "generic army guys," but to a lot of the GI Joe fandom, they're characters. They're people. I have seen people who have made posts along the lines of "I bonded with Ripcord because he's from Indiana, and so am I!" (I do not know if Ripcord is actually from Indiana.) It makes sense, because GI Joes, unlike TF or superheroes or whatnot, are generally ordinary people. It's conceivable that, with enough dedication and hard work, one could conceivably do what they do, and become part of some elite GI Joe-like military unit.

Hama, much like Budiansky, really did put forth the effort to make sure every character had some kind of personality and background. And, in my opinion, it paid off--GI Joe's 12" "nameless" Joe figure model faded away, and for the last 30 years, GI Joe has primarily been focused on characters.

EDIT: That said, I think guys like Prowl and me fall into a weird generational gap in the GI Joe spectrum, at least compared to, say, TF. While TF has been more or less going strong since its inception, with G2 and BW, GI Joe had a really rough period in the 90s, and as such, most of our generation holds no real nostalgia for it. My first exposure to the toyline was a 12" Grunt from the HOF line that my father bought me, and he didn't engage me very much. My next exposure didn't happen until the 2002 relaunch.

[Dominic]

The only figure that came with a non-realistic weapon was the mail-away, Cobra Commander, who came with a "laser pistol" and a sci-fi visual design.

I never really saw pre-87 Cobra Commander as having a sci-fi design beyong the pistol. The mask was just a mask. Before the movie, I to not recall it having any specific purpose beyond "hide the guy's face". (Am I misrememebering this?)

Where are Cobra based? Wherever they want around the world, like Venom, or a relatively locatable place like the Decepticons?

It depends. In the cartoon, Cobra was typically based in generic desert or jungle areas of the world. In the comics, it was implied that Cobra was international and drew recruits from around the globe, presumably deploying them back in their native regions.

The UK comics were explicit about this, showing personell with dark complexions in North Africa for example.

And, as O6 points out, Cobra was later rebranded as an island nation.

In real terms, Hama played Cobra up as a sort of "hell's mirror America", and Springfield tied in with that. Cobra Commander was the American Success Story from hell.

Cobra Commander is definitely American, he comes from sleazy humble beginnings as a used car salesman to create a global terrorist organization, and he doesn't care where his guys come from, he just wants results.

Actually, he was not sleazy. The comics made a point of saying that he started off as an honest man. He got sleazy real fast though, with Cobra starting off as an Amway style pyramid scheme.

...Storm Shadow is ethnically and trained Japanese, Xamot and Tomax are I guess Coriscan...

Baroness has shades of Hearst and Ayers (both American), despite her funny accent. I think she was supposed to be more Slavic, ya know the sort who celebrates Easter a few weeks late every year. She is never described (as far as I recall) as anything more specific than "European" though.

Storm Shadow was American by birth, but (as you point out) heavily Japanese in terms of cultural influence. And, they twins were indeed Corsican.

Aside from Thrasher, all of the pre-87 Dreadnoks are from Australia or the Uk. (Zartan and his siblings have confused origins. But, could fairly be called "citizens of the world".)

I'm amazed I never heard of Cover Girl or Gung-Ho before. And there's a *Welsh* Dreadnok? Sign me up, bach

Cover Girl never showed up in the UK? That is odd. I could have sworn she was in some of the comics....

Who was the Welsh Dreadnok? I thought that Buzzer was properly English.

My immediate reaction upon reading the first couple years' Joe tech specs (or whatever they're called; file cards?) is that a lot of its characters are surprisingly interesting to me.

How was Quick Kick branded in the UK? (He was branded as bi-racial Korean/Japanese background in the US. It is implied that he learned martial arts because he had no friends owing to his mixed heritage.)


Dom
-notes that there are few Joe fans under 30...

[Gomess]

For all I know, Cover Girl was released here, but I didn't care about GI Joe as a kid because it was Army Stuff. Though I did appreciate that one story, Hush Job, for the concept alone. Don't recall Quick Kick either, I'm afraid!

The Welsh Dreadnok is Monkey Wrench, and he's from Rhyl, which is a particular hole of a British seaside 'holiday' town. Pretty perfect profiling.

...All that said, there are some real headshakers among the early Joe bios, particularly names like "Skip A. Stone" and "Seymour Fine," not to mention the rather blunt prose used to express how "gross" the Dreadnoks are. Like the word "gross," for example.

But I like the Dreadnoks, because they do the Mad Max thing and are a third faction in an otherwise black-and-white Good Army Vs. Bad Army context.

[Dominic]

Though I did appreciate that one story, Hush Job, for the concept alone.

"Hush Job"? Which one was that?

The Welsh Dreadnok is Monkey Wrench, and he's from Rhyl, which is a particular hole of a British seaside 'holiday' town. Pretty perfect profiling.

Ah. I thought he was another Aussie. My mistake.

Monkey Wrench also has the distinction of being one of two Dreadnoks to die, and the only one to die in a mass release story (DDP's "World War III"). Gnawgahyde is strongly implied to have been murdered by a fellow Dreadnok (sold as a convention exclusive. But, there was no accompanying comic that year. And, the Joe convention content is largely ignored.

But I like the Dreadnoks, because they do the Mad Max thing and are a third faction in an otherwise black-and-white Good Army Vs. Bad Army context.

The Dreadnoks were mercenaries and malcontents. They ended up turning on Cobra in "World War III" when Monkeywrench was one of several injured characters that Cobra Commander had purged during a prison break. (Monkeywrench was among those captured by the Joes and deemed no worth retrieving.)

The Red Ninjas were another faction. Their whole gimmick was that they were corrupted by a need for vengeance, and ended up working for the people who caused them so much grief to begin with.

And, Destro's army (the Iron Grenadiers) were another faction that was likely to oppose Cobra as needed.



Dom
-recommends "World War III".

[Gomess]

Bit disappointed by the idea of Destro having an army at all, to be honest. Isn't his schtick that he's an arms dealer? O well, I guess it's almost certain he'd have private security, but 'army'... makes him a bit too much like all the rest.

Hadn't even heard of the Red Ninjas, but I'm wary of 90s toylines' usage of "ninja" stuff, particularly when I can remember reading about "the Empire of No-Kan-Doo" on the back of a Joe figure way back when. Though funnily enough, the only Joe figure I ever owned was- I am reliably informed- Budo, but he was presumably meant to be more of a samurai than a ninja. Picked him up loose at a car boot sale 'cos I liked his colour scheme.

Hush Job was a story without any non-diegetic text, not even thought bubbles or narrative inserts. Really stuck with me. As did someone being called "Hard Master" and a little kid with an eyepatch kicking asses.

Will I ever get around to taking in Joe stories when it's taken me this long to read IDW's TF comics? Will I get it wrong and watch the 80s animated movie instead of reading WWIII?? Stay tuned

[BWprowl]

That's one of the main strengths of GI Joe, really, and I think that's something Prowl misses--to Prowl, they're "generic army guys," but to a lot of the GI Joe fandom, they're characters. They're people. I have seen people who have made posts along the lines of "I bonded with Ripcord because he's from Indiana, and so am I!" (I do not know if Ripcord is actually from Indiana.) It makes sense, because GI Joes, unlike TF or superheroes or whatnot, are generally ordinary people. It's conceivable that, with enough dedication and hard work, one could conceivably do what they do, and become part of some elite GI Joe-like military unit.

Which is a big reason I've never latched onto any of the Joe characters, I presume, seeing as I have no desire and am generally opposed to becoming part of any military unit. I dunno, most of the Joe profiles I read when I was buying the 25A toys came across as "This dude joined the army and was really good at shooting people with this particular kind of gun (or some other specialty like swimming or mine-clearing or snowshoeing or something), so he rose through the ranks and became APPROPRIATE CODENAME of the GI Joe team!" None of them really stuck out, which is why the ones I liked to get were the really outlandish ones (Spirit, the Native American sniper with a rilfe that shoots ARROWS and a pet eagle named FREEDOM!), or the ones with specialties so crippling I can't imagine they had much to do (who is Torpedo going to fight? I never saw any aquatic Cobra forces on the shelves!).

I mean, I can see people connecting with the characters the way you talk about (like I said, I wanted to get Law for a friend of mine for a bit there because he's an MP), I just can't see myself doing it with GI Joe on any level, since I don't think there are any Joes who're intermittently-dejected action figure collectors from Fresno.

EDIT: That said, I think guys like Prowl and me fall into a weird generational gap in the GI Joe spectrum, at least compared to, say, TF. While TF has been more or less going strong since its inception, with G2 and BW, GI Joe had a really rough period in the 90s, and as such, most of our generation holds no real nostalgia for it. My first exposure to the toyline was a 12" Grunt from the HOF line that my father bought me, and he didn't engage me very much. My next exposure didn't happen until the 2002 relaunch.

This. I had a few Joes that got handed down to me from older cousins, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you any of their names, and I didn't play with them that much (I had Transformers and Ninja Turtles and Spider-Man toys, and those were way cooler to me than, well, generic army guys). I started collecting with the 25A line because TF was in that famous lull that got a lot of people buying them, the toys seemed neat for what they were, and they were balls-cheap at the time (I can't believe they used to be just five bucks a few years ago!), and even then I pointedly avoided the fiction, so I didn't really connect or latch onto any of the characters (save Cobra Commander and Zartan, mostly because I thought they looked neat).

so wondered if they'd ever just come out and said, "Yeah, Cobra's American. They all live together in this big house in Maine with a gun for a chimney and a labyrinth under it" or something.

And this is why VENOM is the best evil organization ever. I wonder if they participate in neighborhood barbecues or decorate their house up with the rest of their lane for Christmas?