GIJoe

[anarky]

Damn, and a major fuck-up in the next volume, too. Minor, but it's one of my all-time favorite scenes, and it really alters it. The issues are re-colored, and the blue tint from the panel where Stalker says to Cool Breeze something along the lines of, "No, kid, you're not crying," is gone. I always thought it really, really hammered the emotion home that it was hinted that uber-badass Stalker is crying over the snotty kid who's been bugging the shit out of him.

Another coloring mistake: on that cover, Roadblock was miscolored as white. That wasn't corrected for the paperback.

Re-reading the death of Sneak Peek, well, man, I can roll with the "secret mission to Darklonia" bit, but, shit, that is stretching it. Were the Frag Viper and Alley Viper who used a kid as a human shield (and maybe the kid) in on his super-secret squirrel plans? No doubt in my mind, this was just a serious brainfart on Hama's part. It makes me glad that Furman has said he re-read the entire Marvel TF run before starting Regeneration One.

Speaking of which, Recoil and Ambush are both downed in the same issue. They're not shown walking away. However, Ambush pops up a few issues later. And, reviewing the "walking back into base" scene, it's easy to identify Dusty (carrying Sneak Peek), Stalker, Dodger, Roadblock, Tunnel Rat, and one other dude I can't remember. Then there are three others. I'm guessing Recoil and Ambush are two of them (they must not've gotten hit too badly), but no idea who the extra guy is. He looks like he's got an antenna on his backpack, so my guess is Dial-Tone, and he just sorta kept quiet during the battle.

Immediately after Benzheen, it's a major step downhill. I remembered "Destro: Search and Destroy" being a lot better; even the awesome Golden covers (fuck you, Zaphod) and Whigham art don't help. Of course, we start getting some really stupid costume changes at this point, too.

Holy shit, that Trimpe fill-in issue (119) is bad. The art is excellent, no doubt. But that story, holy fucking shit. The story, fuck. Trimpe, stick with your day job. Every other ridiculous pile of bullshit in that issue ("Hey, maybe Cobra Commander will think I'm the robot duplicate and I can just so happen to go the right way to his throne room!"), it was impossible to overlook that the Cobra Consulate building was standing again. No explanation. It's in ruins, Cobra flies to the Middle East, and, BAM! it's back. Gotta wonder if the script had been written a year earlier.

The writing gets better after that. Not "best of the series" good, and it's painfully clear that a lot of loser characters are getting shoehorned in (with some amusing knocks on how stupid they are, especially the Eco-Warriors), but the interaction between Destro and Baroness is excellent. In re-reading with the basic knowledge of what happens next, it's clear the Night Creepers know early on that Firefly has been chilling in the Silent Castle (you think it's the obvious Slice & Dice, but why would CC care about them?). So Firefly becomes more problematic. Let's discount the whole "rotted corpses one issue, identifiable bodies in uniform the next" thing--that can be chalked up to different artists simultaneously working on portraying the carnage independently of one another. And, though we see Firefly's "body," we know no one has seen his face and it's really Serpentor. He re-activates the damaged BATs to dig a separate tunnel (perhaps undiscovered, or perhaps the one the Vipers found later) while the rest labor independently. Somehow Billy and Zartan get out as well without being poisoned. But no one notices Firefly missing, or maybe notices the noise the BATs have to be making. Likely, he's actually out before Billy and Zartan, but, still, you've got a relatively short time to accomplish everything. Let's say a year, tops, based on what's happened, references to Scarlett's coma and Storm Shadow's knife wound (as well as Ambush being up and around again), and the condition of the Cobra bodies in Statema's portrayal. First he escapes from Cobra Island (IIRC, setting up some sort of contingency plan first--haven't gotten there yet to be sure). Then he assumes control of the Red Ninjas. Then he sets up shop in the Silent Castle. Which wouldn't be too farfetched, except the Night Creepers know he's there, which implies he's really sloppy or has been there longer.

Of course, now that I typed that out, it's likely he'd been in control of the Red Ninjas prior to his interment, and possibly based in the Silent Castle for much longer as well, since Destro says it was abandoned for about 90 issues.

[anarky]

Also, one minor quibble about Wildman's art (and not the tendency of characters to "scream" everything, which actually looks pretty cool): he clearly has (or had) an incorrect knowledge of the human skeletal structure. He consistently drew skeletons with two bones in the upper arm. (I say "drew" since I haven't seen him draw skeletons in the past two decades, so he may have realized he was wrong.) Forgivable when it's Hi-Q, since he's a Nebulan, and you can argue that Nebulans aren't exactly human and look different on the inside. Not so forgivable when it's a Red Ninja, who should be human without any strange modifications.

[anarky]

Read Volume 13 (#124-134) last night. Getting close to the (original) end.

These issues should be better than they are. The basic storyline in these issues is Firefly windwipes the ninjas, learns the location of the Pit, sells it to Cobra Commander, and takes over Cobra Island. Cobra Commander launches a raid on the Pit, but only to demonstrate the usefulness of his stealth technology, and decides to give up Cobra Island. A small team of Joes launches a counterstrike on Cobra Island, not realizing the shift in power, and the story ends with Slice, Dice, and the Red Ninjas apparently killing Firefly (not the case, obviously). Meanwhile, Flint is assigned to the Eco-Warriors and has a minor run-in with Cesspool, and a team of DEF Joes follows up on an anonymous tip about Broca Beach and get the first hints of Cobra involvement there.

Through the whole story, Cobra Commander is an evil, Machiavellian asshole. Firefly is fucking cold-blooded, but dropping stupid lines for laughs. Duke and Stalker have some memorable conversation about Colton's past (since Duke doesn't know who he is). Everyone's perfectly in character.

Hama plays the Eco-Warriors and Cesspool almost entirely for laughs. With the DEF team, he flips the entire "drugs are bad" angle on its head. It's pretty obvious in retrospect that the clever structures of "Tryptich" and "Dyptich" were likely entirely due to Hasbro saying these teams would appear in at least two issues each. The DEF team, obviously, winds up being far less useless than a bunch of morons in neon outfits shooting garbage at each other, and shows up again.

And, yet, they just don't click. The ninja storyline would be quite good, except, damn, another fucking brainwave scanner story? (And we know it's not the last one before the end, either.) The Eco-Warriors story is pretty close to unsalvageable; Hama does the best with the shit concept he's given. The DEF story gets major kudos for the awesome ending, where we think Fred Jr is going to get revenge but he just sells the Cobra rifle for more drugs. (How the hell did they get away with that in a licensed toy comic, when the figures being sold were a bunch of preachy anti-drug messages in action figure form?)

I have to wonder if part of the problem is editorial. Bobbie Chase was the editor up through #123 (the last issue in the previous volume), and had been on the book for a damned long time. (I know her "Assistant Editor's Month" contribution was the classic Joe #19.) There are two editors here, neither of whom I recognized the names of. Maybe Ms. Chase deserves more credit than she's been given for how awesome the book was during her tenure? Maybe as a sounding board for Hama, or someone who whittled down his stories to their awesomest form, or maybe just someone who was strong enough to keep Hasbro off their backs (the influence gets pretty obvious here--rather than the "work it in where it fits" angle the book always had, it's pretty clearly "the Eco-Warriors will get the spotlight, fighting Cesspool")?

The art varies. Wildman does all but one issue. When it's good, it's damned good. When it's not, though, it looks rushed and lazy, and the figure anatomy gets really wonky. Lots of screaming, of course. The composition is always strong, and the detail, particularly in seemingly minor background elements, is wonderful. He obviously didn't read either of the previous issues that showed the bodies in the freighter; there's a pile of what must be a hundred or more skeletons.

One of the strongest issues, art-wise, is the one not by Wildman. I had never noticed that, since he looks like something of a Wildman clone (probably due to Baskerville's inks). Some dude named Rurik Tyler; I looked him up and he's not done much else, and nothing of note.

The new costumes don't help the look of the series. They were getting fucking ridiculous by this point. Barbecue shows up with his new outfit, and it's so un-Barbecue, you think he's some new flamethrower guy until Airtight says his name. Duke has some new bizarre camo outfit, Gung-Ho apparently didn't think his original duds made him enough of a walking gay stereotype, even Road Pig gets a stupider version of his costume. The less said about poor Flint, the better. Only Firefly's is a bit of an improvement, though the figure actually looked like a pile of horseshit (major credit due, I assume, to Wildman, for using only the garish color scheme and essentially redesigning this abortion).

The fact that Duke can even be mentioned is a big deal. He was strictly background before, but now is in charge almost all the time with his weird red-and-orange camo.

BTW, there was an explanation for Firefly, time-wise. He escaped in a matter of days once pulling the ruse, whereas Zartan and Billy took "the better part of a year." Still makes you wonder how he knew to plant Serpentor's body in his old uniform if everyone else was still alive at that point; you'd think someone would've picked up on that.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Rurik Tyler did a bunch of What The--?! issues I believe. He had more of a cartoony style in his other work. I always enjoyed him.

[anarky]

Saddest thing about reading all this stuff: I really want to make customs of a lot of folks now. I've decided my ROC Pit Commando head is not going to go to a 'Nam-era Snake Eyes, but is destined to be Muskrat. I'd forgotten how much "screen time" he had long after the toy was forgotten (which, truth be told, was probably five minutes after it was put out), and it's tough to not like him.

If I can find a ROC Reactive Armor Heavy Duty, I'm thinking that body has "Cesspool" written all over it. Might sound weird, I know, but it sounds like a fun project to try and make him look decent.

If the Spacetrooper figure hadn't been so damned hard to find, that head would work for a Toxo-Viper (v1).

Too bad I can think of nothing that would work for Darklon. I'd really forgotten he showed up after the initial Python Patrol issue, and was rather a fucking badass in his corny getup.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Long after I had stopped collecting Joe toys, my little sister(who was maybe five at the time) bought me a Cesspool figure for my birthday. It's my very last Joe figure from that era and it's still MOC. I cherish it because it's from her.

[anarky]

I was thinking a slightly more muted color scheme (sticking with the yellow and green, but duller), perhaps with stains painted on.

Just tore through Volume 14 (135-145). Wow. Serious decline in the quality of art after Wildman left, and even he was looking bored toward the end. 141 might have the worst art I've seen in a published Marvel comic, no shit. It's godawful. Makes Rob Liefeld look like Will Eisner. I seriously think I could do better, and I'll make no bones about it--I suck at pictures. 135 isn't too bad (Chris Batista & Stephen Baskerville--man, I forgot how much Baskerville loved the "too many lines" phase of the 90s), and 145 is Phil Gosier, who has a cartoony style that works quite well on this title, but everything else is bad. Okay, I take that back--despite what he says, Tom Mandrake's flashback story is actually good for the most part, art-wise (story-wise, it blows).

The Transformers crossover itself is bad still. I actually enjoyed it more this time, having low expectations. The Joes and Cobras still work pretty well, but Hama's lack of familiarity (or shits given) about the Transformers is painful. That said, he does Megatron pretty well, if no one else, though his insane level of power ("Hey, Brawn, I'm'a kill you by pointing at you, motherfucker!!") still bugged me. Spike's random sneaking aboard the Ark bit is stupid; couldn't he just say, "Yo, Hot Spot, you might not recognize me, but I'm Fort Motherfucking Max"? I loved Mindbender in this arc.

In retrospect, it looks like they wrapped up the Millville (consistently spelled "Milleville" here for some reason) subplot because the book was on the way out and they didn't want too many threads. Or because that plan wouldn't fit too well into "Cobra Reborn."

I forgot how the Biggles-Jones bit wrapped up in TFG2. I know she somehow reappeared in the Devil's Due run, still a Cobra. Not going to try to figure that out. That'd be like trying to figure out why the Joes didn't notice Bludgeon destroying New York in TFG2.

Like I said, the Scarlett flashback was horribly written. Well, not "horribly." Just "un-memorably." If it was originally not intended to be a flashback (as CBLR, uh, revealed), then Scarlett was this weenie eye-candy who was unsure of herself after being selected for the team? Yeah, not buying it.

Sorta funny that they exonerated Spirit here. One issue, he's under suspicion for his actions in Millville. Then we see him guarding the Pit, then fighting in Millville and being vindicated because it was a Cobra hideout. That bit in the middle doesn't seem consistent with the other two stories. "Spirit might be going nuts. He and Mutt just led a bunch of kids in guerilla warfare. Put him back on guard duty. Yeah, he still gets to be the only dude up there."

Snake Eyes flashback, classic, even if the art wasn't memorable. I was bugged by the presence of Vipers, Tele-Vipers, and what looked like maybe a Frag- or Alley-Viper. This would be WAY early for both teams; so many later specialists showing up is a brainfart. Also, guess Hawk wasn't debriefed on Snakes' Borovia mission, since he didn't know Strawhacker recognized SE immediately there. (I'm going to guess that he deduced along the way that Snake Eyes rescued him here, too.) I suppose maybe he didn't realize it was his dead fiancee's brother, but that's the furthest I can go with that, and I don't swallow that, either.

The "Scarlett traitor" story that leads into the TF crossover.... Man. I'm so conflicted on this one. It's like someone forced a shit sandwich down your throat, but at least they had the decency to cover it with your favorite flavor of ice cream. Art is mostly good (way too many extraneous lines, which I suspect was more Baskerville than Wildman, though it's unquestionably not Wildman's best work), but the costumes get worse and worse. Scarlett's green armor makes no fucking sense. (Neither does Zartan's orange mohawk look. At least Hama poked fun at that one.) Ninja Force is all over the place, and, well, they blow goats. The whole "Scarlett's going to pretend no one likes her because she's a girl and Cobra Commander will be totally fooled and think she'll join Cobra" is one of the most insanely stupid stories ever, making the 2-part episode of the cartoon where Dusty becomes a traitor look plausible, because at least they came up with a better reason. The actual mechanics of the story work, though. It really seems like this wasn't Hama's idea but he did what he could with it.

145.... Damn. You've got good art again, the story starts really picking up (even with the "Star Brigade" subplot), and a lot of really blatant nods to older stuff. Not in a bad way--it's just obvious they're trying to recapture what had sort of been lost. Sad thing is, I know before re-reading Volume 15 (not out for another month or two) that, aside from the two bad fill-ins toward the end, it's going to be as bloody awesome as I remember it being years ago.

Odd that, given all the unexplained costume changes, they actually had a good story reason for Mindbender upgrading to his new costume (he was cloned, after all, and his old suit probably no longer existed), they put him back in the classic threads.

[Ran]

Between Swagbucks, Mypoints, and some other opinion/survey website, I had a bunch of gift cards for amazon. Just ordered Classics volumes 1, 2, and 3 and it only cost me $6.50

[Ran]

Reading the early books. Some of the Cold War stuff is kind of funny.

[anarky]

Yeah, the Afghanistan issues make me cringe a bit now, and it's not just the big error with Flash and Grand Slam being mixed up early in the story.

There's the first two issues, then a bit of a lull, and the series kinda goes into overdrive starting with #10 and doesn't stop for about ten years. Curious what you think especially of #'s 1, 2, 10, 19, 21, and 26.

[anarky]

'Kay, since Ran's new, I'm putting this in spoiler tags for Rollo and JJ.

One thing really bugged me about the classic series. It actually bugs me more in retrospect, since I know how it ends. It's the "death as realism" thing. It's always handled well, but, looking at the pacing, it gets ricockulous.

No one dies in the beginning. No one major, at least.

In issue 19, Flagg, Venom, and Kwinn die. All are important. But all are "non toy" characters.

Storm Shadow is the first character with a toy to die. However, given how quickly he recovered, I'm pretty sure that was a red herring. (I'm not even going to mention things like Scarlett getting shot in the head much later and it looking like she's dead for 30 days.)

Candy and the Soft Master are killed by Scrap-Iron. Billy survives. Cobra Commander I is killed as a result of his survival; I'm counting it, because Hasbro didn't care who was under the mask and it's unlikely Hama intended the original CC to come back and save the book a few years later.

Serpentor is killed a bit later on by Zartan. Mangler is killed in the desert. A few supporting characters die.

The Blind Master and most of the Oktober Guard die within the year prior to CC's return.

So far, as of issue #100, three toy deaths. One is permanent, because Hama fucking hated Serpentor and it's obvious. The other two were both undone (and one couldn't have been intended to be "for reals," since he was back in an issue that had to be plotted before his "death" hit stands). All three are Cobras. Flagg and Mangler are the only known Joe casualties, since Shooter is a retcon many years later.

Then they go to Trucial Abysmia. Within this one large-scale engagement, the Joes lose fifteen: Doc, Quick-Kick, Breaker, Crazylegs, Heavy Metal, Crankcase, Thunder, Sneak Peek, Avalanche, Blaster, Blocker, Knockdown, Maverick, Dee-Jay, and Cool Breeze. Fourteen of those characters had toys. Meanwhile, the trapped Cobras are revealed to all be dead but two; not counting some generic Vipers, there's Firefly, Croc Master, Dr. Mindbender, Voltar, and Fred VII, along with two civilians, Tyrone and Captain Minh. Five Cobra toys dead.

And so we think the ante is upped, and "Destro: Search and Destroy" sounds really ominous? Will they kill Destro? Probably not, but how many people will die in the crossfire?

And then almost four years of nothing. Not exactly nothing. Magda and the White Clown are killed. Some Autobots, though I don't really count them here. Darklon is killed, and he had a toy, but it's been so long since he was seen that it seems to not even matter. In fact, in those issues, they undo two of the earlier deaths (Firefly and Mindbender).

It's like they teased us with hardcore realism, then chucked it out the window almost immediately.

Though, in thinking of that, it seems interesting that the continuation resurrected Sneak Peek, who was probably the last Joe with any possibility to have secretly survived given the circumstances of his death (and a good friend carrying his body for what was probably hours)... while they killed off Billy, who was extremely lucky in two previous bloodbaths.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I agree. If they had spaced them out from the beginning(not like immediately, but within the first 20 issues) and made each one meaningful, it would have had more impact.
But his hands may have been tied more at the beginning, and by the time Trucial Abyssmia rolled around, Hasbro was like "Eh. Wev." Also, wasnt TA Hama's way of telling the fans "Be careful what you wish for..."?

[anarky]

I agree. I just think it was misleading to open the floodgates, then shut them back. It took about ten issues to figure out the Joes were never in any real danger after that point.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

You also had the problem of having two distinct groups of Joe characters. The fanfaves and the others. The done-in-one guys they just worked into the story because of Hasbro contractual obligations. (The vehicles were the same way).
Remember that issue where a second Cobra Island rises and sinks in one issue? They intro'd like five new Joes and a bunch of new Joe and Cobra vehicles and then never saw them again. Or the 'training' issue.
Anyway, a fan fave getting scragged is gonna piss readers off enough to drop the book. But who gives a shit if Hardball or Skidmark get a round between the eyes?

For example, a short fanfic:

Cobra is setting up a secret base in Death Valley along the San Andreas fault. Since its an important mission, the Joes are out in force. They send Backblast, Countdown, Downtown, Hot Seat, Long Range, Recoil, Scoop, Windchill, Repeater, Bullhorn, Ambush, Freefall, Cold Front, Pathfinder, Rampart, Stretcher, Topside, Updraft, RapidFire, all of Sky Patrol, and SnakeEyes, led into battle by Captain GridIron and Major Force.
On the way there, there's a 9.7 earthquake. Everybody dies. The End.


What's your reaction to that story? I'll tell you. It's "OH FUCK! They killed SNAKE EYES!"
And not a flying fig of a fuck about the other 27 assholes that died in the stupidest way possible.

[anarky]

You did quite the good job of picking 27 where even I couldn't honestly say, "I dunno; I would've missed _______."

Not saying it had to be popular characters. But someone like, say, Spearhead or Lightfoot, got wiped out every four or five issues or so once their character had run its course, with more popular characters getting offed a little less often (or even guys like Grand Slam, who weren't exactly super-popular but had been around longer), it would keep the element of danger present. Taking out the obvious "let's wipe out this entire stupid sub-line of futuristic guys, minus the one Hasbro decided to make a new figure of," Benzheen was perfectly done. You had an initial Joe. You had a pacifist. You had a couple of guys who were about middle on the popularity and longevity scale. You had a guy who was so new the other folks were just meeting him in the field. And you had three vehicle drivers that, despite their being released with cool vehicles when you were probably (like me) at the height of your childhood Joe fixation, you couldn't say shit about aside from what vehicles they came with. Same with the Cobras--you had two guys who were longterm characters who were insanely popular (so popular they had to be retconned later because Hasbro made new figures of them), a few of the more ridiculous later recruits, and one guy that, well, Fred had it coming the minute it was revealed CC1 wasn't dead and anyone who didn't see that coming was a fool. (Though, admittedly, it might've been cool if the entire group had escaped and formed a Cobra splinter group, sorta like what Devil's Due tried to do with the Coil.)

But send Budo and Jinx out with Ninja Force. Sure, you know in the back of your head that Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, Scarlett, and the fucking loser neon ninjas are safe. But either Jinx or Budo could bite it. (And, frankly, we'd probably be better off if Budo did, though Jinx would be a bigger shock.)

Actually, I just bothered to look up Budo's filecard, and he sounds like he could've been a lot cooler than anyone gave him credit for if he'd appeared more than once.