Old G.I. Joe Debates...

[Felix]

Watching Rise of Cobra on TV, something I noticed...

Although Covergirl gets killed, notice she has blond hair...

Later, one of the crew helping Hawk is a woman with red hair (not Scarlett)...I suspect this to be red haired Covergirl.

Kind of a stretch, but maybe.

[Bravo]

Her death was the real tragedy, forget the Hard Master.

[Swindle]

So, I've got BATs on the mind, are they a Mindbender or Destro invention?

[Bravo]

Comic said Dr. Brainwave Mindbender (he was called Dr. Brainwave). Their first appearance is overshadowed by some fast growing plant spores that never seen again (another Mindbender invention).

Cartoon is vague, but Scrap-Iron seems to know a lot about them. But Dr. Mindbender claims "THE BATS WERE PERFECT!", as if he takes it personally that CC blamed the BATS. The BATS weren't perfect; they clearly weren't if a USMC drill instructor can defeat them in hand to hand. It's not like Cobra hadn't had a dozen robots before, SNAKES, crystal cave robot, giant Cobra bots, other Giant Cobra Bot, Pyramid of Darkness Security Robot, Cobra Commander funhouse bots, Destro's ship drones...
Perhaps salvaged GAMESMASTER tech helped Cobra create the BATS?

[Felix]

I just remembered being super excited because they did SOMETHING with Scrap Iron.

I know I've probably mentioned it a 100 times...
In my toy verse, Cobra was the same thing as the lizard snake visitors from the movie/tv series V. And before the Crimson Guard came out, which really looks like them.

Scrap Iron had a very similar helmet the V soldiers used.

From this perspective, the cartoon using lasers wasn't a big deal at all. They used lasers in V :-)

I liked BATS, but they were not as as good a CG for me. They could shoot robots on the cartoon but not people.

Part of my love for Crimson Guard is when my dad got sick and we moved to Arizona to live with my Grandma, all my toys went in storage.

We would make trips to the storage room, but trying to find any of MY stuff in there was always a miracle.

But I did still get Crimson Guard when I saw him. And Snow Serpent. Snow Serpent was hard to have fun with in the desert.

I also got the Crimson Twins. Aside from Dreadnoks, these were my favorite villains. And I was always very fond of Cobra Officer.

Anyway, I've drifted off topic, just daydreaming about the past.

[Bravo]

I bought two BATS when found them at retail. My brother thought that was odd as he understood army building (he had a few troopers and straight arm officers) but thought getting one of everything was more of a priority (1986 was his last year of toy buying). I'd gotten more into GI JOE in 1985 after a birthday with a lot of GI JOE gifts. (I'd been into GI JOE in 82-83, then moved into other stuff.) Anyway I wanted to have a real enemy force, because prior to 1986, I had like 1 straight arm officer with a broken thumb, an EEL, a swivel arm trooper, a CG, the Lamprey, Zartan, Buzzer, Ripper, Torch, the twins, straight arm CC, Destro and Bludd was all. (More than I thought, but most were ones I got in 1985...including Destro who was still available) And a SNAKE, I can't remember if I used it as a robot but probably. Vehicles all I had was the Moray, the Ferret and...the Chameleon. I think.

Reminds me of when I used Low-Light as a Cobra for awhile.

[Felix]

I really wanted an extra Crimson Guard. Even had I tried to get one, my Grandma wouldn't allow it..."but you already have one."

So, I get the needing two B.A.T.S.

Low-Light as a Cobra is a good idea.

I got into G.I.JOE from the first toy commercial. Before the cartoon even aired.

Rock N' Roll was my favorite because he was blonde and had the ammo bandoleers. Scarlett, a close second.

My first figures in 1982
Flash
Cobra Soldier
By the end of the year, I had most of the original run, including the MOBAT. Just no Hawk. I had Short Fuse, and I couldn't bring myself to spend money on Hawk.

A kid I went to school with had one of the first Cobra Commanders.
The Christmas of 1983, my Grandma asked me what I wanted, and I told her Gung Ho.
"Which one is he?"
I responded, "The one with the tattoo on his chest!" :-)

She sent a huge box of the entire 1983 series.
So many broken thumbs that day. I was quite a bit annoyed with G.I.JOE...because MOTU, did NOT have this problem.

1984, My parents got me a Skystriker, and so did my Aunt. I felt like the luckiest kid alive. But compared to the little micro-collection X-wing I had, they were hard to play with due to their size...so, not so fun. But I really was into the jets for quite a while. Blowtorch wins that year for best figure ever. Spirit, Snowjob were cool, but I also discovered how cool the Navy Seals were by this point and Torpedo got used quite a bit...I went swimming a lot, and so did he.
The real winner though this year for me was Zartan. I loved that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. And his human mask reminded me again of V and his color changing skin, like the Lizards. And he actually came with a laser gun, while most of the toys were of realistic weapons.

1985, Barbecue and Quick-Kick were my favorites. Probably Quick Kick more because he was used in the cartoon quite a bit. The CG for Cobra.
And I did like how Airtight and Barbecue seemed to be paired together for most missions.

1986, the year of the Dreadnok for me. I had most of the figures...but everyone in my house would laugh when the Dreadnoks would talk :-)

1987, Renegades.

1988, This is almost like a whole new G.I.JOE...too much cool stuff.
I didn't go for the sub-team thing because I liked the Renegades. Instead my focus was on Sgt. Slaughter and the Warthog, along with most of the figures that year.
Despite not caring about the sub-teams, my Mom surprised me with the complete set of Night Force figures. And the WHALE.
Mom even got me the Rolling Thunder. I remembered thinking it was too much, I didn't have anywhere to put it. And my Grandma had a way of taking things I liked away from me...made it hard for me to like anything.

1989, I was in Military School. I managed to get Sgt. Slaughter Marauder, and Saw Viper.

A couple years later, I remember selling a bunch of my Joe's to a collector shop for like $40.

That was the end of Joe for me...

Until my girlfriend in high school gave me Ninja Force Zartan.

[Felix]

Looking back I did have 1989 Snake Eyes and the version after that as well, my Joe days ended shortly after. I blame the comic. When Scarlett got shot point blank in the head, only to come back two issues later and beat up Storm Shadow. I said this is BULL****!

Then Quentine Tarantino makes Kill Bill and steals two big moments in the G.I.JOE comic.

Surviving a point blank gunshot wound to the head, like Scarlett.

And being buried alive like Cobra Commander.

[Swindle]

I always thought the Joe Comic peaked with the Cobra Civil War. After that, it felt like the worst tendencies of Hama took hold as the toy line was waning, so he could basically do what he wanted. The brainwave scanner was a crutch.

[Bravo]

The end of Special Missions comic, meant there was no way to keep up on new toy characters, so like most of 1990 onward characters didn't appear much. So yeah, Hama ignored any story lines in the toys and Snake-Eyes run off to some fake eastern european country and after brainwashing an American town in a story with no real ending (until like 1993), Cobra doesn't do much until the desert war arc.

Some Hama-ites can't stand any criticism of him. There's this weird pop culture/nerd culture thing to give all the credit to a single creator, like George Lucas and Stan Lee. Other people cannot seem to reconcile liking GI JOE with disliking Hama's recent work and/or politics.

[Felix]

I typically preferred Special Missions series, and when that got cancelled, I could see where it was going.

Forced to continue on with just the main series.

I remember having doubts about quitting, and seeing the Firefly cover. I went to check it out, but when I saw they made a a human scorpion by standing on each others shoulders the way gymnasts do...I was like, "This is just too stupid."

Kind of a good thing. Forced me to explore other stuff like Daredevil.

[Swindle]

Skybound comics put BATS firmly as a Destro product. and the toyline has IG BATs now.

Poor Mindbender.

[Bravo]

In Marvel they were Mindy's and he was annoyed to learn that there were components made by a subsidy of components that allowed Destro to override their programming.

[Felix]

Everyone is supposed to die in G.I.JOE the movie.

Of course Duke dies, that is obvious.

When Roadblock disappears under the ice, that's supposed to be it for him.

Quick Kick sustained fatal injuries.

Snake Eyes dies from a simple slap in the face.

When they are hauling away the prisoners, they only show them taking COBRA Motor Vipers and Destro.

Joe's that get captured in the vines are killed, except for Sgt. Slaughter, Hawk, Beachhead and the Renegades.

Beachhead and the Rawhides all die helping Falcon, Jinx and Slaughter get to the B.E.T.

Falcon and Jinx are only supposed to make it because they find Serpentors wrecked air chariot.

Slaughter orders them to go.

Everyone else dies in the explosion.

That's why they look so sad when they are staring at the stars/spores falling from the sky.

They are remembering all of the Joe's.

[Bravo]

I think I wondered before, what if most of the Joes died in the explosion, leaving only the recovering Gung-Ho, Alpine and Bazooka (and I guess Doc?) alive back in the USA. (Of course, it make sense for the trio to have died earlier, but really, would Falcon have gotten a second chance after that. No way.) Because Gung-Ho has the dress blue figure. He is recovering and helping training new Joes.

Plus side is most of Cobra (including Cobra-La) is dead, too.

Season 3 has the latest head of the McCullen clan take the name Destro, hence the IG Destro. (Unaware that the previous Destro was apparently willing to let his clan get mutated into beasts.)

Not sure about Armored Cobra Commander, maybe he's a new CC working with Destro or against him. Maybe he's the original partly restored.

Somehow Storm Shadow survives and defects...maybe he was never at Cobra-La. Other Cobra's had hideaways, in part due to not trusting their new weird allies.
Sgt. Slaughter also survived, hence the Warthog figure.
All the repaint teams never get made in this timeline, so we'll ignore them. Stalker, Snake-Eyes, Deep Six and Rock'n Roll managed to survive with injures and recover by 1989.