I’m sure there’s a list somewhere online, but I haven’t found it yet.
For those of you who aren’t in the know, the original writers of the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe series killed off a lot of the extraneous characters, probably because the majority of them were worthless and weak.
The only one I know for certain was Quick Kick. Anybody know of others?
Doc, Heavy Metal, Thunder, Crankcase, Breaker, Crazylegs, Cool Breeze, Sneak-Peak, Quick Kick and nearly of Battle-Force 2000 (Avalanche, Blocker, Maverick, Blaster, Knockdown, and Dee-Jay but not Dodger) were all killed in the gulf war-type conflict.
Also General Flagg (can’t remember issue number) and also in Special Missions 13 one of the new recuits was crushed by a tank, but I can’t remember his name and there was never a figure made of him.
Update: General Flagg died in #19 and the new recruit was code-named Mangler, who sacrificed himself to let the other members of his team escape. Techincally, he was posthumously made a member of the GI Joe team.
Whew.
Slight hi-jack, how high in numbers did the original cmic series go?
I pretty much have a complete collection from 2-100, and I stopped there. I collected “Special Missions” as well.
I noticed there was a new type GI Joe comic in stores a while back, I’m not certain but I don’t even think it was published by Marvel.
Just curious, I may try to complete my collection, I don’t think they are too collectable, so it shouldn’t cost too much to do.
MtM
The new GI Joe series is published by Image/Devils Due comics. Unofficially, it continues the stories from Marvel and Larry Hama (discounting that Transformers crap in the first series. That’s when I stopped reading Marvel’s GI Joe.) The new series picks up 10 years after the last issue where GI Joe was apparently disbanded, and still refers to the Cobra Civil War, Professor Appel, the SAW Viper that slaughtered the Joes. I recommend it.
Oh, and a bunch more Joes just died in the latest issue of the Image series, but I can’t recall which ones. And I just read it last week. I suck.
Some of the latest casualties are:[ul]
[li]Mainframe–Computer Specialist[/li][li]Flash–Laser Rifle Trooper[/li][li]Outback–Wilderness Survival Expert[/li][li]Billy–Cobra Commander’s Son, & hating Every Minute of it.[/li][li]Firewall–Computer Expert[/li][li]Possible Fatality–Ace, fighter Pilot. Crashed under very intimidating circumstances.[/li][/ul]
Nitpick: Writer. Singular.
The only G.I. Joe writer worth a damn was Larry Hama, long may he scribe. He showed that just because a comic was based on a toy property doesn’t mean you had to write down to the audience.
Either #150, or darn close to it.
Oh, and one of the casualties not named so far as Serpentor. Got killed from an arrow in the eye, shot by Zartan at the end of the Cobra Civil War.
I think the original series went to #155. I also think since the relative success of the new series, and the smaller print runs toward the end of the original, the later issues are quite collectable. I tried to complete my collection last year, and couldn’t touch #155 on EBay for less than probably $30.
Maybe I should catch up on the current one. I think I’ve read through #11.
Yeah, the Marvel series ran until #155, and Special Missions until #28. They are currently collecting the entire run in trade paperbacks with ten issues in each, so that might be the nicest way to track down all the issues you’re missing. I’m about 10 issues shy of having the complete 155-issue run in the original singles, myself.
He got better.
Besides which, he wasn’t actually a Joe. But if you do want to count Cobra, ever the bad ass, Cobra Commander buried Dr Mindbender, Billy, Raptor, Serpentor, and a few other Cobra muckity mucks ALIVE (except for Serpentor of course) in an ocean tanker and blew up a volcano on top of it. Most of the poor souls died from eating rancid food they found.
Mindbender was cloned in the new series. He in turn re-cloned Serpentor using little individual kid clones he had made from the stolen dna of all those cool rulers of the past.
Unfortunately Marvel seems to have stopped reprinting the comic TPBs with number 5, so they only have the first 50 in reprints. Pissed me off cause I had most of those. I wanted a complete run too.
What kills me is how they paired the fantastic writing of Larry Hama with the godawful art of Ron Wagner and Herb Trimpe. Gah! Todd McFarlane did do an issue though before he was a big name. That was pretty cool.
Was that stupid movie with the evil snake cult and their super-science spore pods in space actually in the series? Were any of the cartoons?
Nope. Larry Hama (who also wrote all the dossier card on the action figures) took a stand and refused to make Cobra-La a part of the comic series, despite Hasbro’s insistance.
The comics and cartoons followed two different continuities, but usually you’d see the same characters. The books were geared toward a slightly older audience though.
Other Cobras buried under a volcano include Zartan, Voltar, Firefly, Capt. Tyrone and Fred (aka fake Cobra Commander).
Guh? They killed Mainframe? He was the first action figure I ever bought! Those bastards!