Got to thinking about this the other night after a conversation with my older brother. Out of the GI Joe figures and cartoon characters, who was your favorite?
I imagine there will be a lot of votes for Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. I always like Lifeline myself.
I guess I’m old. To me, GI Joe doesn’t really have names. They were all 12 inches tall, and all that set one apart from the other was skin/hair color and which branch of the service he was in.
Snake Eyes, Sgt. Slaughter, Shadow Storm, that winged guy from the GI Joe movie, the generic badassed cobra trooper in blue with the black bandanna over his mouth but you could see his eyes.
Recondo, replaced by Beach Head, replaced by Tunnel Rat (even if a tunnel rat carrying a M60 variant with a nightvision scope was a pretty stupid idea). Maybe honorable mentions for Falcon (the one with the backpack radio and the pump shotgun, not Flint) and Outback.
Favorite villain: Destro (first version). How could you not love the kinky steel mask with the open neck jacket and ruby on a chain? Destro was the swingin’ bondage mercenary Austin Powers wishes he could have been. Yeah baby! Honorable mention: Zartan. Look, my skin turns aquamarine in direct sulight! Fear me!
I liked Zartan, Tomax and Xamot, and of course Storm Shadow. For the good guys, I liked Jinx (the baton girl). The good guys weren’t nearly as fun as the bad guys.
Love Cobra Commander. Who else can go from used car salesman to wannabe world ruler and still be a real threat?
For some reason I always liked Shipwreck. Probably because he didn’t seem the type to take orders well, but he’d do it for the team.
And Roadblock (the comic version, not that Nipsy Russell wannabe from the cartoon) earned my respect in an issue of GI Joe Special Missions when the Joes were sent in to an American embassy that was under siege, and Roadblock kindly asked a revolutionist who was about to light an American flag on fire to refrain from doing so, by pointing his .50 calibre machine gun at him.
<-- another old guy here. I liked the big GI Joes of early 70s- especially the one that came with the Search for the Missing Idol and the White Tiger Hunt.
That “lifelike hair” and the Kung Fu grip were pretty cool, too.
That was the coolest! I remember reading that and just thinking “Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, blood brothers? Ho-ly. That’s so powerful!” Of course, I was 12 or 13, so it was.
Cover Girl. I found the idea of a fashion-model-turned-soldier rather appealing. I also like the fact that, on the cartoon, she was often the one who took charge in the absence of any ranking officers.
Of course, so did Scarlett and Lady Jaye. I wonder if this was deliberate.