G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero Pt. 3

Ready for more of Marvel's 1982-1994 G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero? I hope so, as that's what today's post is about. When we left off last time, things weren't looking good for Snake-Eyes. He was in the midst of beating up Cobra's Doctor Venom in front of a small bunker on a rive island in the small, fictional South American country of Sierra Gordo when the Baroness dropped a bomb on the island. Was the mercenary Kwinn able to rush the pair into the door of the bunker in time? Who cares, says Stalker, floating nearby with Breaker and Gung-Ho in the panel above; the whole island seems to have been vaporized! And that's where we pick up today. 

Remember, I'm currently reading the series via Image Comics' gigantic 1,200+ page, three-inch-thick G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero Compendium One, though I'm pulling the covers from the Grand Comics Database, which is why they all still say "Marvel Comics Group" across the top and Spidey's head appears in a little box in the lower left corner so often. Oh, and as always, all each of the issues below are written by the great Larry Hama, unless otherwise noted. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #13 (1983)
Art by Mike Vosburg and Jon D'Agostino 

•When The Baroness and the Cobra courier with the scar on his face fly over the wreckage of the river boat, Stalker and company dive under the water so that she won't be able to see them. That seems like quite enough excitement for a while, and now the Joes can--

Oh shit! 

•Stalker continues to fight the crocodile with his knife while announcing its phylum, sub-phylum, class, order and family. When it pulls him underwater, we and the other Joes can't see what happens for a few panels, but eventually Stalker surfaces and the croc does not.

•While Stalker recovers from his fight with the crocodile and Breaker watches over him, Gung-Ho heads into town and, is it me, or does Vosburg have him meeting with the Sierra Gordo equivalents of Laurel and Hardy...? 

•Back at Cobra's headquarters, Cobra Commander refers to the scar-faced courier as "Scar-Face", and at that point it seems to become his name, as he is henceforth referred to as Scar-Face.

•I like this bit. Cobra Commander and The Baroness are talking about Scar-Face, like, right next to him, and he can clearly hear them, as he's looking right at them. Also, note the panel right below it; at this point, Destro's name and face have yet to be revealed, and he's still only appearing in this manner, so that readers only know that there's a mysterious Cobra agent wearing metal gauntlets. 

•A new Joe gets introduced this issue: Torpedo, a SEAL whose action figure came dressed in scuba gear, with detachable swim fins and a harpoon gun. While the Joe team mounts a dangerous and complicated rescue mission to extract Stalker and the others, Torpedo and Doc investigate the river where the island Snake-Eyes and company were on when it was bombed. At the bottom of the river, he finds that the bunker itself is still intact. Reasoning someone may have survived, he taps on the door but is called back to the surface almost immediately...and thus isn't there when someone on the other side of the door taps back. Could Snake-Eyes have survived? (I mean, yes, obviously Snake-Eyes survived).

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #14 (1983)
Art by Mike Vosburg and Jon D'Agostino 

•Oh. So, after three issues of playing coy with what Destro's face looks like (his head is encased in a steel mask, as you all know, as this "mystery" is 43 years old), Marvel went ahead and just revealed it on the cover of an issue. The cover, drawn by Herb Trimpe and Steve Mitchell, isn't even a particularly good image of the character, and his collar and mask look fairly off model here. 

Anyway, this issue will reveal Destro's face within, as well as his name, although even that reveal is somewhat spoiled, as the title of this story is "Destro Attacks."

•The action in this issue is split between Snake-Eyes and company in Sierra Gordo and the G.I. Joe vs. Cobra conflict back in the states. Here we learn that Snake-Eyes, Kwinn and Doctor Venom all made it into the bunker and sealed the door before the bomb destroyed the island out from under it, sinking it to the river floor. As the water rises to their necks, they all agree that they all have a score to settle with Cobra now and make an uneasy truce to help get out of the river alive.

Kwinn, the strongest, prays to the spirit of the otter to help him swim and the spirit of the bear to help him, as he plunges underwater and manually opens the door, despite the massive water pressure making doing so quite difficult. As soon is the door is open, Venom clobbers him with a wrench to the back of the head. 

For a very average-looking middle-aged dude, Venom seems pretty confident in his fighting prowess, immediately challenging Snake-Eyes (see above). Ultimately, they are both captured by Cobra soldiers disguised as local mercenaries.

Here Venom reveals to readers his own treachery; he gave Baroness the asked-for bioweapon, but not the secret catalyst.

•Oh, and Vosburg must have tired of drawing a mask-less Snake-Eyes in such ways so as to conceal his face, as this issue opens with him back in his mask. He must carry spares

•Back in the states, there's an intriguing bit where the fact that The Baroness and Destro knew one another in the past is expanded upon slightly, and we finally see Destro's face, first as a reflection in The Baroness' glasses. I have to admit the "say my name" stuff was quite dramatic. I am 100% sure if this comic were published today, the panel in which she says "Destro" would have been a full-page splash:

•There's lots of treachery in this issue. Though not strictly a superhero comic, Hama certainly engages in something that seems common to super-team comics I've read. Specifically, that the heroes often triumph because of teamwork, and the fact that they like, respect and trust one another. Meanwhile, the villains often fail because their egos and duplicity mean they are inevitably betraying one another, oftentimes before they've even achieved their goals.

This is a little complicated, but Cobra Commander asked The Baroness to plant a microdot for the Joes to find in Sierra Gordo, which would have indicated that Cobra HQ is actually under the Chaplin's Assistant School at Fort Wadsworth (Which we know is actually the Joes' HQ, though Cobra doesn't; that's some coincidence!). But Destro had Scar-Face secretly switch the microdots, giving the Joe's the location of an actual base in Springfield, Vermont, all part of his plan to get Cobra Commander caught or captured, so that he can take over the Cobra organization as its new commander. (As for the Commander, he and The Baroness have gone there to inject a Cobra volunteer with Venom's toxin, which is supposed to be harmless to him, but make him a walking biological weapon to use against the Joes...but he dies instantly, at which point they realize Venom had betrayed them).

Meanwhile, Destro's plot goes awry when he realizes that the Commander has taken The Baroness with him, and thus he has to hustle to get there in time to fight off the Joes and save The Baroness...and The Commander.

•By the way, the Commander's supersonic rocket transport lands at the Arbco Furniture Company in Vermont. "Arbco" is, of course, an anagram of "Cobra"; that's some Joker-going-by-"Joe Kerr" level of subterfuge.

•The issue ends with a big fight, albeit one in which no one seems to get killed, or even hurt. The Joes roll into town in their new APC (or Amphibious Personnel Carrier), a 1983 toy, and are immediately ambushed by Destro's forces. Hawk calls in a strike from another new toy, the Skystriker, which came packaged with its pilot Ace, who makes his first appearance here.

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #15 (1983)
Art by Mike Vosburg and Jon D'Agostino

•Back in Sierra Gordo, Kwinn makes a very dramatic appearance, using his giant machine-gun to gun down all the Cobra agents-posing-as-mercenaries to rescue his kinda sorta allies Snake-Eyes and Doctor Venom, the latter of whom they will need to fly them out of the country. 

•Snake-Eyes immediately starts choking Venom and trying to drown him in the river, but Kwinn makes him stop.

•There's a lot of action, as the trio have to steal a plane from hostile forces, take off while under attack and then get involved in an aerial battle. At one point, Venom manages to signal Cobra via morse code from the plane's controls, telling them he will forgive the attempt on his life in exchange for a lawyer waiting for him in Miami, and again attempts to kill Snake-Eyes and Kwinn by dumping them out of the plane...and again taking a wrench to Kwinn's head. Kwinn is about to throw him out of the plane, but this time Snake-Eyes stops him from killing Venom.

So, when they crash-land on a beach in Miami, Venom is allowed to go free, while Snake-Eyes and Kwinn are put in a jail cell. It seems odd that Snake-Eyes wouldn't be able to prove he was a member of the military via some kind of I.D. or "talk" his way out using sign language...maybe the local law enforcement doesn't know anyone who speaks sign language? Maybe Snake-Eyes doesn't speak sign-language? And I guess if they did give him one phone call, he wouldn't be able to talk over the phone anyway, huh...? Anyway, kinda weird.

•Vosburg seems to have forgotten to draw Kwinn's weasel skull necklace in this issue. 

•I like this scene featuring Destro and The Baroness. That's so many dots! I don't know if I would trust an answer preceded by that long of a pause, Destro!

•This issue also introduces a new member of Cobra, the colorfully named mercenary (and poet!) Major Bludd. It seems Cobra Commander has hired him to help deal with Destro's treachery, which he apparently suspects. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #16 (1983)

Art by Mike Vosburg and Jon D'Agostino 

•The first four pages of this issue feature a training exercise in which Hawk puts some Joes and their vehicles through their paces, but the older guys are all shown up by two newcomers: Cover Girl, the team's second female member and the driver of the armored missile vehicle The Wolverine (her action figure came packaged with it), and Trip Wire, a mine sweeper and explosives expert whose one defining characteristic seems to be that he's very clumsy.

•Scarlett is not exactly welcoming to the new girl, as you can see in the dialogue above.

•Oh, and while it doesn't come up in this issue, according to Tripwire's file card, his real name is Tormod S. Skoog. I am 49-years-old, and I have never met nor heard of anyone named "Tormod." You know, I bet you could write a pretty decent baby name book based on the civilian names of Hama's G.I. Joe characters...

•Cobra Commander hosts a dinner party for his inner circle, and he's drawn holding a glass of wine. How does he drink wine with his face mask on? Scar-Face is also wearing a mask, but I guess he could slip it down to drink. Can Destro eat or drink with his mask on? 

I like the bottom tier of panels on this page, which shows just how divided Cobra is, as each character has their own agendas and suspicions. Hama ends the sequence with the Commander lifting his glass: "Cobra comrades! I propose a toast! To victory through...unity!"

•This party is actually occurring in the back of a semi-truck, one of several headed towards Washington, D.C. All are marked "Arbco". You would think Cobra would abandon that cutesy name after G.I. already encountered Cobra based labeled "Arbco Furniture Company", but maybe they just didn't have time to repaint all their trucks...?

•Hawk and General Flagg both got wind of different Cobra plots targeting D.C. Hawk believes they are going to attack the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, and their plan is to poison the ink that U.S. currency is printed with, killing untold Americans. (This was probably a more effective plan in 1983 than it would be in 2026, as we move closer and closer to being a cashless society). Flagg has learned that Cobra plans to attack the Capitol building, and "the brass" is devoting all military resources to defending it. It will be up to the Joes to deal with the weird-ass poison money plot.

•The Capitol attack was a feint, it turns out, but luckily the Joes were on hand to ambush Dr. Venom and his agents at the bureau. Torpedo is among the Joes lying in wait there, and for some reason he's wearing his scuba suit, armed with a speargun rather than something that might shoot bullets, and even wearing his flippers, which must be a mobility hazard, right? 

There's a panel later where Vosburg draws him as if he's meant to be tip-toeing, and it looks awfully silly given the flippers.  

•Cobra Commander initiates Phase Two: Everyone fight!

HISS tanks roll out of the back of the trucks. Cover Girl's Wolverine emerges from the false shell of a garbage truck it was being hidden in. Joes on the rooftops open fire. Wild Bill and Airborne arrive in a Dragonfly helicopter ("How's this for the calvary to the rescue?" Wild Bill asks, while the Native American Airborne replies, "That don't play on my reservation.")

•The betrayals among Cobra's forces are actually almost hard to keep track of here. 

Dr. Venom hits Scar-Face in the back of the head with pistol, leaving him to die when a bomb he set goes off in the treasury building (Remember, Scar-Face was with The Baroness when she dropped a bomb on Venom in Sierra Gordo, and Venom is holding a grudge).

Major Bludd, riding in the gun turret of one HISS tank, swivels his guns to take aim at Destro at one point. Seeing this, The Baroness, piloting the tank Bludd is in, swerves it, crashing it into a nearby truck and knocking their tank on its side. She calls to the fleeing Bludd for help, telling him that she is trapped there, her leg is broken and that the leaking fuel is in danger of exploding. He flees, leaving her to seemingly die when the tank explodes. 

Seeing this, Destro is plunged into despair, and seems to be in a world of his own grief, ignoring everything around him, like Dr. Venom boarding the HISS tank Destro is manning and Cobra Commander is driving. Or even Hawk boarding it and punching Cobra Commander around a bit. 

•Dr. Venom is not a very romantic man. "All this over the Baroness?" he says to Cobra Commander. "Doesn't he realize that love is simply overestimating the difference between any one given woman and another?"

•He eventually snaps out of it long enough to engage Hawk in fisticuffs. I think this is the first time that Destro refers to his head as "polished berylium steel". It won't be the last time. (My spellcheck says the word "berylium" should have two L's in it, but Destro's dialogue only has one). In the end, Cobra Commander, clearly still suffering from having Hawk rattle his skull around inside his battle helmet, pumps three bullets into Hawk's back, knocking him off of their tank.

• Oh, and I didn't notice this until revisiting this issue to write about it but check out Baroness' glasses going flying out of her exploding tank in the bottom panel. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #17 (1983)
Art by Mike Vosburg and Jon D'Agostino

•Are you guys worried about Hawk? Well, good news. He was wearing an armored vest, and while Doc tells us that most such vests wouldn't stop "a 9mm hardball round", his particular vest was the "SWAT model with extra ballistic layers." Guys, I don't know anything about guns, but Hama seems to.

•Meanwhile, Dr. Venom is driving the HISS tank with Cobra Commander and Destro away from D.C. on the highway. For some reason, it's not being followed by an entire parade of law enforcement vehicles the way I would assume a rogue tank on the highway might be. 

Destro is still in his own world (the Commander calls it some kind of trance), but he helps snap Destro out of it by giving him something to focus his grief on. He throws Major Bludd under the bus, telling Destro that Bludd had killed The Baroness because he was in love with her too. 

Two things to note on this page. Check out the broken pair of glasses, a symbol of the dead (?) Baroness. And look closely at that cobra. What's with the little human eyes peering out of the black shadow of its open mouth? Weird.

Their tank is eventually picked up by a Cobra helicopter, and while Ace engages them in his Skystriker, his plane is damaged and he has to retreat. As for the other Cobra players, Major Bludd attempts to hijack a bus, but is captured by the Joes (see the cove), and Scar-Face ditches his Cobra helmet and mask and retreats to his secret retreat at Coney Island.

•Back in Florida, Snake-Eyes and Kwinn escape prison, and then win a pink Cadillac (and a cowboy hat) from some gamblers in a dice game. Kwinn knows that Scar-Face knows where Cobra's base is and where they might find Doctor Venom, and he knows where Scar-Face's "hidey-hole" is, and that's where they are headed, too. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #18 (1983)
Art by Mike Vosburg and Jon D'Agostino

•Snake-Eyes finally makes contact with the Joe team, via a postcard he sent Hawk, with a secret "P.S." to Scarlett to prove that the message is really from him. Again, note how nice Snake-Eyes' handwriting is! Thanks to his tip, the Joes head for Coney Island, arriving around the same time as Destro and Snake-Eyes and Kwinn do. Apparently, Scar-Face's hideout is the security shed of a roller coaster there.

•The Joes arrive via pair of vehicles. Most of them are in the APC, while Rock 'N Roll arrive in via The MANTA (Marine Assault Nautical Transport (Air driven)), a sailboard like vehicle that was available via mail order rather than wherever toys were sold. 

•Destro steals an ice cream truck to make his getaway. He eventually gets his hands on Scar-Face, and together they hijack a plane to Libya, where they meet up with other Cobra forces...including Dr. Venom, who injects Scar-Face with the real bioweapon that Cobra Commander had previously injected a soldier in Vermont with. The plan? The injection turns Scar-Face into "a biological time bomb." If they allow the Joes to capture him and take him back to their base, then the plague he's carrying will "eradicate every living soul in G.I. Joe headquarters."

Unfortunately for the Joes, they unknowingly play along and end up infiltrating a Cobra motorcade in Libya and scooping up Scar-Face.

•As for Snake-Eyes and Kwinn (whose got his weasel skull necklace back on here), well Kwinn gave him the choice to either rejoin his comrades back at Coney Island, or to stay with him to pursue vengeance against Venom. Snake-Eyes stayed with Kwinn.

•Next? Hama, Vosburg and D'Agostino empty the whole damn toybox, for a climax to what I guess we'd now call this story arc, involving all the characters, all the vehicles and even the G.I. Joe Headquarters Command Center playset. It's pretty much the entire G.I. Joe toy line circa 1983, all in one issue! That, and we'll finally get to #21, probably the most famous issue of the whole series.