Art by Rod Whigham and Andy Mushynsky
That battle platform was a playset from 1985 and looked a little like those oil platforms you see in the ocean sometimes. My best friend had it, and I remember it being a lot of fun to play with.
Another Joe making his first appearance here is Barbecue, the Joe team's new fire fighter.
"Fireman? This is a combat unit!" Shipwreck growls after Barbecue hands him a copy of his orders. "We don't need a fireman!"
Barbecue cooly responds, "That's what everybody says... ...until their house is on fire!"
•Much of the issue revolves around Hama playing with the new toys. There's talk about the sea base and scenes of it being put together, and then there's a battle against the Hydrofoils that pretty much totals it, as these new Cobra vehicles are so fast that they are hard for the Joes to hit with standard weapons.
And, as it turns out, the Joes did need a fireman, as Barbecue suits up and uses his fire axe to chop off burning bits of the base.
"Those blasted Cobras are tearing my base apart!" Shipwreck shouts at one point, and once again Barbecue is ready with a rejoinder.
"No," he says while hacking at another piece of burning base. "They're shooting holes in it and setting it on fire...I'm the one who's tearing it apart."
•Aside from a battle involving the new toys, what's going on here is a little complicated. Inside a Cobra sub in the gulf are Cobra Commander, Tomax and Xamot, Zartan and a man Zartan refers to as "the master planner of this venture, the mysterious Crimson Guardsman with the daughter who wears the bear suit!" (That's Candy's dad, of course). They dock in a secret base within a sunken ship.
Meanwhile, there's another underwater Cobra base, a heavily fortified bunker that the Joes are unable to even scratch with the armaments aboard the investigating WHALE and SHARC. But they have to destroy it, and do so fast, as it is transmitting a wavelength through the water that is killing all marine life...if that bunker isn't taken out soon, it could kill all the fish in the Gulf! The situation is so urgent that the Pentagon is contemplating dropping a tactical nuke on it.
"Those blasted Cobras are tearing my base apart!" Shipwreck shouts at one point, and once again Barbecue is ready with a rejoinder.
"No," he says while hacking at another piece of burning base. "They're shooting holes in it and setting it on fire...I'm the one who's tearing it apart."
•Aside from a battle involving the new toys, what's going on here is a little complicated. Inside a Cobra sub in the gulf are Cobra Commander, Tomax and Xamot, Zartan and a man Zartan refers to as "the master planner of this venture, the mysterious Crimson Guardsman with the daughter who wears the bear suit!" (That's Candy's dad, of course). They dock in a secret base within a sunken ship.
•Oh, and by the way, Cobra Commander refers to the Crimson Guardsman who had come up with this whole plan, Candy's dad, as "Professor Appel." Which means Candy's name full name is "Candy Appel."
What's going on here...? We'll have to wait until the next issue to find out, but Cobra is pretty happy about it. I mean, look at the Commander's fist pump there...
•And what of the professor's daughter, Candy Appel, still being held for questioning at The Pit...? Well, things aren't going great for her. She has a chance meeting with the captured Dreadnok Buzzer, who calls her "Candykins", "My little sweet potato" and offers to sweep her away to New South Wales. Then, after the Joes receive orders from the Pentagon to relocate the pair, both Candy and Buzzer are being transferred from the Pit into the custody of the Army's Military Police...when Buzzer hijacks the bus, taking her captive...!
Art by Rod Whigham and Keith Williams
•What do you notice about Mike Zeck and John Beatty's cover for this issue...aside from the fact that the Joes pictured are wearing a lot of bandages...? Did you notice Snake Eyes' mask? Zeck has drawn the character's "new" mask, the one with the knight-like visor worn by the second, 1985-released action figure, rather than his original mask, which looked more like a ski mask with goggles over it. The comic book version of the character will eventually adopt the mask on this cover (and a new and somewhat different costume), but not yet; indeed, in the few interior panels in which he appears in this issue, Snake Eyes is wearing his original costume and mask.
Is this plan scientifically sound...? Could an explosion of a big enough magnitude at just the right place create an island in the Gulf of Mexico...? Well, I wouldn't think so, but I certainly don't have the scientific background to rule it out. Nor, do I imagine, did many of the little boys reading this comic in 1985.
Personally, I'm a little suspicious such a plan would work—and worked so perfectly, as the emerging island carries Cobra's secret base in a sunken cargo ship up to the surface with it!—but it seems well within the bounds of comic book science, and G.I. Joe is a comic book. Certainly, it was far more realistic and grounded than Marvel's superhero line, but, at the end of the day, it's still a comic book from the people who regularly tell stories about the likes of Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and Thor.
A small team of Joes aboard The WHALE hovercraft land on the beach (With Ace in the Skystriker, having made a seemingly impossible takeoff from the listing USS Flagg, providing air cover). They do remarkably well, and have Cobra Commander, Zartan and Professor Appel cornered by the end of the issue.
•This issue's vocabulary word? "Enfilade."
Now remember, Barbecue, the guy making the joke in those last two panels, is a fireman, and his role on the team is to fight fires. The axe he carries (and that his action figure was packaged with) was specifically to chop down doors of burning buildings and, as we saw in the previous issue, cutting loose burning parts of enflamed structures.
But, having used the axe for that purpose already, Hama does what surely every kid who had the toy version of Barbecue had him do with it: Attack people.
But, having used the axe for that purpose already, Hama does what surely every kid who had the toy version of Barbecue had him do with it: Attack people.
Do note Cobra Commander's declaration in that last panel above. "What a great system!" he declares. "If you have enough money and you can hire the best lawyers, you can do anything you want!"
What comic book character do you think is most emblematic of American values? Superman? Wonder Woman? Captain America? Maybe Scrooge McDuck (as Chris Sims once made a convincing argument for)...?
I don't know. Sometimes I think it might actually be Cobra Commander.
Art by Rod Whigham and Andy Mushynsky
•It's Billy. The silhouette with the question mark over it that Storm Shadow seems to be about to strike on the head with his sword on Mike Zeck's cover? That is totally Cobra Commander's young son and, of late, Storm Shadow's apprentice Billy. And the cover is a fake out, as Storm Shadow isn't actually going to cut him down; this is just part of a training exercise.
•There's an awful lot going on in this issue. In fact, there are five distinct narrative thread (two of which intersect in this issue). All but one of them involve a road trip of one kind or another. I'll break it down if you're invested in the ongoing G.I. Joe story but, um, not so much that you've actually picked up the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Compendiums and started reading it for yourself.
1.) Hawk and company go to Washington, D.C. General Austin is in the middle of "a private reading of the riot act" to Hawk over some kind of video monitor, complaining that the Joes weren't able to defeat Cobra on the new island in the Gulf fast enough, and now Cobra Island is an official country, with diplomatic immunity, printed money and so on. In mid-sentence, he has a heart attack. Hawk has Snake Eyes and Stalker take him to see Austin in D.C. in a VAMP Mark II (released in '84 although the one in the comic is colored green rather than tan and is missing the toy's missile rack). While Hawk's at the hospital, the pair go visit the Vietnam Memorial and, while discussing how everyone else in their unit beside Storm Shadow were killed in action, they notice a name missing: Wade Collins. They thought he was dead, but if he's name's not there, perhaps he survived after all...?
2.) Crimson Guardsman Fred II follows them. He is in bed with a fever, the result of being dumped in the drink while fighting Snake Eyes and Scarlet on the ferry in #36. His doctor advises him to stay in bed (Doctors still did house calls in 1985...?), but he disobeys and goes to drive around. He happens to drive by Hawk and company's VAMP, and he then follows them to D.C. He confronts Stalker and Snake Eyes at the memorial, pulling a gun on them and making a shocking revelation: "Wade Collins isn't dead at all! Cobra gave him a new face, a new life and a new name!" It turns out that Fred II is Wade! Gee, what a small world...
3.) Buzzer and hostage Candy Appel are still on the run. Candy is continually trying to escape, and she eventually makes good when she gets her hands on a shotgun, dumping Buzzer on the side of the road and taking off in the truck he had stolen.
4.) The Soft Master is hitchhiking to Springfield. He takes a ride from an obnoxious reckless driver who sips from a thermos of coffee laced with brandy while driving (Don't hitchhike, kids!). He's eventually dropped off in Springfield, to the surprise of the driver, who says there's something not quite right about the city. "I'm not intending to stay for long," The Soft Master says, "Just taking care of some old business, family business." He forgets his suitcase in the back seat, which seems significant, as they show us a silent panel of the suitcase in the back seat as he leaves.
5.) Storm Shadow continues to train Billy. They are in Stormy's New York City water tower base, and Billy is blindfolded and hanging upside down from a trapeze as Storm Shadow swings his sword at him Billy is able to catch the blade, take it, dismount from the trapeze and throw the sword at Storm Shadow, who is able to catch it in the scabbard on his back. Again, Billy is a fast learner; it apparently doesn't take long at all to become a pretty decent ninja. Later they do a different variation of this, one that more closely comports with what we see on the cover.
Here he mentions letting his sadness wear off naturally. I'm...not entirely sure if that works, but then I guess sadness is different than depression, and while I've dealt with both, I've never been in Ripcord's exact circumstances before.
This is interesting in 2026, now that I know Hama's lifelong comics writing ambition is to write Uncle Scrooge comics. And now Marvel, which is owned by Disney, is publishing Scrooge comics! Let Larry Hama write Disney duck comics, dammit!
No idea what's all over The Soft Master's tie there.
After he indeed misses a sixth time, The Soft Master hands him a card reading "Hard Master." At least, I like to imagine that it was an old business card of his brother's.
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