Marvel Comics' G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero launched in 1982 in conjunction with Hasbro's revamping of their venerable, long-lived G.I. Joe toy line. The heavily accessorized, Barbie-sized action figures of various soldiers that had been around since the 1960s was being reborn as a line of 3.75-inch, Star Wars-sized toys, complete with vehicles, playsets and, perhaps most importantly, a rather complex backstory involving soldiers from various branches of the military battling a fictional terrorist organization. Larry Hama wrote the series, with Herb Trimpe serving as the initial pencil artist. Trimpe would leave relatively soon, but Hama would stick with the series for the duration, eventually penning the majority of a saga that spanned 155 issues over 12 years, spawning several spin-offs and, many years later, being eventually un-canceled by later publishers to hold the G.I. Joe license; in fact, Hama is still writing a continuation of his original Marvel series today, currently for Image Comics. In 1982, I was only five-years-old, and probably too young forthe toys—I would get my first Masters of the Universe toys that Christmas. I was definitely too young for the G.I. Joe comic book. I mean, I had just started learning to read at that point, and while I could manage the funnies, picture books and the little story boooks and comics packed with the He-Man guys, a whole full-size 22-page comic book would have been too much for me...especially one as relatively complicated and sophisticated as what Hama and were producing.But by 1985, when the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero TV series began airing after school (following a pair of five-part miniseries), I was eight years old, and pretty much the prime target audience. I watched the show five days a week (along with Transformers, which aired right before it at 4 p.m.). I didn't have a lot of the toys, so I wouldn't say I collected them or anything, but I did have some, as did many of my friends at school, and we would play with them together. I also read a few "Choose Your Own Adventures"-style paperbacks with intriguing painted covers, books in which you, the reader, were cast as a member of the Joe team (I believe "my" codename in one was "Wise Guy"), and I remember eating a G.I. Joe breakfast cereal at one point; it tasted a bit like Cap'n Crunch and was shaped like stars.I never really got into the comics though, for whatever reason. I did buy and read a few; looking at the Grand Comics Database, I see that I had read 1986's #44 and #49 (both of which had particularly great covers by Mike Zeck) and 1989's #83. I can't remember if I had bought them with my own money, or if they were given to me by my mom or grandmother when I was home sick from school; as I mentioned before, they used to get me comics when I was sick, perhaps to give me something else to do while lying on the couch than just watching daytime TV. Oh, and I also read a reprint of G.I. Joe #2, in Tales of G.I. Joe #2; that particular story we'll talk about below.Aside from those, though, and some of the classic comics that would later be collected by Image and IDW in trade paperbacks this century, the Marvel G.I. Joe comic has long been one of my many, manly blind spots in comics history. In 2024, Image released G.I. Joe: A Real Americal Hero Compendium One, a 1,000+ page, paperback collecting the first 50 issues of the series. According to the back cover, it cost $86.99, but I got it for some $50 cheaper, via the evil book-selling website. It looks like the whole series will end up being collected in four such volumes, the last of which is due for release this September.That seemed like a good price point for 50 issues of a comic book series that I've been curious about my whole life. So now I've got what is probably the thickest book I've ever owned sitting on the table next to me as I type this post, a book that, at three-inches thick, is slightly bigger than even the biggest omnibus collection I own. Unlike other omnibuses on my shelves, it also has the benefit of probably cheaper, pulpy paper that looks and feels like that of comic books from the eighties and, because of the lighter-weight cover, it doesn't creak or moan or feel like it's going to fall apart in my hands as I read it. Somewhat to my surprise (even dismay), the comic is really good, too. Like, right out of the gate. As soon as I would finish an issue, I found myself wanting to read the next, which was easily accomplished, as there are 49 "next" issues in this very volume. (This is dismaying, of course, because it cuts into my productivity; I have repeatedly found myself preferring to read just one more issue of G.I. Joe rather than reading something I needed to read, or writing something I needed to write).I will, of course, be blogging my way through the book. I considered reviewing it as a whole, but, well, despite the fact that it is now being sold as a series of four huge books, Hama and company weren't creating it as such, but rather as a series of single issues (In this volume, the series starts as done-in-ones, then gradually grows; I'm currently on issue #18, and it seems to be involving into more of a serial, with plotlines now running from issue to issue). There's that, of course, and then there's the simple fact that it is just so goddam big. So, after all these paragraphs of background, I'm going to tackle the first handful of issues, via bullet pointed thoughts. This will be the first in what will ultimately be a very, very long series, I suppose.I'm posting the cover images from the Grand Comics Database to separate the issues, but in the compendium's reproduction of those covers, the strip along the top reading "Marvel Comics Group" is blank, and the boxes with Spider-Man's mug in them in the lower left corner, spaces where the UPC symbol appears on the newsstand versions, are also blank.Oh, and all issues are written by Hama unless otherwise noted. Ready?G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #1 (1982) "Operation: Lady Doomsday" art by Herb Trimpe and Bob McLeod and "...Hot Potato!" art by Don Perlin and Jack Abel•Trimpe and McLeod's cover is now iconic, so much so that I feel like I've always known what the cover of the first issue of G.I. Joe looked like, even if I had never read it (Or read it over 20 years ago and had forgotten it). The image's only real rival on that front would seem to be that of 1984's issue #21, Ed Hannigan and Klaus Janson's image of Snake-Eyes scaling a wall while firing a gun on the infamous silent issue. •I was a little surprised that the first issue wasn't a little more "toyetic," given that it owed its existence to the selling of toys. I mean, the average Batman comics or Justice League comic seems more toyetic than the "Operation: Lady Doomsday" story. Although, on the other hand, the toy line had just started, the TV show was years away and there were only so many figures and vehicles in the line at this point. Revisiting it today, it seems odd to see, like, generic Cobra guys working the computers and communications equipment rather than Televipers, or regular old helicopters and tanks with the Cobra symbol painted on them rather than Cobra FANG helicopters or HISS tanks (My best friend growing up had both; the one-man F.A.N.G. with the detachable missiles was particularly cool). •The plot of "Operation: Lady Doomsday" is that scientist Dr. Adele Burkhart, "the nation's top nuclear physicist" and "one of the top brains behind The Doomsday Project" has stated that she was misled by the United States government about the true nature of the mysterious project, which she says in a press conference was "the development of a retaliatory weapons system capable of annihilating all life on this planet!"Hama doesn't elaborate on the specifics any more than that, but this being the early 1980s and her being a nuclear physicist, it no doubt has something to do with nuclear weapons. As a child in that decade, I was genuinely scared of the possibility of nuclear war more or less all the time. By the fall of the Soviet Union, that fear subsided, and, in the new millennium, it seemed catastrophic climate change was the true danger of life on our planet. Of course, now we seem to have a genuine madman, a person who has never demonstrated any genuine empathy for any other human being and doesn't even pretend to care about the loss of life, in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. And the U.S. is currently at war with Iran, an ally to Russia, who is feeding them intelligence. While Russia is at war with Ukraine, an ally of NATO and, traditionally, the U.S., and the U.S. is backing Ukraine. So honestly, the threat of nuclear war—or at least some limited use of nuclear weapons—has resurfaced now that I'm in middle age.•Anyway, Burkhart is on her way to testify before congress, and several characters seem to equate her rethinking her participation in the project as something akin to betrayal of the country. When Cobra kidnaps her and whisks her away to a heavily fortified island in the Caribbean, it presents a moral dilemma for our heroes to wrestle with a bit, as they are being tasked with rescuing her. Short-Fuse asks Hawk if she's a traitor, and the Joe leader replies, "We each took an oath to defend the constitution of the United States. That constitution guarantees the right of every citizen to disagree with the government." Damn, has the current commander-in-chief read this? (Ha ha, just kidding; it is a well-known fact that he doesn't read, like, anything. I'm sure that includes comics). What about the current secretary of defense? Or secretary of state?In the next panel, Snake-Eyes asks via sign language that Scarlett translates, "How the rights of an individual compare to the safety of the entire world?", going on to suggest that a bombing raid would solve the problem with less risk.Hawk argues, "We're the good guys, remember? The island has a civilian population--Besides it's not our job to judge Dr. Burkhart."The U.S. military defending the rights of citizens to disagree with their government and wanting to avoid civilian casualties...?! What a refreshing change from the headlines of today! I know this is a comic book fantasy glorifying the United States military to children, but I still like to hear it!Similarly, later, when the Joes ultimately rescue her, Burkhart apologizes to them for thinking so badly of the military before, saying, "I guess I forgot no one has a monopoly on scruples."•The Secret Service all wear matching black hats in this that make them look like the Blues Brothers. Did they wear old school hats with brims back in the '80s? I don't know; I didn't watch the news back then.•There's a panel on, like, page three where The Baroness, who was posing as a reporter at a press conference, pulled something out of her bag and screwed it on to her camera, transforming it into a gun, and I, a 49-year-old man, thought, "Whoa, that's cool!" I can only imagine what that must have looked like, to, like, a 10-year-old. •After we see Cobra and The Baroness kidnap Burkhart, who and what Cobra are is explained in a sequence in The Pentagon during which a General Austin and General Flagg discuss them. Amusingly, the image shown on the computer screen in front of them looks vaguely Nazi-like, with some figures in the background at a reviewing stand as soldiers march by, but the marching seems to be some sort of parade, with a Cobra soldier in the foreground astride a horse, drums on its side.•It's not hard to see why Snake-Eyes would quickly be the breakout character here...eventually becoming so popular that, for a period in 1993 and 1994, the book would seem to be retitled G.I. Joe Starring Snake-Eyes, at least based on the covers. As the generals talks about calling G.I. Joe into action, a woman calls up 14 headshots on the screen. I'll rattle off some names, if you're a G.I. Joe fan: Hawk, Zap, Grand Slam, Short-Fuse, Scarlett, Steeler, Flash, Grunt, Clutch, Stalker, Braker, Rock 'N Roll, Snake-Eyes and Shooter (Although I'm not sure if a "Shooter" ever actually appears in the comic, or if he's just a guy needed to fill up the screens). They are overwhelmingly a bunch of interchangeable looking white guys in green. Dressed in all-black with a mask and goggles over his face, Snake-Eyes immediately stands out. Scarlett, the only woman, and Stalker, the only person of color, similarly stand out from the pack. To a lesser degree, so too does Rock 'N Roll who, while still a white guy in army green, at least has a big, bushy blonde beard to distinguish him from the others.Eventually, the Joes would become much more diverse in every way, with radically different costumes that often had to do with their specific military specialties in some way, but, at this point, the Joes seem to be overwhelmingly made up of "green shits", and I had trouble telling who was who throughout much of the issue. This group, minus Shooter, would be the entirety of the Joe team for the first year of the book, by the way.•At two points in the story, generic Cobra soldiers run up to Cobra Commander and stick their arms straight up in the air. On the first occasion, it looked like the soldier was raising his hand, like a school kid trying to get the attention of their teacher. When it happened a second time, I assumed this was supposed to be some sort of stiff-armed salute. This too is vaguely Nazi-esque, although here it is drawn in such a way that the salute looks like the soldiers are performing it straight up, rather than at a Nazi-like angle. •While the comic never lingers on death, it's clear that people die in this comic, which seems striking, given the fact that all of the laser blasts and explosions of the cartoon never lead to any casualties. There are a few panels showing the bodies of Cobra soldiers thrown into the air during explosions and, in one scene, the Joes discover that Cobra apparently slaughtered the island's civilian population off-panel, as they find their corpses in a village and remark upon the fact in the dialogue, while the art depicts a few bodies strewn about the panel in a relatively long-shot. •The first issue includes a 10-page back-up entitled "...Hot Potato!", starring Scarlett, Snake-Eyes and Rock 'N Roll on a mission "Somewhere in the Middle East..." Cobra is only nominally involved, and are said to be bankrolling a Colonel Sharif and his "fanatical" Guardians of Paradise group.The enemy group are brown-skinned and apparently vaguely Islamic (they call the Joes "infidels", in addition to speaking of paradise), but the comic never gets into specifics in terms of what country the action might be set in or where Sharif and his Guardians hails from. Here the Joe's opponents are even more unequivocally killed, being mowed down with machine guns and blown up in explosions.
