G.I. Joe was always weird, but also consistently original and forward thinking in the design of its characters and vehicles. I'm still not clear if it was a team at Hasbro or the folks at Marvel Comics who were most responsible for this, but the toys and the comic earned a huge and well-deserved following. The G.I. Joe I knew was born during the post-Vietnam/Ronald Reagan era, so it was a bold move to promote a "real American hero" through a toy line comic book to the children of parents who came of age during the 60s. The 80s were also a time of new technology, particularly in the area of military hardware. A fierce arms race with the U.S.S.R. produced an number of mechanical superstars, including the F-14 Tomcat, the Harrier, M1 Abrams, A-10 Warthog, AH-1 Super Cobra, Apache Longbow, and several others. Hasbro always seemed to have one foot in the present, and one firmly placed in the future. They started with the basics: artillery, ground vehicles, jets, and helicopters. But it wasn't long before a wild mix of concepts hit the shelves. We were treated to a hovercraft, a hydrofoil, space shuttle, leaping mechs, cyborgs and ATVs. Cobra and the Joes were locked in an arms race of their own, involving the sea, land and air. G.I. Joe in the 80s started out as a truly unique blend of classic good vs. evil military action and science fiction. My first Joe toys were a Cobra H.I.S.S tank and Snake Eyes. The detail was what really got me hooked.

G.I. Joe was also a deeply character driven story told through the file cards printed on the packages of the toys, and the comic book. Everyone had a story. I think this is one of the unappreciated aspects of the G.I. Joe story. They made a genuine effort to depict the Joes as a diverse team that included men and women from many different walks of life. Cobra, being a homegrown terrorist organization, relied on several tired villain archetypes of the "Boris and Natasha" variety. For a time, Cobra's secret base of operations was a quiet town called Springfield, which might have been interpreted as a jab at white suburbia being a breeding ground for white supremacist groups and the like.

One of the earliest forays into weirdness in the comic book involved Dr. Venom and his mind-altering S.N.A.K.E armor. Both Snake Eyes and the Inuit mercenary Kwinn were used in the armored suits against the Joes in a major battle. The suits had the ability to control their minds. Zartan was another strange, shape-shifting character who might have been more at home in an X-Men comic. Tomax and Xamot had a psychic link that enabled one to feel the other's pain (like Cheech and Chong's Corsican Brothers). Characters like the genetically engineered Serpentor, and Globulus from the Cobra-La story from the G.I. Joe movie, really took things into the realm of fantasy. Similarly, Destro's origin story described in the television show features a monstrous creature living at the bottom of an ominous well.

Many of the original characters, including Snake Eyes, Hawk, Stalker, Grunt, Short Fuse and Breaker share a basic uniform with subtle variations, different weapons and equipment. Zap and Grand Slam also shared similar padded uniform designs. The uniforms clearly were not from a specific branch of service, but still had an authentic battle fatigue look and feel. Greens, tans, browns, blacks, and jungle camo were the norm. Scarlet was a noteworthy exception. She wore a grey body suit with tan boots, gloves and what looked like a custom one-piece tan swimsuit. Future Joes would also deviate considerably from the basic grunt design in favor of expressing the individuality and expertise of character. This is why the movie designs work for me thus far. They blend a slick, sexy, high tech look with a general purpose MARPAT fatique. The team looks like it belongs in this era. The Delta-6 is the sort of thing that has been mentioned in technology news as the future of infantry warfare. So featuring it something like that is consistent with the tradition of the G.I. Joe being a few steps ahead. I expect to see a lot of cool tech in this film.

Cobra on the other hand, was little more than a mindless, faceless horde led by a few key, twisted characters. But they were also the embodiment of evil: totalitarianism, militarism, war profiteering, world domination, biological and chemical warfare, and anything a mad scientist could imagine. Recently, Dreamwave's Transformers/G.I.Joe depicted Cobra as something comparable to the 3rd Reich. And it's an easy comparison to make. The basic Cobra trooper looks a lot like a WWII German soldier. They also carried Warsaw Pact weapons, such as the Dragunov sniper rifle and the AK-47. They mostly wore masks, which might have been a way to tap into our cultural aversion to losing our individuality, or possibly even our fears of masked terrorists featured in news reports from the Middle East at the time. Today, a Cold War inspired enemy might not cut it. 911 proved that we fear the most is an invisible enemy, or one hiding in plain sight and ready to strike at a moment's notice. So I wonder what direction the filmmakers will go with their version of Cobra. Since both the comic and the series are guilty of going off the deep end with mutant spores and killing giant amoebas with apples, they really can't do much worse, can they?

Larry Hama's writing on Marvel's [link] didn't disappoint. I even learned a bit about military jargon with it's many acronyms and euphemisms. The cartoon on the other hand was a disappointment and tolerated primarily by true fans. The thrill of seeing the characters and our favorite toys on television was enough to keep us watching. But more often than not, the dialog was hokey and the animation was a bit choppy. Thankfully, the anime-styled [link]: Resolute raised the bar a bit and showed how good an animated Joe story could be.

I expect to see a darker G.I. Joe, perhaps the darkest, most sinister Joe story ever told. Knowing that Larry Hama was on board as a creative consultant also puts my mind at ease. And with the world slowly sinking deeper into hopelessness and economic collapse, I wonder what message we'll come away with.