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Special Missions 25 We’re getting towards the end of the run here. I included the cover this time because it’s an awesome homage to The War That Time Forgot comics. Just great. This is a “toy” issue featuring Battleforce 2000, a line of repainted Joe vehicles and figures, but Larry Hama didn’t let that stop him from inserting his trademark cynicism of government officials and revolutionaries. This issue is convoluted and has a lot going on, but it’s pretty fun. Darklonian separatist terrorists are holed up in a warehouse in New York. Duke and the Battleforce show up and Duke immediately body checks their federal contact to the ground. Once again when dealing with feds, the Joes smell a rat and treat them accordingly. A Darklonian suicide bomber blows himself up to let the other terrorists escape. I’m pretty sure Hama’s view of terrorists here is 100% accurate. Dark satire at its best. There’s a huge car chase with the terrorists throwing bombs all over the Natural History museum. This...

When I said the “ski missile” issue was the worst issue of GI Joe Special Missions, I forgot about this one. Gird your loins. This is bad. #yojoeday   Special Missions 24 The first thing to note is that this issue was not written by Larry Hama. It was written by Herb Trimpe, the series penciller. The pencils in this issue are done by someone else I’m not going to bother to check while I’m writing this. The art here is worthy of an upper-tier Hostess Fruit Pie ad. Herb is a terrible writer. There are really just a few artists who are actually good writers too (I’m looking at you, early Image).  This issue would hardly have made the grade for an episode of the GI Joe cartoon. Cobra Commander tries to kidnap President Bush (the first) with a blimp at a baseball game. Wut. Also, this story is supposed to be a (ham-handed) blow against sexism, with Hawk playing the chauvinist making the female Joes dress in cheerleader outfits undercover. The main reason this is ridiculous is that GI Joe i...

Whoa, I was pretty busy yesterday and I totally spaced that it was #yojoeday . I apologize to the three people who read these! Special Missions 23 This is a fun one because it’s another of Larry Hama’s “slice of army life” stories and because it features Stalker, my favorite Joe. Tunnel Rat, Leatherneck, Hit and Run and Musk Rat are sighting their rifles on the deck of the Joe aircraft carrier, instructed (and belittled) by Stalker. Wild Bill lands a new Joe, Scoop the cameraman, with the team’s orders. The team is not happy to have a newb along when they might see action and Stalker doesn’t want to let Scoop come. But Duke shows up and dresses Stalker down, which is kind of fun to see happen. Stalker is usually the ranking NCO around, but Duke is Top and what he says goes. The team is to go to Sierra Gordo and extract a local warlord. The flight there consists of the Joes telling Scoop what is what and how things are done in the Joes as opposed to how he did them in training. This wa...

Hey, you know what Star Wars? GI Joe totally killed your toy sales. Kung Fu grip forever. #yojoeday   Special Missions 22 No toy commercial here. This is another hostage rescue issue. There seem to be a lot of these. Chuckles, Lady Jaye, Hit and Run, Shockwave are staking out a house where three terrorists have taken a family hostage. One holds a child in his room upstairs, and the other two, a man and a woman, hold the husband and wife in the kitchen. This is kind of a “and now we know!” story. It’s about not making snap judgments about people based on appearances. The terrorists killed 17 people at an airport before escaping and taking their hostages. They were wearing ski-masks, so the only way to identify them is by the horrifying grin on one of them. Hit and Run thinks he sees the same grotesque grin as he looks in the house through his binoculars.  Lady Jaye disguises herself as a makeup saleswoman and knocks on the door. A pretty blonde woman answers the door and Lady Jaye han...

#yojoeday  eases the pain. Special Missions 21 This issue is pretty much a giant set up for the punch-line on the last page. A bunch Joe nobodies (except Tunnel Rat) are hunting down Cobra in the sewers of New York. Larry Hama gets to show off some NYC trivia with the gimmick of one of the Joes using a tourist guidebook to provide useful information for the team. It seems Cobra is installing nerve gas bombs in the sewers and the fuses are too tricky to disable. The Joes chase the Cobras through the sewers until they meet a group of homeless people living in the still-posh underground home of a turn-of-the-century aristocrat, a-la Lex Luthor in the Superman movie. The homeless people are led by Sgt. Gamble, a WWII vet who despises surface-dwellers for abandoning veterans like him. One of the barely-a-character Joes lets us know how Hama feels about whining like that. Tunnel Rat appeals to him as a fellow grunt, and Sgt. Gamble agrees to help the Joes. After an encounter with an albino s...

Because it's hilarious, every instance of the term "ski missile" from GI Joe Special Missions issue 20. #yojoeday   A. Miles Davis Jeffro Johnson 

#yojoeday   Special Missions 20 This is as much of a stinker as Special Missions gets. Arctic Joes and their toy vs. arctic Cobras and their toys. Luckily, the highlight of this issue is the Joes and the Oktober Guard teaming up. The Oktober Guard is investigating something in the arctic circle, and the Joes are investigating them. Blah blah blah, Cobra is up to no good, the Guard and Joes combine forces to fight them. There’s some fun stuff with infrared signatures. Larry Hama loves infrared signatures.  Turns out Cobra is using infrasonic sound to cause paranoia between the US and Russia to fight Glastnost. Yep. At least the Terrordrome bursting out of the ice is cool. Also, ski-missiles were ridiculous when I was kid, they’re even more ridiculous now. Bad Guys: Cobra. Running Dog Insult: Yes, with a retort. Cool Toy(s): So many literal toys being pushed here. Badass Non-Joe: Colonel Brekhov, since he’s an ally here! Rating: 3 Yo Joes, only because of the Oktober Guard showing up.

Super stressful work day means a late #yojoeday  , but like a Joe, I survived. Special Missions 19 This issue shows what happened to the Tomahawk crew assigned to pick up Snake Eyes, Scarlet, Iceberg, and Chuckles in issue 18. No overt politics from this end, the Joes just try to survive a long flight through hostile territory and an encounter with two Russian Hinds. The highlight of the issue is all kinds of awesome "Hama-speak." Lots of technical jargon spouted by people who have no time to spout technical jargon, a great "running-dog" gag, and a glastnost joke. Check out the panels. Bad Guys: Russians, unnamed third-world Asian country but totally Cambodian air defenses. Running Dog Insult: A doozy, with a gag. Cool Toy(s): Hind attack helicopters. The coolest helicopter ever built. Badass Non-Joe: No one! Rating: 4 Yo Joes

What can #yojoeday  teach us about colonialism, communism, capitalist exploitation of the third world, and the killing fields of Cambodia, Casey? Glad you asked. Special Missions 18 We return to Chuckles, Scarlet, Iceberg, and Snake Eyes as they continue to try to escape the mess they got into in Chomo Lungma.* The Joes have been traveling down the Mekong river for 900 miles, having had to abort several extractions because the Chinese were still looking for them. They come across a farmer being terrorized by the river pirates of a local Warlord, Big Tep. Snake Eyes isn’t having any of that, so he cuts them all down and saves the farmer. The man is grateful, and hides the Joes at his farm while they await extraction via Lift Ticket and the Tomahawk. The farmer’s name is Dr. Krim, and he tells the story of how his country, unnamed, but obviously a Cambodia analogue, came to be ruled by a communist dictator and bandit warlords. Unfortunately for Dr. Krim, his farmhouse is now where Big T...

#yojoeday ! Special Missions 17 This issue again features Cobra as the bad guys, but also works in some trademark Hama politics along with Stalker being an utter badass. So this is a good one. In the opening scene, we get a classic Hama  “slice of army life” scene with some Joes being awakened by Dusty to report for a mission. Hardball, Shockwave, Muskrat, and Hit and Run meet Stalker on the runway where he briefs them. They’re on their way to “Siliconville,” CA to stop some terrorists who have taken over a computer chip maker who works on DOD contracts. At the scene Scarlet and Sneak Peek can sense something is funny with the whole situation. An FBI agent there tells Stalker something fishy is going on with the owner of the company and the chief of police. He suspects something is up, so he called in the Joes.  Inside the building we find out Scrap Iron (always one of my favorites) and some vipers are trying to break into the vault. The Joes assault the building in bad-ass fashion, di...

#yojoeday ! Special Missions 16 This issue is a rare crossover issue with the regular series. It is also strange in that Cobra Commander actually makes an appearance.  This isn’t my favorite issue by far, but it has some stuff going for it. We start with the Joes spying on Cobra Island with their satellite in the aftermath of the Cobra civil war. Check out the “Magnify and Enhance” buttons Mainframe uses. Love it. Cobra is moving a bunch of suspicious material around on their airstrip and the Joes want to know what’s up. So all the Joe jets, joined for the first time by their stealth pilot (what’s his name again? no one knows ) head out to take some “funny pictures.” Wild Bill, Mainframe, and Lady Jaye follow in a C-130 decked out with electronic warfare equipment.  Reaching Cobra Island, there is the predictable dogfight, and we learn again that the secret of the Joes is that they are a team, while Cobra is a conglomeration of individually motivated mercenaries who can’t work togeth...