Nunc Scio
Thursday, March 30, 2006
  Portraits of My Youth
My extremely violent, pro-American youth, that is.



Man, and you thought Al Qaeda was trouble. Cobra has a frickin' airship and rocketpacks! And what's up with Cobra Commander's voice? Ah, so many memories.
 
Comments:
Well according the Fox News, the War in Iraq stopped Saddam's airship arsenal that would be sold to Al Qaeda.

Though I am very disappointed after watching that clip. The 1980s promised us jetpacks. Why hasn't the military industrial complex spun those off for civilian production?

My final thought is that GI Joe must have its own intellegence branch. No way the CIA could be able to warn them. GI Joe was set up in the Statue of Liberty...with jetpacks no less...ready to fight. CIA should take notes.
 
And did you see that part when the guy with the grappling hook latch onto that jet? That would totally dislocate his shoulders.

As for the intelligence, I'm unconvinved. I mean, they used a giant airship. That has to be easy to track. And with the quantity weaponry and fancy uniforms and logoed parachutes, even the CIA should be able to figure something's up.

To be fair, I have a rocketpack. But it burns my pants all to Hell.
 
the clip certainly played up the american side of GI JOE, but i always liked the equally obvious UN-ish-ness that they had as well. remember all the funny accents all the JOE characters had? a meeting at HQ was like a meeting at, well..the UN.

i proudly own the DVD of the GI JOE movie (with Don Johnson as one of the new characters) and it's one of the only DVD's i have that is region free. i like that, because it's just more UN goodness in my eyes.

no one could find COBRA because they only wore the uniforms while attacking. the rest of the time, as far as i can remember, they remained hidden in their main bases, which was actually an entire small city they had taken over. and the name of that city was...Springfield!
 
Are you suggesting Don Jonson has a funny accent?

Seriously, there are some vaguely utopian elements to the whole GI Joe franchise. They even co-operated with their Soviet equivalents in a few of the comics.

Ah yes, Springfield. I'm not sure why people didn't catch on to that earlier. As far as I can tell, there is one woman in Cobra- The Baroness- so a city full of men would appear somewhat odd. To really nerd it up, Springfield was destroyed in the comics, and Cobra moved to a new town, Broca Beach. Nicer waterfront.
 
i think you've hit on something interesting about cartoons from the 80s: a lot of dudes and one woman. i can only think of the Smurfs as another example, but i'm sure that there are more. (Super Friends comes to mind, because there was only Wonder Woman, but the Legion of Doom had two women.)

the Cobra side had one woman, like you mentioned, and the JOE side had one, too. Lady Jane, right? i think that more came along as the series progressed, but it was still mostly a man's world.

here's something for those with time on their hands made by someone with nothing but time on his hands and love in his heart (who, by the way, is not me):

http://joes.propadeutic.com/
 
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Jack of all trades, master of none, Graeme is many things to many people. Unfortunately, none of them find him very life-affirming in any capacity. He is a freelance writer, broadcaster, amateur cryptozoologist and occasional political commentator late of London, England and now based in Toronto. Most of the time, he's confused. And a little hungry. But mostly just confused and somewhat uncomfortable writing in the third person.

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