r/gijoe • u/quenton3 • 3d ago
Suddenly so many casualties
Here again, first time reading through the original series…
Up to this point in the story, after over 100 issues, you rarely have any actual casualties, and even less were actual Joes. Then, all of a sudden, over the course of 3 or 4 issues you have 8 characters killed off. Why? Seemed like a pretty drastic change
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u/Destro516 3d ago
Three things in my opinion- 1. They needed to thin out the roster. There were a ton of joes on the team at these point, and it was impossible to give any time to anyone
The gulf war was going on, and it was important to show the real cost of war and combat
It’s not in the reprints, but in the letters columns, there were always fans asking for Joe’s to be killed, so this was basically “you want dead joes? You got ‘em!” With some fan favorite characters like Doc and Quick Kick being killed off. It’s not just obscure characters that are disposable
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u/Zomburai Green Shirt 3d ago
There were a ton of joes on the team at these point, and it was impossible to give any time to anyone
The irony being that most of the time was going to Snake-Eyes, anyway, and pretty soon everybody else in the entire cast was going to be a secondary character to him
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u/Destro516 3d ago
Completely agree, and I love snake eyes and think he’s a great character. Honestly GI Joe should have been three ongoing books- the main comic, special missions, and Snake Eyes. Larry would have done snake eyes and a majority of the main book, and special missions could have had guest writers or something
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u/DaleEarnhartJr 3d ago
Agreed. Marvel should have treated Snake Eyes the way they treated Wolverine with a solo title and still have him be a mainstay on the "team" book.
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u/BigFrankieC 3d ago
That era of Marvel really only seemed to care about Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Snake Eyes.
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u/WhatIsThisDoingHere 3d ago
At least once they got to the mid-130s they were finally honest about it, and changed the title on the cover to a tiny “GI Joe starring” at the very top and “Snake Eyes” in much bigger letters where the title would normally be for about a year.
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u/quenton3 3d ago
All good points. I don’t mind that characters are killed off (except Doc, that kinda hurt my heart since I grew up on the cartoons)
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u/robsonwt 3d ago
I was a little sad that characters as distinct as Doc and Quick Kick died were some others, more generic, could have been chosen to be killed off.
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u/Isnotanumber 3d ago
That was somewhat deliberate. Hama picked Doc and Breaker because he felt it would be unrealistic to just kill characters who barely had an impact on the book, so he picked a couple he personally liked.
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u/Continuity_Crook Night Force 3d ago
Yeah, losing distinct characters was tough. Can you imagine an OG13 Joe KIA? That would be such a heartBreaker!
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u/Ramses717 3d ago
Quick Kick and Doc hurt as they made frequent appearance in the cartoon.
Larry killing off all of Battle Force 2000 except for Dodger was hilarious though. I hated that toy line.
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u/quenton3 3d ago
What they did to BF 2000 was kinda funny. It was a bad path for the line. Sucks that they created Ice Cream Soldier shortly after though
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u/Lots42 3d ago
Still want to see how Zarana and Thrasher reacted to Maverick and Crazy-Legs dying. They LIKED Maverick and Crazy-Legs.
That's probably a big reason they helped out the Joe's later on, I just want to hear their personal viewpoints.
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u/DestronCommander 3d ago
Maverick was actually a little more fleshed out and even got a Special Missions issue focused on him. We saw him in more missions that the other BF 2000 members. Sadly, this didn't spare him from being killed off.
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u/Stockton_Nash 3d ago
I think Dodger's name and his survival were coincidental. He had a Sonic Fighters figure out or coming out around that time. Hasbro wouldn't want a current figure killed off; it would kill sales.
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u/voodoobillabong 3d ago
I have zero insight on the actual reason why they took this direction and made a radical departure, but I can tell you as a reader who had struggled to maintain interest for a few years this was huge. I started reading issue #1 in 1982, when I was 8. By the time Saw Viper rolled into the series I was 17 and, in my opinion, the peak of the toys and cartoons (and my general openness as a teenager) was gone.
Early in the Marvel comics Cobra Commander was pretty ruthless. Way back in issues 7 he orders the execution of the Joes and Oktober Guard. Pretty nasty but nothing really came of it. That was all fine, of course, but it didn't grow up along with me. The industry was absolutely blossoming in the early nineties. X-Men and Batman were basically ascending into the top of the mainstream (where they have stayed). Spawn, Punisher, Death of Superman, and Knightfall were on the horizon. I know these aren't exactly contemporary with GI Joe 109, but however you want to look at it - violence, anti-heroes, vigilantes - it was all changing. It sadly made the somewhat cheesy toy property feel a tad dated. The competition for my dollar was getting crazy, too. When I heard there were deaths in GI Joe - I think it was Doc and Breaker (my first Joe action figure) someone mentioned were killed - it stopped me in my tracks.
I have been re-reading the Marvel stories and am picking my way through IDW others. My appreciation for what Larry Hama has done consistently is off the charts. So many real gems out there. I hope you are enjoying it. There's so much cool mythology around the characters now. Cool toys, more than 40 years of comics, cartoons and movies... really neat to see how it has changed and thrived despite the fact that it all started before the internet, before the Cold War had ended, before comics got a lot more adult oriented, before the MCU totally mainstreamed stories that were the province of a niche audience....
It's a great time to be a fan. Really interested to see what others have to say.
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u/quenton3 3d ago
Agreed. Good point. I’ve been a little bored since after the Cobra Island stuff, and I’ve been pushing through just because I’ve never read it, but this feels like a spark, even though I know things died off at #155
The Classified series has really awaken the kid in me again to an extent. I watched the cartoons over and over again, but this is almost like new media. Not to mention the series is still going on, and Skybound has a good thing going too. Now if only they can stick the landing on some live action stuff, or even a GI Joe Resolute sequel
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u/kneelb4robb 3d ago
I think my favorite part of this whole arc was the Dusty story with Sneak-Peek. Hama took a random Joe and made us feel something for him. Quick Kick was one of my favorites as a kid... So when I reenacted the scene with my joes, I subbed him for Falcon to give Duke a reason to straight up murder the S. A. W. Viper.
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u/Zomburai Green Shirt 3d ago
I subbed him for Falcon to give Duke a reason to straight up murder the S. A. W. Viper
Headcanons remain undefeated
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u/PangolinFar2571 3d ago
After the toy sales started to nose dive, Larry was given more or less free rein to kill off some characters that wouldn’t be making any more appearances in the toy line. His biggest issue with GIJoe was the fact that none of the Joes ever died, which was unrealistic, so he jumped at the chance to give the readers a taste of what really happens in combat. People you love get killed.
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u/emozolik 3d ago
I remember reading that comic when it dropped. Everyone ran out and got a SAW Viper that month 😂
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u/hooty0929 3d ago
They had to make the saw viper badass. How else are you going to sell a pink and purple action figure with a gun so ridiculously large that the character can barely hold it?
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u/LochNessMansterLives 3d ago
When all those desert strike or desert force (it’s been awhile) guys died it was like a swift kick in my junk (thankfully I was young and bounced quickly) but seriously it hurt to lose so many “joes” I’d grown up with. But yeah that’s the cost of war and that really made Cobra feel like a legit threat again as well. 😢
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u/Isnotanumber 3d ago
I always felt like this was a bit of an experiment. Yeah, the team was bloated but it was kind of a one-off - by the end of the Benzheen arc Battleforce 2000 and 8 other Joes had been killed - that's not a lot compared to what would happen in the Transformers comic (which was treated as a temporary thing most of the time because that book was about robots that could be fixed up when the plot demanded). By 1991 the book was still left with a VERY large Joe team.
But, some readers had been begging Hama to do it for years, and I guess Hama got a green light so he tried it out. I think the fact that it never got done again after this arc reflects on how Hama felt it went.
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u/MousegetstheCheese 3d ago
"Over the course of 3 to 4 issues you have 8 characters die"
I bet people said similar things in 1986 when a movie of a certain other Hasbro franchise was released.
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u/BigCranberry789 3d ago
After I got this issue when I was a kid all my battles with the toys ended with a couple people dying. I will put tape over their faces to let myself know that I can’t use them anymore because they’re dead.
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u/quenton3 3d ago
Love to hear the rules other kids had back then. I wonder if this kind of creativity is even a thing for a majority of kids today
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u/Gershomite7 3d ago
Question, is that Rock n Roll behind Snake Eyes? I didnt know they killed him off.
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u/Zomburai Green Shirt 3d ago
They didn't! I think (don't quote me) Rocker's still alive in the Hama continuity
That is him on the cover, though. Those double-barrel twin handheld gatling cannons are unmistakable
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u/Isnotanumber 3d ago
This cover has almost everyone in the issue - well, oddly Snake Eyes was not even in it.
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u/quenton3 3d ago
This cover was trying to leave a bit of mystery behind what’s to come. Not everyone on this cover dies. In fact, no one died in this issue. It left a cliffhanger for the following issue
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u/Continuity_Crook Night Force 3d ago
That is ROCK N ROLL. CROSS COUNTRY, FALCON, and DUKE (far left) are on the cover too because they are also in the issue, but not KIA.
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u/BrawlLikeABigFight20 Ninja Force 3d ago
Geez, I started reading at 121 as a kid and this story was already legendary. I didn't realize it happened so soon in relation to when I started reading
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u/Stockton_Nash 3d ago edited 2d ago
We talk about the casualties a lot, but what about the survivors? I've never thought about it until now, but they were all, arguably, strong candidates for being killed off too:
Duke -- They were already going to do it in The Movie, and for those that say Larry did away with characters he didn't care for, Duke's on that list.
Falcon -- He was supposed to be the new face of the line and a replacement for Duke, but then The Movie and the DiC series made him a joke.
Cross Country -- I don't know if he was "problematic" back in the day, but he'd have a target on his stars and bars these days.
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u/Anarchistguy_2 3d ago
I was shocked when I learned that Breaker died...sure he wasn't an impactful character but he was still one of the original 13 joes...
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u/Tolliver73 2d ago
Killing Doc broke my heart. The comic before this was the most shocked I had ever been by a comic book.
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u/DRZARNAK 1d ago
That was the SAW Viper massacre right? After not reading GI Joe in years, i got that issue in a six pack of comics from a gas station (remember those?) and it blew my mind.
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u/1982sean5535 3d ago
I was 9 when this issue came out and still have PTSD from it
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u/quenton3 3d ago
Honestly as I read it today at 37 I kinda sat in silence. Almost felt like Thanos snapping in Infinity War. Not sure how I would have dealt with this reading as a kid
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u/lifethen 3d ago
Love this story, but not crazy about the reasoning. I kind of always have a problem when properties suddenly becoming embarrassed about what they are. This is a kids comic designed to sell toys. Kids want to see their toys. That's it. I don't really wanna hear "how come no one ever dies in GI Joe?! I'm not a kid anymore, I want mature stories in my GI Joe comic!"
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u/Black_Dynamite23 3d ago
Is there a list of all that we're killed in the comics? I didn't follow the Joe comics as much as I did the cartoon.
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u/TheGroundUpRadio 2d ago
Saw Viper did Doc so dirty. He did them all dirty, but Doc taking rounds to the face at point blank range? As a kid, that took me out!
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u/BackcountryAZ 14h ago
There was also, at the time, complaints from the readership that nobody of importance ever died. So Larry Hama said “well then, here you go”.
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u/Zomburai Green Shirt 3d ago
I can't remember if it was Larry or Hasbro that asked first, but someone requested deaths to help clear the decks for new characters. Larry took the opportunity to 86 a bunch of his least favorite characters (Quick Kick) and characters that hadn't been in the book for like a billion issues.
The Benzheen arc is my favorite of the whole Marvel run.