Tuesday, June 5, 2007

GI Joe Classic #63 - My First Ever Comic

G.I.Joe Classic #63. Ah, here it is. The first comic book I ever owned, straight out of 1987. If I remember correctly, I got it at a hotel gift store while on a family trip. It had Snake Eyes on the cover and I probably bugged my Dad to buy it for me. I never understood why it said "Classic" on it until a few days ago. I guess there were only 5,000 of each of these made and mine has been beat up, folded, creased and sat upon that it wouldn't fetch the $22-$200 range these other ones have.


Anyway - on to the actual issue itself. The cover is misleading - even though Snake Eyes and Scarlet walk through a mine field, they aren't wearing their costumes when it happens. They are, in fact, on vacation with Flint and Lady Jaye so they're in casual resort wear. I'm surprised Snake Eyes doesn't wear his ninja costume all the time, since Cobra shows up at the most inappropriate times in the cartoon.


I re-read this the other night and I can't figure out why this particular issue made me want to collect comics. It was (and still is) the only G.I. Joe comic I read, so the story makes no sense to me. Apparently the Joes have Cobra Commander's son (?) in captivity, and Storm Shadow is out of his badass ninja costume and working with the Joes. The aforementioned Joes are on vacation, and some other Joes are held captive doing grunt work. Roadblock, meanwhile, as back at Joe HQ and working on a touch football game.

At the end, some dipshit shows up at the end and wants a boat ride to Cobra Island. I hope he's planning on blowing some stuff up or taking compromising photos of Tomax and Xamot while he's there.

I was pleased to find this issue contains an appearance from Chuckles. And by pleased, I mean highly annoyed. Chuckles has to be one of the lamest Joes ever, simply because he dresses like a Miami Vice knockoff. If I found my old Chuckles figure tomorrow, I would grind it into pieces and blast it into oblivion. That's how much I hate Chuckles. Plus, his code name is beyond lame. How can anyone take him seriously? "General Hawk, select your team for assassinating Destro." "Yes, sir. I'll take Flint, Recondo, Alpine and leading the team will be Chuckles." Nope, not gonna happen. Screw you, Chuckles. But thank you, G.I. Joe Classic #63 for getting me into comics and thereby taking up 15 years of my life and God knows how much money.
P.S. - Sorry my HTML skillz suck. I'm still learning some of this stuff. (EDITOR'S NOTE: The problems have been fixed. It wasn't that bad.)

1 comment:

Tyler said...

I fixed it, we'll talk.

For some reason, I loved G.I.Joe, I collected it for awhile and I've got a good issue that I want to write a post about.

Yes, Cobra Commander had a son. His name was Billy. Billy had a pretty rough life. The Baroness and Major Bludd brainwashed him to kill his father, then Storm Shadow trained him as a ninja, but when he was on his way to confront his father, he got in a car accident and lost an eye and a leg and was in a coma for awhile. After he woke up he had amnesia, but he somehow was able to aquire a bionic leg. His biggest problem was that he had some major father issues. Cobra Commander was kind of a deadbeat Dad.

And Chuckles did suck. I think I've still got the issue with his first appearance. If his action figure came with Kung Fu Action Grip, he sure didn't have much need for it. And how are you supposed to be undercover when you're wearing a loud shirt and look like a tourist? I don't get it.