G.I. Joe – Page 30 – European Joe's

Street Closed. Do not enter. Detour.

I’m afraid we may have to take a detour this time around. There appears to be something in the way. Impel Trading Card #30 is Roadblock!

The G.I. Joe’s resident gourmet chef is up this week. Roadblock was introduced in the comics alongside Duke at the funeral of General Flagg. Cobra tries to attack the mourning Joes with the new Rattler plane, but Duke and Roadblock shoot the plane down. Quite the entrance one might say.

In the cartoons, Roadblock is best remembered for being the rhyming cook. His aunt and uncle are introduced in the Red Rocket’s Glare episode, one of the first episodes that come to mind when I think of the cartoons. Roadblock is also featured in 2 of the PSA videos, warning kids about power lines and strangers.

In G.I. Joe The Movie, Roadblock – though being blinded by the Nemesis Enforcer – is the only one able to escape from Cobra-La. He carries a mutating Cobra Commander (I was-s-s-s once a man) on his back who functions as his eyes. When they get found by a Joe search party, Cobra Commander is fully mutated into a snake and slithers away. Roadblock then gets his vision back and leads the Joes to Cobra-La where the end battle takes place.

In Renegades, Roadblock is one of the ‘fugitive’ Joes. This time he is bigger and more driver/mechanic than heavy gunner. He (luckily) doesn’t speak in rhyme, but still likes to cook.

And then there was Retaliation and The Rock… I like to think of the live action movies as slightly better than average Action movies, but not as G.I. Joe movies. Sure they have sort of the same characters (Scarlett and Ripcord, really??), but it’s not canon. Kind of like what they did with the Devil’s Due comics, nice stories, but disavowed.

Over the years, there have been 24 figures released. The first one in 1984 had orange-brown pants and didn’t look too good if you ask me. The 1986 figure, shows the Roadblock figure in his gray pants and green top that is used in the comics and cartoons. In 1988 and 1993, Roadblock was part of the subteams Tiger-Force and Star Brigade. The last 4 figures have been modeled to resemble The Rock and aren’t bad, but as mentioned above, I can’t see them as being reincarnations of an African-American, rhyming cook that can run around with a M2 Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun.

To end this post, I’ll leave you with the following music video from Stock Aitken Waterman. This song has great vibes and I’d like to think that Larry Hama was listening to this when he created the Roadblock character. Listen for yourself and let me know what you think.

Next time, we’ll need the following ingredients…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

That ain´t football

This week we have arrived at Impel Trading Card #29. One of my favourite figures of all time. Ladies (there are some of you reading this right?) and Gents, I present you Captain Grid-Iron (or Gridiron).

Released as a figure in 1990, only one version of the figure has ever been released. He came with a lot of accessories, but the coolest thing about the figure are his football shaped grenades. His codename is written as Grid-Iron on the filecard, but on the Trading Card they wrote it without the hyphen.

In the Marvel Comics, he is seen in just one comic. The Devil´s Due run has him featuring on the cover of issue #25. Most people will remember Grid-Iron from his appearances in the DIC cartoon series. He is in charge of the team in absence of Hawk and Sgt. Slaughter. The most memorable episode is the one in which the Joes play a football match against Cobra… Genius, right. (See Youtube). On the subject of football, you can´t really call that game football now can you? A few weeks ago, the same discussion was shown in The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime. In Europe, we have a whole different opinion on what football (what the Americans like to call soccer) is.

I looked over the whole football difference, for me, Captain Grid-Iron was a cool figure, with a lot of accessories. Every Joe collector should definitely have this figure in his/her collection.

Until next time! We may have to take a detour then…

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Big in Japan

This week we visit a son of the Land of the Rising Sun. Tommy Arashikage, better known as the Cobra Commander’s ninja bodyguard and assassin, Storm Shadow.

As with every good written character, the real situation is not that black and white. Tommy really is a good guy, an honorable ninja. He got his ninja training, before enlisting in the US Army and serving in the Long Range Recon Patrol along with Snake-Eyes, Stalker, Wade Collins, Dickie Saperstein and Ramon Escobedo. (Listen to A Letter from Snake-Eyes Pt1 from Wordburglar)

He became besties with Snake-Eyes and after the war and drama in Snake-Eyes’ personal life. They both went to Japan to (re-)join the Arashikage Ninja Clan. Snake-Eyes soon became the better of Tommy and it was rumoured that he would become the new leader, even though Tommy was the nephew of the Hard Master. No spoilers here, but long story short. The Hard Master was killed with one of Tommy’s arrows – intended for Snake-Eyes- and Tommy fled from the ninja clan. He joined Cobra because the Commander promised him he would reveal the true identity of the masked man who killed the Hard Master. If you want the long story, check out the entire A Real American Hero run (from Marvel and IDW) 🙂

In the original cartoons, his rivalry/friendship with Snake-Eyes was replaced by honorable fights with Spirit and Quick Kick. The DIC cartoons however, follow the toy line more closely and in these episodes, Storm Shadow is a member of the G.I. Joe Ninja Force. Later on in the Spy Troops and Valor vs Venom cartoons/movies, Stormy is back with Cobra and does have some face-offs with Snake-Eyes.

As for what the figures is concerned, there are about 7,452 different versions of Storm Shadow out there. (The actual number may be closer to 50, but hey, who’s counting). I recently got the v9 from 2002. Here he is wearing his suit from the Ninja Force, but it’s red and has a Cobra sigil. The most cherished Storm Shadow in my collection is the v4 from 1994. This is the color changing Shadow Ninja one. I have the Belgian Ducth/French carded one (I also have Snake Eyes v6 carded). Lastly, I just saw the v1 of Storm Shadow posted by a fellow collector an Instagram I want to show to the world. It’s like a toothpaste commercial, so WHITE! Check it out here. In Dutch, Storm Shadow is called “Bliksemschicht”, which translates into Lightning Bolt (落雷 in Japanese).

Next time, we’ll tackle one of my all time favorite figures.

Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Comic Book Update

The first G.I.Joe comic I ever read, was the Dutch Special Missions TPB #5. I was about 12 years and found the book in a bargain bin on the local Comic Con. Now when I say Comic Con, I mean more of a pop-up fair and shop in a giant tent where Belgian Comic Book artists came to sign their art once a year. My hometown – Middelkerke – is sort of famous for that Comic Fair. I´ll leave a link to their site here (Dutch only). Belgian (and by extension the European) Comic Books are different from the North America comics. Not just in size, but also the themes and drawing styles. Most famous is probably Tintin, but other series like Lucky Luke and Asterix are also known all over the world.

Back to G.I. Joe comics. After I bought that TPB #5, I went looking for the other ones. I soon found #6, and then a few years later, I found #3 in another bargain bin when a local Comic Book Shop closed and they sold of their entire stock. A few years later and thanks to eBay, I found issues 1 and 4 in the Netherlands. But TPB #2 was the elusive one. The white raven, the unattainable one.

Last week, I finally was able to track down the TPB #2 on a Dutch auction site. It was in great condition and only $7. Naturally, I didn´t have to think about it long and bought it on the spot. Fast Forward to today and enter the mailman. It´s here and my Speciale Opdrachten Omnibus collection is now complete. I haven´t read it yet (I have all the Special Missions in singles and in trades in English), but here´s some great art I want to share.

Maybe I´ll start looking for the single comics in Dutch now (there should be 19 of them)… Gotta keep collecting 😉

See you around again!

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

We’re going under!

We have dived and have arrived. Card #27 is up today and let’s not get astray. Rhyming like I’m Roadblock, just cause I’ve got writer’s block. Playing on you some mind tricks cause this post features Deep Six.

His filecard describes Deep Six as being a social loner within the Joe team. I can only guess, but I guess it has something to do with his high-pressure diving suit. Being locked into that probably feels like being in a coffin. Claustrophobic anyone?

The toy figure is undoubtedly the least articulate Joe figure of all time. Not counting the dogs, wolfs and parrots 🙂 It was released with the S.H.A.R.C. vehicle, some sort of crossover between a fighter jet and a one-man submarine. I really do like the S.H.A.R.C. as a toy, it’s versatile and not too big, nor too small. The Deep Six, however, is not one of my favorites. I didn’t have the original 1984 figure, but the 1989 one with the bright orange helmet. I always saw G.I. Joe as sci-fi, but then in the not so distant future (as they put it in the movies). Why would you have a guy in a big metal suit in which he can hardly move in a high-tech team? Same goes for the 1989 figure, his diving suit offers more maneuverability, but it still looks more steampunk than G.I. Joe worthy. Then came the 1992 Eco-Warriors figure that was released with the dolphin Finback. He had a more futuristic look and finally looked in place with the Joes, albeit in bright colors.

That’s it for now. Next time we will explore the shadows of Japan… Mysterious, right?

Happy Collecting and YoJoe!