Muhammad Ali, 2025 hype meter, and shameless plugs
Showing posts with label GI Joe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GI Joe. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2025
Monday, January 24, 2022
G. I. JOE #60 - June 1987 (The Commercial, Not the Comic)
Watch out Joe 'cause trouble awaits ya!
The Dreadnok cycle's gonna devastate ya!
G.I. Joe -- A Real American Hero!
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Teenage Heartthrob Blogfest
You can read more about the specifics here, but in essence, the purpose of this blogfest is to list seven of the characters/celebrities you crushed on back when you were a teenager. So without further ado, here's my list, and be sure to check out the other participants posts, handily listed at the bottom of this one.
Scarlett
As seen in GI Joe: A Real American Hero
Scarlett is the the chicken/egg scenario of my infatuation with redheads. I have no idea if I was drawn to Scarlett in the early goings of my attraction to the opposite sex because she was a redhead, or if my ongoing infatuation with redheads is born of my initial attraction to Scarlett. At any rate, Scarlett represents the first time Lil'Teebore thought "hey, that girl is hot!"
Scarlett
As seen in GI Joe: A Real American Hero
Scarlett is the the chicken/egg scenario of my infatuation with redheads. I have no idea if I was drawn to Scarlett in the early goings of my attraction to the opposite sex because she was a redhead, or if my ongoing infatuation with redheads is born of my initial attraction to Scarlett. At any rate, Scarlett represents the first time Lil'Teebore thought "hey, that girl is hot!"
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Teebore's Summer Movie Report Card
The calendar has changed, there's snow in the forecast and I haven't seen a movie in several weeks, which means it's time for the Summer Movie Report Card!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
To Better Know A Hero: Snake-Eyes
Real Name: UnknownFirst Appearance: G.I. Joe (vol. 1) #1 June 1982
Nicknames and Alias: The Silent Master
Powers and Abilities: Primary MOS-Infantry, Secondary MOS-Hand to Hand Combat Instructor; trained in Karate, Kung-Fu, Jujitsu, Ninjitsu, Tae kwon do, and other martial arts.
He is also, apparently, highly immune to radiation.
Weaknesses and Achilles' Heels: Snake-Eyes is mute and for a period of time, his face was horribly scarred and disfigured.
Gadgets and Accessories: Proficient in all NATO and Warsaw Pact arms and various ninja weapons; when disfigured, he would sometimes wear advanced rubber masks to disguise his features when in public and out of his usual uniform.
Friends and Allies: Timber (his pet wolf), Scarlett, Storm Shadow (at times), Stalker, Kamakura (his apprentice), the Soft Master, General Hawk and the rest of the G.I. Joe team.
Foes and Antagonists: Storm Shadow (at other times), Zartan, Firefly, Cobra Commander, Destro and the rest of Cobra.
One Sentence Origin: After several tours of duty in a Long Range Recon Patrol in Southeast Asia (alongside Stalker and Storm Shadow), Snake-Eyes trained as a ninja before joining the G.I. Joe team and, in one of their earliest missions, damaged his face and vocal chords rescuing Scarlett from a crashing helicopter, leading him to adopt the silent visage of Snake-Eyes.
Memorable Moment: G.I. Joe (vol. 1) #21 March 1984: In the famous "silent" issue (in which the story is told without dialogue, captions, or sound effects), Snake-Eyes singlehandedly infiltrates Destro's stronghold to rescue a captured Scarlett, and faces off against Storm Shadow for the first time.
Fun Fact: Larry Hama, who wrote almost every issue of the Marvel G.I. Joe comic book series, also wrote all of the filecards found on the back of the G.I. Joe action figure cards.
Teebore's Take: Without a doubt, Snake-Eyes is to the G.I. Joe comic book story what Wolverine is to the X-Men: that dark, mysterious character nearly everyone knows and loves. In many ways, the entirety of the comic book series is Snake-Eyes' story (especially towards the end of the Marvel series, where his name was featured larger than "G.I. Joe"): the mythology and back story of the character form the spine of the overall G.I. Joe narrative, with numerous characters, both good and bad, tying back to him in some way.
In addition to (or as a result of) his popularity in the comic book, Snake-Eyes remains the most popular and bestselling action figure of the entire line, with several dozen different figures released through the years.
Of course, in the cartoon, Snake-Eyes was, at best, a minor character, appearing in the background of many episodes and featured in only a few (even his relationship with Scarlett was usurped by Duke on the show). Whether this was because the writers of the cartoon didn't hold the same affection for the character as Larry Hama, or because the things that could be done with a mute ninja on a TV show that had to keep the violence from being too realistic were fairly limited, is unknown. It will be interesting to see what kind of a role the character has in the live action film, still hampered by his lack of dialogue but able to cut loose a bit more in terms of action.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Real American Heroes in Reagan's America
Life in the 80s was, in many ways, simple: greed was good, the Soviets were bad, and the military industrial complex was flush with cash, mute ninjas, and sassy redheads.
To celebrate the recently re-released GI Joe Season 1.1 DVD set by Shout! Factory, let's look back at Reagan's America through the prism of GI Joe's first adventure (all screen caps courtesy of the Joe Toon Archive).
In Reagan's America...
...spy satellites weren't very effective.
Osama bin Laden has managed to evade US forces for almost a decade thanks to a byzantine network of tunnels and caves, living on the run and relying on supporters that blend in with non-terrorist citizens. Similarly, Cobra, a "ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world" avoided detection and a full out assault by the GI Joe team by stealthily hiding out in...an enormous castle, adorned with giant cobra heads.
...Halloween masks were much better.
...radiation was no big deal.
In their first big offensive, Cobra stole the MASS Device, a weapon that enabled them to teleport anyone or anything anywhere in the world, and used it to hold the world hostage. The MASS Device was powered by three rare "catalytic elements". The GI Joe team, in need of those elements to power their own MASS Device intended to counter Cobra's and Cobra, needing to restock their supply of the elements, raced each other to the elements' locations. One such element, radioactive crystals, was located in certain Arctic caves.
Snake-Eyes, trapped inside of such a cave with said crystals, is left for dead by the Joe team. He manages to emerge from the cave with a stock of the crystals, so irradiated that he is literally glowing.
After rescuing a trapped timber wolf and tussling with a polar bear, Snake-Eyes, who was presumably a few heartbeats away from going nuclear and eliminating any future protection via MAD, collapsed and was found by a kindly blind hermit. A few Arctic herbs, a bath and a load of laundry later and Snake-Eyes is as good as new.
...polar bears were enormous.
...the ocean floor was less hazardous.
Another of the coveted catalytic elements was heavy water which, not to be confused with the heavy water used in atomic experiments, was only found in a pool at the bottom of a deep ocean trench.
As the crushing pressure of the ocean depths is a recent occurrence, Joe and Cobra divers merely donned wetsuits and scuba gear for their journey to the ocean floor.
The water on the ocean floor was warmer as well, considering the divers didn't even need to wear gloves of any sort. Take that, global warming.
Though one did still have to worry about the giant tube worms.
...jet packs were plentiful, and existed.
...steroids were also plentiful.
...timber wolves could be domesticated.
Once an endangered species, in the 80s some timber wolves were apparently domesticated and inserted into military units, where they served with valor, often alongside mute ninja commandos.
...women were highly-regarded soldiers, fighting alongside their male counterparts.
But sometimes, they still got stuck cooking.
To celebrate the recently re-released GI Joe Season 1.1 DVD set by Shout! Factory, let's look back at Reagan's America through the prism of GI Joe's first adventure (all screen caps courtesy of the Joe Toon Archive).
In Reagan's America...
...spy satellites weren't very effective.
Osama bin Laden has managed to evade US forces for almost a decade thanks to a byzantine network of tunnels and caves, living on the run and relying on supporters that blend in with non-terrorist citizens. Similarly, Cobra, a "ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world" avoided detection and a full out assault by the GI Joe team by stealthily hiding out in...an enormous castle, adorned with giant cobra heads.
...Halloween masks were much better.
...radiation was no big deal.
In their first big offensive, Cobra stole the MASS Device, a weapon that enabled them to teleport anyone or anything anywhere in the world, and used it to hold the world hostage. The MASS Device was powered by three rare "catalytic elements". The GI Joe team, in need of those elements to power their own MASS Device intended to counter Cobra's and Cobra, needing to restock their supply of the elements, raced each other to the elements' locations. One such element, radioactive crystals, was located in certain Arctic caves.
Snake-Eyes, trapped inside of such a cave with said crystals, is left for dead by the Joe team. He manages to emerge from the cave with a stock of the crystals, so irradiated that he is literally glowing.
After rescuing a trapped timber wolf and tussling with a polar bear, Snake-Eyes, who was presumably a few heartbeats away from going nuclear and eliminating any future protection via MAD, collapsed and was found by a kindly blind hermit. A few Arctic herbs, a bath and a load of laundry later and Snake-Eyes is as good as new.
...polar bears were enormous.
...the ocean floor was less hazardous.
Another of the coveted catalytic elements was heavy water which, not to be confused with the heavy water used in atomic experiments, was only found in a pool at the bottom of a deep ocean trench.
As the crushing pressure of the ocean depths is a recent occurrence, Joe and Cobra divers merely donned wetsuits and scuba gear for their journey to the ocean floor.
The water on the ocean floor was warmer as well, considering the divers didn't even need to wear gloves of any sort. Take that, global warming.
Though one did still have to worry about the giant tube worms.
...jet packs were plentiful, and existed.
...steroids were also plentiful.
...timber wolves could be domesticated.
Once an endangered species, in the 80s some timber wolves were apparently domesticated and inserted into military units, where they served with valor, often alongside mute ninja commandos.
...women were highly-regarded soldiers, fighting alongside their male counterparts.
But sometimes, they still got stuck cooking.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Did You Know?
That Francois Chau, who plays Dr. Chang on Lost...
...also played Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles II: Secret of the Ooze...
...and was the voice of Quick-Kick on GI Joe?
Crazy.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Teebore's 5 Favorite Gifts from Childhood Christmases Past
The Eborsisk: When the movie Willow came out, I was mildly obsessed with it for awhile. And for me, as a kid, "obsessed" more or less meant "wanted any and all merchandise associated with the film, especially the toys."
Unfortunately, the Willow toys were pretty lame: they weren't poseable, at all, and they all came fastened to these metal bases from which I inevitably removed them forcibly in an attempt to make them more "action figure-y" and less "hunks of plastic."
But the crown jewel of the Willow figures, as far as I was concerned, was the Eborsisk, the two-headed dragon Madmartigan fights in Tir Asleen (reportedly named for Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel). I received it Christmas morning of 1988 (or maybe '89). It was in-scale to the other "toys" in the line and was actually poseable. Plus, it was just the right size to crossover and double as a twisted experiment of Cobra amongst my GI Joe figures.
Voltron: Good ol' Voltron, Defender of the Universe. The highlight of Christmas '86 this version was made by Panosh Place as part of their Voltron action figure line. It was actually a set of all five lions (Yellow, Blue, Red, Green, and Black..."and I'll form the head!") that snapped together to form Voltron AND were sized such that the Voltron Force pilots could fit inside their respective lions.
Of course, the set also came with a not-quite Blazing Sword and other Robobeast-smashing accessories.
She-Ra: Yeah, yeah, make all the gay cracks about lil'Teebore playing with dolls you want*, the fact remains that She-Ra was He-Man's sister which meant, despite the rooted-hair and comb accessory, 6-year old Teebore HAD to have this figure.
But what cements She-Ra's place on this list is the fact that I received She-Ra and her...pink...horse...Swiftwind (*sigh*) from Santa Claus himself, who chose to make a personal appearance at my house in Sharon, Pennsylvania that Christmas for reasons unknown (but presumably because I had been such a good boy that year). Of course, it was too bad that my Grandpa chose that moment to step out and missed meeting Saint Nick himself...
*in my defense, though I didn't really think about it at the time, She-Ra is pretty hot.
Trypticon: It is a well-documentated fact that transforming robots are awesome. But a transforming robot that's also a dinosaur? That's even awesomer, especially for a kid who LOVED dinosaurs almost as much as transforming robots.
Trypticon is the Decepticon's evil base, and as his name suggests, could transform from a dinosaur to a city to a battle-station-ready city. He could even walk on his own, thanks to a couple of batteries in his tail.
Of course, being a transforming city, he should really be much, much larger, but the Transformer toys have always had issues with scale (something that bothered even lil'Teebore).
However, the fact remains, opening a present to reveal a transforming robot dinosaur makes for one hell of a good Christmas, no matter how old you are.
Cobra Terror Drome: For a GI Joe fan in the Christmas of 1988 (especially one, like me, who found Cobra much cooler than GI Joe itself), the Terror Drome was the holy grail of toys.
Check out Dial-Tone in Cobra jail like a chump.
It came with a sweet little jet (the Firebat) that launched from the center of the base, and had all kinds of fun things, like a jail for pesky GI Joes, a refueling station and really big guns.
I love that the box points out the "reclining chairs" as one of the toy's features.
Unfortunately, the Willow toys were pretty lame: they weren't poseable, at all, and they all came fastened to these metal bases from which I inevitably removed them forcibly in an attempt to make them more "action figure-y" and less "hunks of plastic."
But the crown jewel of the Willow figures, as far as I was concerned, was the Eborsisk, the two-headed dragon Madmartigan fights in Tir Asleen (reportedly named for Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel). I received it Christmas morning of 1988 (or maybe '89). It was in-scale to the other "toys" in the line and was actually poseable. Plus, it was just the right size to crossover and double as a twisted experiment of Cobra amongst my GI Joe figures.
Voltron: Good ol' Voltron, Defender of the Universe. The highlight of Christmas '86 this version was made by Panosh Place as part of their Voltron action figure line. It was actually a set of all five lions (Yellow, Blue, Red, Green, and Black..."and I'll form the head!") that snapped together to form Voltron AND were sized such that the Voltron Force pilots could fit inside their respective lions.
Of course, the set also came with a not-quite Blazing Sword and other Robobeast-smashing accessories.
She-Ra: Yeah, yeah, make all the gay cracks about lil'Teebore playing with dolls you want*, the fact remains that She-Ra was He-Man's sister which meant, despite the rooted-hair and comb accessory, 6-year old Teebore HAD to have this figure.
But what cements She-Ra's place on this list is the fact that I received She-Ra and her...pink...horse...Swiftwind (*sigh*) from Santa Claus himself, who chose to make a personal appearance at my house in Sharon, Pennsylvania that Christmas for reasons unknown (but presumably because I had been such a good boy that year). Of course, it was too bad that my Grandpa chose that moment to step out and missed meeting Saint Nick himself...
*in my defense, though I didn't really think about it at the time, She-Ra is pretty hot.
Trypticon: It is a well-documentated fact that transforming robots are awesome. But a transforming robot that's also a dinosaur? That's even awesomer, especially for a kid who LOVED dinosaurs almost as much as transforming robots.
Trypticon is the Decepticon's evil base, and as his name suggests, could transform from a dinosaur to a city to a battle-station-ready city. He could even walk on his own, thanks to a couple of batteries in his tail.
Of course, being a transforming city, he should really be much, much larger, but the Transformer toys have always had issues with scale (something that bothered even lil'Teebore).
However, the fact remains, opening a present to reveal a transforming robot dinosaur makes for one hell of a good Christmas, no matter how old you are.
Cobra Terror Drome: For a GI Joe fan in the Christmas of 1988 (especially one, like me, who found Cobra much cooler than GI Joe itself), the Terror Drome was the holy grail of toys.
Check out Dial-Tone in Cobra jail like a chump.It came with a sweet little jet (the Firebat) that launched from the center of the base, and had all kinds of fun things, like a jail for pesky GI Joes, a refueling station and really big guns.
I love that the box points out the "reclining chairs" as one of the toy's features. Needless to say, this is one Christmas present that became the centerpiece of many a GI Joe adventure, and was played with until long after it fell apart.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)