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This is a repost from the original s_d. It was written when Bush was president, and things have changed. Moreover, it had remarkably interesting comment threads, so I've changed my mind a lot based on new evidence and analysis. So it's edited, and we can go from here. Call this version 2.0.
I read all the old GI Joe comics. All of them. Thank you internet! One hundred and fifty-five issues, plus 26 of Special Missions, 13 of European Missions, 4 of GI Joe and Transformers, and a bunch of other stuff here and there. They were great.
I consider myself a liberal activist. You can dispute my effectiveness, whatever, the point is that's the way I see the world. I try to work on liberal causes and help make them happen, I go to protests and stuff, I work tables and sit in trees and so on and so forth.
I love GI Joe comics. I always have, ever since I was a kid and they were new and I owned half the toys.
I oppose military adventurism in all the forms that I can. I think America should get out of Iraq tomorrow. I protested the bombing of Iraq when Clinton did it! I think Bush should be tried for war crimes.
But I do love G I Joe comics.
Because they're that damn good.
In this post I discuss issue #1. Note to new readers: GI Joe comics have NOTHING to do with the cartoon. There are characters in common but the structure, goal, and tone are entirely different.
As Mr. Andersen said last time, "looks like the guy is telling Scarlet to GTFO of the little Iwo Jima re-enactment." Not exactly fair to the series as a whole (we'll discuss sexism in G I Joe soon enough, especially as it compares very favorably to the prevalent cliches of 80s comics) but certainly a cogent point.
See, G I Joe isn't afraid to ask the tough questions.
As you know our posting guidelines have gotten even tighter and I'm afraid I'm going to have to remove even more awesome from this than before, and it is at this point that the story begins to suffer. This sucks and I'm sorry. ree pages of the first comic. From this point in I'm just going maximize awesome at the expense of comprehension. That said, lucky for you the story is most of the awesome so you'll be able to pick up most of the plot.
I'll follow a simple rule: if it ain't by Larry Hama it ain't crap. He made the series good. He turned what should be total toxic sludge -- a story about a bunch of toys that promote the American military-industrial complex -- and made it great. And it is great. Sometimes jaw-droppingly so.
We've got a five-page streak on already. They kidnapped her with balloons! And then picked up the balloon with a helicopter which is impossible, but still. Larry Hama obviously agrees with John Ostrander and the Suicide Squad, in that you should introduce the villains first. So here you have them, front and center, the two types of people who give the Joe team the most trouble:
dastardly techno-terrorists
and angry civilians who just don't get it, man.
Now, Hama is astoundingly even-handed through the whole series. I read a really great interview with Jim Owsley that talked about him and made him sound like the greatest, least prejudiced guy ever. That comes through in GI Joe. Every race, color, and creed is well-represented. You even grow to like most of the bad guys. Maybe not Doctor Mindbender. But then, Doctor Mindbender is but a simple orthodontist who accidentally drove himself evil with a mind-control ray, so you have to give the poor guy a break.
You will never see that combat training center again. Guess they didn't feel like making a GI Joe Sensory Deprivation Tank.
The beginning of a long tradition: Cobra lurks in a castle or on an island, again, for the first time. There will also be many cabins in many woods.
Moral complexity! Ah, the first intimations of the Dostoyevskian plunge into the depths of responsibility, of a soldier's burden and a soldier's duty, and also civilians are stupid. So dumb. They should just shut up and let GI Joe protect them.
Meanwhile in Cobra Castle the First:
I didn't read all those words when I was a kid and I'm not reading them now. But isn't it cool! Herb Trimpe could have been excused for phoning it in, because this is a comic book about toys for little boys. But he didn't. This is pure Tothian storytelling win, and it's a shame that people like this don't get work these days. His style's pretty damn rough, lets be honest, and the Baroness looks like she has a weird growth. But it's great! There are mysterious soldiers and a big awesome logo and this freaking dynamic shouty guy in a mask and computers and castles....it's good stuff.
These are the bad guys, and they got their act together. They are serious people, seriously dressed. It is never Casual Friday in Cobra Castle the First.
Hey, Cobra. You want to know the difference between the comic and the cartoon? Panel four.
Lots and lots of people die in this comic. More than an episode of the Sopranos plus one of Six Feet Under, and from a similar variety of reasons. Gunshots "through the center of his mass," heads disappearing "in a fine red mist," and car accidents are the main causes of death. I can't count how many times somebody fires a gun and "breaks his mother's heart."
I'm a little troubled by what Scarlett thinks Snake Eyes is thinking. I don't know how often hostage rescuers think about just shooting the hostage and knocking off early for the night, you know, catch a beer and watch the game. Heck, I usually want to get off work easy, so I know how they feel. I guess job dissatisfaction is natural to any career. And that woman is a traitor. Opposing doomsday weapons and all.
Cobra is one step ahead. Cobra is always one step ahead. Cobra usually wins. Wait until you find out where their funding comes from.
I have a theory that this comic is actually about 'Nam. What do you think? PS Stalker rocks, consistently.
Yes, let us all don our special combat helmets. It's the thing to do. Mine's a Kangol.
Story ends. I don't have enough pages to show you. Cobra Commander escapes, by the way.
Backup story (this was a very long issue)
Don Perlin is not as good as Herb Trimpe. Note the way that Snake-Eyes is completely invisible on the page. Bad placement, bad lighting. You can say it's the colorist's fault, but they knew the colorist was going to do that and should have planned better. Whatever. Larry Hama is a great damn writer and introduces one heck of a story on this page. I love the radio dialogue.
And this is technically a kid's comic. I wouldn't say that GI Joe shows all the consequences of violence, but it certainly shows that there are some. Anyway, if they tried to put in all the screams of the dying the letterer would quit.
Now, I'm writing this here partly to give myself an opportunity to revisit a minor classic, and to examine it in depth. This has confirmed something fairly obvious -- Snake-Eyes is the main character of the story, and he represents the trauma of combat and the Vietnam experience. He is extremely, extremely unhealthy. It's sort of amazing that he never snaps and kills somebody.
Oh, wait. He does. Constantly.
Is this what war is about? I've never been in a war so I don't know, but Larry Hama has and that seems like what he's telling me. I know that it's necessary to fight Cobra but was the Vietnam war worth this?
Sigma 7 said this last time: "I don't think I could do justice to a comparison of classic Joe and 21st century asymmetrical combat engagements -- I'd need to be more comfortable with my awareness of both before I'd even pick up those particular threads. I find food for thought, but no answers -- actually, no questions, yet, even. Just...thought."
I agree with that entirely. I do not feel comfortable making these sorts of observations and value judgements. I'm not a veteran, I've never been in a war, I don't know much about it. What gives me the right to have an opinion? Why do I feel like I need to have an opinion?
Because we live in a world where we must. Like it or not, all of us have some (highly variable) responsibility to know about the world around us and act appropriately, and in modern times that means developing the skills to judge situations that you have never encountered, and maybe (hopefully) never will. I seriously hope that I never fight in a war. But I feel that war is something that I should know something about. Larry Hama does us all the great gift of attempting to educate us, and I approach this series with profound gratitude.
But his point of view is that civilians should shut up and be protected, and I could not agree less, and I think that his very attempt to educate us undermines this premise. If it wasn't important for children to understand war, why bother writing this at all?
Now, this work could not be more influential.
In all seriousness, has anyone else noticed how they talk about Al Qaeda exactly like Cobra? Down to the mysterious leader in his mountain lair. I think it's pretty obvious to everyone now how George Bush's life was shaped by the movies he watched and the books he read. I'm not saying he read G. I. Joe, though I wouldn't be surprised. I'm just pointing out a cultural meme. Don't fall into this habit. Do you honestly believe Al Qaeda's motivations are as simplistic as Cobra's? They aren't.
Do you understand that to a lot of people in the world, Al Qaeda is their G. I. Joe? Why do you think that may be?
Silly as it may be (and we are all shaped by the media around us), one of the most shocking moments in my life was when I realised that, to a lot of people, they are the Rebellion and we are the Evil Galactic Empire.
I know a lot of you hate that analogy with all your heart, but think about it now -- there are no real politics in the first three Star Wars movies, you don't know anything politically about the Galactic Empire. They have lots of of soldiers and spaceships and bombers and they shoot innocent civilians and bomb people with space stations and torture politically marginalized figures for information. That's all you know. When you're watching, that's all you need to know. They blew up Alderaan and they killed his aunt and uncle and now they're going to pay.
I am very sorry to tell you that there are places in the world where that is exactly what is going on. But Luke Skywalker is not an American in that analogy.
There's an Afghani man out there whose city was bombed, whose aunt and uncle were killed by Americans. This is a fact. How does he feel? If Luke decides to do something about it, and he's a hero, what is he?
There's no easy answer to that question.
To them, we are the bad guys. And they are not automatically wrong. It's not impossible.
That bothers me.
I love America, with all my heart, and always will. I can neither love it more nor less.
But I could also be prouder of America, and less ashamed for things we have done. Pride and shame are not love. It's not the same thing. The love will stay the same. But every time there's another Abu Ghraib, pride is smothered.
And we all must understand that Al Qaeda is not Cobra.
Whatever you say about the Middle East, you can't say they're angry about nothing.
Maybe we're fighting for principles. Sure. Principles mean nothing to people with dead children. I am reminded of the (apocryphal) conversation between the Vietnamese peasant and the American soldier.
"Why are you here?"
"We are fighting communism and the soviet system."
"Couldn't you do that in Russia?"
It's a very reasonable question, and one that any Iraqi might feel some resonance with.
Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-20 06:58 pm (UTC)"We have guns because we're crazy. That's why other countries are afraid of us; because we're crazy."
You think that's it?
I guess I'm insane. I guess my mother, father and sister are insane. They're gun-owners.
I guess the old man who used a firearm to defend himself against a burglar yesterday is insane.
I guess the AA family that used their firearms to defend themselves against the KKK were insane. (The local government sure as hell weren't protecting them. You prepared to talk about the racist and class roots of gun control?)
"Having lived outside the country for a bit, I can see that is clearly true. America places a tremendous amount of evolutionary pressure on its citizens, and is not shy about the human fallout. Basically, we could never be as much trouble to other countries if we were not so hard on ourselves"
Yeah, self-defense and personal responsibilty is so biase.
I travelled a lot too. It's cool to visit other countries but their gun laws are absurd. And what about Canada? They have a ton of guns too but much less violence. But, but how can they control themselves with all those guns around?? Or do you want the US to be a nanny-state like the UK, where they banning knives?
"It used to be a good thing, or at least effective. It's getting silly."
I still think it's a good thing. People should learn to protect themselves, help themselves and take care of themselves.
Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-21 01:23 am (UTC)Because the majority of the guns are used for hunting and that's it. We don't whip them out if someone's trying to steal our property, and we don't feel a need to have one on us at all times to feel safe. When gun violence does happen, we try to figure out what we need to fix in our society to keep it from happening again as opposed of saying "well if EVERYONE had a gun we could have shot the criminal first".
no subject
Date: 2009-11-21 03:00 am (UTC)"I could run after that guy who stole that lady's purse and shoot him...but shit, it's too damn cold. I'll buy her a hot chocolate instead."
Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-21 07:55 am (UTC)"We don't whip them out if someone's trying to steal our property" So you'd just like someone rob your house? Weird. If someone crawls through my window at 2am, I'm going to confront them.
"When gun violence does happen, we try to figure out what we need to fix in our society to keep it from happening again as opposed of saying "well if EVERYONE had a gun we could have shot the criminal first".
That's my point too. We should address the root problems of violence in our culture. This can be done without blaming inanimate tools or diminishing our rights. As for shooting first, that happens a lot. In my opinion it's far better for a criminal to be shot than the person they are attempting to victimize.
Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-21 05:08 pm (UTC)I'm not going to take a life to save my television or my car. I don't care how much of a scumbag the robber is, his life still has more value than a hunk of plastic made in China. I'm also not going to risk my health or life over said items. I'd prefer to take a defensible position.
Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-22 12:43 am (UTC)Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-22 05:00 am (UTC)"I'd prefer to take a defensible position."
That's what I'm talking about too.
Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-21 11:03 pm (UTC)Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-21 10:54 pm (UTC)AA family?
Once again, you are advocating the personal responsibility angle, which reduces down to "everybody should be a ninja and if they aren't its their own fault." I do not agree with this, and believe that we need to defend the defenseless. It's unreasonable to expect everyone to own a gun and use it responsibility, and the numbers indicate that it does not work. It's pretty obvious that universal gun ownership does not stop spree killing. Even though we've finally found a situation where an armed individual stopped a spree killer (Ft. Hood), I don't think anyone would reasonably argue that this outcome is better than if it never happened at all.
Re: Ohh, I remember these.
Date: 2009-11-22 05:12 am (UTC)"I am more than happy to give my gun up if it means a safer and better world."
There will always be other be other people with weapons. There will always be people who don't obey the law. You're saying you're comfortable with tasking other people with the responibilty of defending you all the time. That's fine, you have the choice. I would prefer not to depend on others for my personal safety. I don't think you should be forced to own a gun so why should I be forced to give mine up?
Would you give up your vote, religion voice if someone promised you a safer world?
"Once again, you are advocating the personal responsibility angle, which reduces down to "everybody should be a ninja and if they aren't its their own fault.""
You've got that backwards. Firearms ensure that everyone doesn't have to be a ninja. I could link you to ten news stories about elderly people defending themselves from criminals with firearms. Should a 65 year-old be forced to fist-fight a 20 year-old thug?
"It's unreasonable to expect everyone to own a gun and use it responsibility"
Same with driving a car, owning a gas stove, having chemicals under the sink, fatty foods, cigarrates, booze, condoms, the Pill, a vote, public education and etc.
"It's pretty obvious that universal gun ownership does not stop spree killing."
It was never intended to. It's purpose is self-defense.