GI Joe ARAH -27 & 84- Snake-eyes', Zartan's and Cobra Commander's bitter past.

[ozaline]

So when I was posting Snake-eyes comics before I can't believe I failed to include these two issues...

In this post: Scarlet meets Snake-eyes for the first time, Storm Shadow address the accusation that he is to blame for the Hard Master's Death, the real killer's motive, and the birth of Cobra.

Also meet Mrs. Cobra Commander







In GI Joe 26 we saw Snake-eyes history being told from different perspectives, this continues with Scarlet relating their initial meeting.





Here the story of how Snake-eyes got disfigured is told, but we covered that in more detail in the post on GI Joe 144.






Storm Shadow bursts in and takes the arrow away from the Soft Master, Snake-eyes gives chase. Eventually they have a train-top show-down, because of course they do.







Eventually Storm Shadow does learn the truth of the matter, that it was Zartan who killed his uncle... and eventually he gives up on revenge, and comes to work for the G.I. Joe team.

Later still he takes on Cobra Commander's son, Billy, as his protege.

And one day a woman comes, and holding Storm Shadow's cousin, Jinx, at gunpoint demands to see Billy. Storm Shadow nearly kills the interloper when Billy stops him.











At this point the story picks up from another angle... Zartan is telling the tale to the Fred the second Cobra Commander, how his predecessor had contracted him to kill a Vietnam vet currently training with a Ninja clan.





After studying with the swords-smith Zartan, decides he no longer wants to go through with the hit, and wants this to be his new life. However Cobra Commander threatens to expose his past to his new master if he does not go through with it.



Zartan reveals that he knows where Storm Shadow will be tomorrow, and his determined to get him first (the next issue is a not-quite-"silent" issue with only SFX but no dialogue... we'll get to that later.

Comments

[jmacq1]

The biggest chuckle comes from Cobra Commander always being awkwardly referred to as "Billy's Dad" as opposed to, y'know, his actual name, which presumably the mother of his child/his wife would know and shouldn't really have any compunctions about speaking.

Also what appears to be a li'l continuity error there: If Cobra Commander hadn't even created Cobra when he hired Zartan to kill Cobra Commander, where'd he get the nifty Cobra-themed Gyrocopter for Zartan to escape in?

(Though there's actually more to the Zartan/Hard Master tale...involving Firefly...but that started to get crazy ridiculous and convoluted).

[ozaline]

The Firefly bit yeah, the problem was that the faceless master was stated to be a Koga Ninja, which Zartan wasn't... I think Zartan was originally supposed to be the Faceless Master, but Larry forgot some things and had to retcon it.

And nearly 60 issues in between, yeah some continuity errors arise.

[cricharddavies]

It's possible that Zartan is just misinformed about how much of the organization "Joe Broca" (my own favorite version of the Commander's real name) had already built up by that point. (I suspect that he by then had made contact with the Baroness and had access to her resources.) It's not something that would have interested him, I think ...

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Love this stuff.