G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #41 - Video Review by 80s Comics

G.I. Joe is fighting for freedom over air and land. It is much harder to rhyme land than air, by the way. We know G.I. Joe is there, but what rhymes with land? Band. Like a band of merry machine-gunning marauders. What a great cover. This is one of my favorite covers in the G.I. Joe series, which has a lot of great covers, but just how badass is that. We have Roadblock, Gung Ho, Snake Eyes. Is that Wetsuit. I forget who that is. Doesn’t matter. You know who it is not. Scarlett.

Strategic Diplomacy from November 1985. This is the second part of the Cobra Island saga here, or at least the pinnacle, the peak of the Cobra Island saga. Great opening page. Rod Wiggum, I always call him Rod Wiggum. Rod Wiggum once again does the pencils.

Really nice job with the pencils. Strategic diplomacy. So in the previous issue, and I am giving away a little bit of story here, but in the end Cobra Island is formed and we are learning how Cobra Island is formed. It is formed because they watched James Bond’s A View to a Kill, so they know how this works. You blow up something near a fault line, it causes a problem. In this case, it causes a giant island to rise up from the sea with Cobra’s base on it intact.

Very well thought out, Cobra. Good job. Clearly, Zartan came up with this plan because Cobra Commander is an idiot. A huge tidal wave rocks the USS Flag. Almost drowns the Joes. Cobra plants a flag on their island. Joes are all knocked out. It is a great story, actually. I really like this one. And there is a part here where Ace is such a badass. We will get to that in a moment. So Cobra of course has all these cool vehicles stashed on their little boat base.

Let me find it here. Because the USS Flag has almost been capsized. Capsized, that is the word I am looking for. Capsized.

Ace, love this part here. Ace takes off while the aircraft carrier is leaning to the side, brushes his wing against the water, but he is such a badass that he pulls it off. It is great. And there is this great fight scene between the Rattlers, between Ace, Roadblock with a machine gun, and the G.I. Joe Whale. There is Tomax and Zaymot.

These guys are morons. Cobra Commander. G.I. Joe storms the island on foot because that is how G.I. Joe rules. That is a great shot right there. Snake Eyes mowing down a bunch of Cobras. Got Rikondo. I have to admit I like Rikondo’s hat. I do not think I could pull that off. I think I would look silly but if I could pull off that look I would totally wear that all the time. Got Gung Ho and Roadblock beating the crap out of Tomax and Zaymot. We have Barbecue doing something useful. If he axes nicely he smashes the HISS tank’s windshield.

And at the end, I will just say that Cobra does not necessarily win, but G.I. Joe loses. It is actually a touching, emotional read. And I highly recommend it. I think this is G.I. Joe at the peak of its game. One of the best issues. A really nice cover. And it is a great story on the inside. It makes you really respect the bravery and the overall bad attitude of all of the Joes.

There is no way that Cobra should actually ever pull off anything. They should have been dead in the first issue. I think it is sheer willpower and luck. They are a really well funded group of idiots basically, is what Cobra amounts to. But you have to admire their persistence, I guess. G.I. Joe issue 41 here on 80sComics.com. . I will see you next time in something else from the 80s, where the 80s live forever, right here.