Daily Comic Book Mission #025: G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #326

You know, I hear that knowing is half the battle, which means that the other half of the battle must be your daily comic book mission. And today's assignment is G.I. Joe issue number 326. I remember reading this back when it was issue like eight. But here it is. It's still going and still written by Larry Hama, who is a military veteran. And that's important because one of the things that always made the G.I. Joe comic books really cool was that there was an element of realism that the cartoon show, the TV show, absolutely did not have.

The TV show was good fun, but it was nonsense. The comic books portrayed the Joes, certainly in the earlier issues, as real human beings fighting for real things against a real enemy.

And these days, you know, it's 2026. G.I. Joe suffers the same problem that the James Bond films face, which is that there's no villain that can possibly compete with the awful people that we have in real life. Like you would invite Blofeld over for dinner long before one of our elected officials. You know he's going to bring a good bottle of wine, for one thing.

And for you longtime Joe readers, if you go back to issues like one and two of G.I. Joe in particular, everything that Cobra tried to do has come true. They created a cult and they had an incredibly effective misinformation campaign, which is what the Russians were trying to do on issue two. They didn't do it half as well as social media, but that brings me to issue 326 and issue 325, both of which are standalone issues that deviated from the ridiculous Cobra zombie and cyborg thing that was going on beforehand. And they're very realistic issues. So on one hand, it's really cool to see the Joes doing realistic things. On the other hand, it does sort of defeat the purpose of escapism.

Now issue 326 is written by Larry Hama, and the artist is Andrew Cronk. I always get these names I can't pronounce. I can't pronounce much of anything as it turns out. Anyway, Andrew did the art for issue 314, which was also like a standalone issue filled with action as they were trying to extract someone, and it was a great issue. And this issue is very similar, as the Joes, namely Duke, Scarlett, Roadblock, Snake Eyes and Mongoose are trying to extract a terrorist out of a war-torn mess.

And it's just a gritty realistic issue. One of the first things that happens is they blow up the Joes' APV and they're trying to get in and shoot everybody and Snake Eyes just stabs the guy and it's actually pretty gruesome for G.I. Joe. This issue plays out a lot like Black Hawk Down, the movie. They're surrounded and totally outgunned and they just survive by the skin of their teeth as they're wounded one by one, shooting holes, shooting through the walls, shooting through the ceiling.

And it's just nonstop action. We got a good shot of Lift Ticket in there. They can't bring in the helicopter because of missile launchers. Snake Eyes has to go do some stuff on his own.

As a longtime G.I. Joe fan, I do really like it. I think it struck a chord. It's a little too timely for comfort, perhaps, but at the same time, you know it's fiction. And you know they're not going to kill off Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Roadblock, or Duke, but seeing how they survive is what makes this issue really good. And I think that Larry Hama must enjoy writing this kind of detailed, more realistic storyline. Honestly, I'd like to see a little more of it. Or at least split the balance between G.I. Joe fighting mutated zombies and a completely incompetent moron like Cobra Commander, and more real-world combat situations like this.

Now I didn't talk about issue 325 yet where they introduced two new G.I. Joes who are both, well one is a sniper and the other one pilots drones. So once again they're getting a little more realistic with that kind of stuff, but I'd like to see some of these grittier stories that include Joes who aren't just Snake Eyes and Scarlett, as awesome as they are. As much as we love Duke and Roadblock, how about the rest of them? There's a whole bunch of other G.I. Joes.

Like when's the last time we've really gotten to hang out with Grand Slam and Zap and Grunt? Back in the old days they'd have entire issues devoted to Stalker and some of the classic old-school awesome Joes. So I'd like to see some of that, but you know they're going to do what they're going to do.

It seems like the main story arc now has something to do with AI robots and the whole pterodrome thing and actually that seems really cool and maybe that's the most realistic enemy that they could come up with these days. So the fact that we've been reading this after 326 issues says a lot about Mr. Hama's writing, his passion for the characters, the characters themselves, and the creative team who did a really great job on this issue.

Now I think we'd all like to live in a world where the biggest problem we have to worry about is what PSA we get at the end of the cartoons.

Is Roadblock going to tell me not to jump my BMX bike over power lines? Is Shipwreck going to tell me not to drink the bottle of bleach in the cupboard? I'm not sure Shipwreck would actually have been the best advocate for what not to drink to be perfectly honest.

Anyway, don't play with knives kids, unless you want to be a cool ninja like Snake Eyes. But just don't throw them at your sister, you know.

Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

See you next time on your daily comic book mission from comicbook.beer.