Entertainment
‘Masters of the Universe’ Can’t Replace One of the Greatest ’80s Toy Shows
The 1980s were a veritable golden age of toy-based cartoons, especially in the action-figure-driven category. Many success stories grew out of that era, including Masters of the Universe, and its spin-off, She-Ra: Princess of Power, The Transformers, ThunderCats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. However, the arguable king of the 1980s toy-based cartoons was the classic, animated series for Hasbro’s G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. G.I. Joe led the pack through the formative decade of “toyetic” action-adventure animated shows, but Hollywood still struggles to get G.I. Joe right.
A Collaboration Between Hasbro and Marvel Comics Gave Birth to the Revamped Version of ‘G.I. Joe’
Although Hasbro’s line of G.I. Joe military-themed toys dates back to the 1960s, many fans and children of the 1980s who grew up with the IP know that the “Real American Hero” version of G.I. Joe derived from a collaboration between Hasbro and Marvel Comics, at a time when Hasbro wanted to revamp its G.I. Joe trademarks. Ultimately, the late former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, as he explained in NYC Graphic Novelists, put together a creative team including himself, Larry Hama, Archie Goodwin, and Tom DeFalco, who broke the stories and came up with a new concept for what became G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.
Ultimately, under their new concept, G.I. Joe would serve not as a nickname for a soldier, but as a codename for an elite, anti-terrorist unit. As Shooter described, “Maybe it’s like a secret squad of the best soldiers and sailors and airmen. They’re all in this secret group, and they fight terrorists and have special technology.’” Hama came up with many of the character names and would eventually become the writer of the original A Real American Hero comic series published by Marvel Comics.
Besides creating the popular 3.75-inch action figures for Marvel’s new comic, Hasbro also helped finance new animated commercials that advertised the series. The animated commercials proved so popular that an episodic animated series inspired by the new comics and action figures was commissioned, produced by Marvel and Sunbow Productions. Thus, the popular G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero animated series was born, debuting in 1983 with “The M.A.S.S. Device” miniseries, ushering in a new cartoon legend.
‘G.I. Joe’ Featured an Incredibly Diverse and Electic Cast
One of the things that’s still so striking about the 1980s G.I. Joe show, even to this day, is its incredibly diverse, eclectic, and unique cast of characters, including men and women from all walks of life and various nationalities. The troops in G.I. Joe were assembled from the best of their respective fields, with characters who specialized in everything from guerrilla warfare and ranged combat to underwater and naval battles, to pilots and airmen. G.I. Joe truly represents the melting pot culture that is America, and it spotlights those Americans coming together, fighting to defend their nation against a common enemy in COBRA. With such a large and diverse cast, there was a G.I. Joe for every type of kid.
Although the plots of the animated series were far less mature, dark, and intense than Marvel’s original comic series, some episodes of the 1980s show proved to be quite serious and provocative for their time. Series standouts easily include the two-parter, “Worlds Without Ends,” which finds a group of Joes transported to an alternate dimension where COBRA has succeeded and taken over the world, enforcing a brutal, fascist regime across the globe. In a dark scene, Steeler (Chris Latta) finds the open graves of the dead bodies of that dimension’s Joes, who were all wiped out by COBRA. The episode reinforces the importance of G.I. Joe’s work in fighting COBRA, especially for Steeler, who was growing weary from the two sides’ never-ending struggle. From time to time, G.I. Joe featured layers of nuance and pathos rarely seen in kids’ cartoons of the era.
Hollywood Constantly Struggles To Adapt ‘G.I. Joe’
Hollywood has struggled to find success in its multiple attempts to adapt G.I. Joe to the big screen, first with the 2009 live-action movie, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and its 2013 sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which achieved mixed results. Then came the absolutely awful live-action spin-off, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, in 2021. The 2009 movie attempted to force goofy personal backstories with Cobra Commander (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), The Baroness (Sienna Miller), and field leader Duke (Channing Tatum). The romance from the comics between Snake-Eyes (Ray Park) and Scarlett (Rachel Nichols) is sadly abandoned in favor of Scarlett and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans).
Something that all the live-action G.I. Joe movies have in common is that they failed to capture the magic of the cool characters that Larry Hama, Marvel Comics, and Sunbow Productions created, along with the more compelling elements of the G.I. Joe versus COBRA conflict. Additionally, A Real American Hero is very much steeped in 1980s values and Americana — something that does not always align with today’s values, and Hollywood creators struggle in attempting to recreate. Additionally, the Snake Eyes movie utterly fails in realizing the cool backstories of Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) and Storm Shadow (Andrew Koji), two of G.I. Joe’s most popular and iconic characters, making Snake Eyes come off like a selfish, amoral jerk. With Hollywood so desperate to reboot iconic properties over and over again, perhaps one day, someone will finally understand how to recapture the magic of G.I. Joe’s most popular era of A Real American Hero and bring it to life on the big screen.