Toy Bender

It’s our third and final installment of the SDCC Cobra Commander Contest. Think of it as the Revenge of the Sith of the series, except with less children dying. Let’s get this party started with a short story by the world famous Esbat:

OFFICE SSSSSSSSPACE by Esbat

“Sir, can we get your signature for the new shipment of laser mounting brackets?”

“LASSER MOUNTING BRACKETSSSSSSS?!”

“Uhhh yes, Cobra Commander, for the hang gliders. You specifically requested we arm them incase of any further aerial chases.”

“Ah, yesssss”, the hooded figure shook an open hand to his subordinate, whom quickly offered the Commander the clipboard and pen.

“Thank you, sir! HAIL COBRA!”

“Yes, yes Coooo-bra”, he quickly scrawled a pair C’s on the signature line with a long trailing line.

“Now which missssssscreant in the motorpool thought it’d be okay to “pimp” out my escape vehicle?”

The Cobra Trooper pulled the red mask that covered the lower half of his face up a little higher onto the bridge of his nose, “Uhh… that would be Jeff, Commander. He’s a new recruit, meant well.”

“Meant well? I look like a blinking, blinging target in the damn Trouble Bubble!”

“The guys in the motorpool thought it’d help to boost morale amongst the youth.”

“No one- no one discussed with this me… I had to learn about this during a night mission!” his gloved fist pounded the desk before him.

“We’ll correct it immediately, sir.”

“Yessssssssss, immediately! I’m tired of hearing the giggling after I turn on my heels and walk away after giving a post-battle ssssspeech. I wear a BLUE uniform for crying outloud, the asssssssss sweat stain on my pants from the leather seat covers issssssssss embarassing!”

Shawn Robere of the fantastic blog Branded in the 80s sent this rather in depth essay in:

Shawn Robare

Growing up with G.I. Joe, or how I narrowly escaped being hospitalized because of toy autism…

I was born in 1977 and spent my formative years growing up in the 1980s. Like most boys my age I shuffled interest between various toy and cartoon properties of the decade. I began my serious interest with reenacting the various Star Wars battles with the licensed toys released by Kenner, then faded into plotting the further machinations of the power struggles on Eternia with my chunky, waist snapping Masters of the Universe figures released my Mattel, but ultimately found myself enthralled by the output of a company call Hasbro and two of it’s main product lines the Transformers and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Since Transformers were kind of pricey my parents were much more amenable to reinforcing my growing thirst for new toys by supplying me with an army of G.I. Joe figures, which from 1984 to 1989 was pretty much the only toy-line that held my interest. The weird thing is that even though I loved the toys and the cartoon series to death, I never felt like I had quite the same G.I. Joe experience that all my friends and people I’ve since met had growing up.

For starters, I never equated the toys with the cartoon series or the Marvel comic series. Though I never realized as a kid that one guy, Larry Hama, was so influential on creating such a rich back-story for all my favorite characters (having written both the entire American comic series as well as most, if not all the file cards that came with the toys), it still would have been lost on me as I pretty much ignored these stories when it came to playing with the toys. It was almost as if the toy line was completely separate in my mind, and only connected in a tertiary manner to the comics, cartoon and file cards. Of course that didn’t stop me from clipping and saving all the file cards, which I kept in a nice plastic recipe box on my bookshelf. Basically, each time I sat down with a pile of action figures they were nothing more than possible characters to help flesh out my little combat operas.

Of course, this lead to another odd disconnect in how I ‘played’ with my G.I. Joe figures (in terms of how I perceived other kids playing with theirs.) See, I would never really play with the figures per-se; instead I spent an inordinate amount of time setting up epic scale battles that would take place across multiple rooms in our home. I start setting up figures in our family room, hiding them in every nook and cranny I could find, between sofa cushions, underneath chairs and ottomans, hanging from the metal chain netting that covered the front of our fireplace, or my favorite location, underneath the TV table (which served as the family room home base), basically anywhere where they could find cover and watch the room opposite, the dreaded kitchen. After hours of meticulously setting up figures in a near autistic state of concentration, blocking out the rest of the waking world, tongue heartily stuck out the side of my mouth, I would never actually ‘play out’ the battle. Instead, after admiring my handy work for a bit, I’d gather up all the figures from both rooms and put them away. This is a process that I would repeat whenever I had a free afternoon and there were no cartoons on to steal my focus.

The few times when I attempted to play G.I. Joe with friends were a disaster in the making. Not only did I try and interject my insanely anal ‘set-up game’, but mixing our toys became a headache. Like most kids interested in Joe figures I was obsessed with Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, and Firefly and each of us would want to utilize them on our own teams. Though I wasn’t into the established character background and should be happy with multiple Firefly figures on the battlefield, I suppose I also suffered from other obsessive compulsive related issues and therefore couldn’t abide by the idea of multiples. On top of this were many vicious arguments (with both parties to blame) about what actually occurred in our little land of make believe. “My Cobra Rattler swoops down and shoots off Snake Eye’s arm! Zzzooooommmmmm, dudha dudha dudha dudha dudha, BBBOOOOMMMMMM!” “Nuh Uh! Snake Eyes is a ninja and easily sidesteps the Rattle fire throwing up his sword which cuts the engine and it blows up, BBBBuuuucccckkkkooooosssshhhhhh!!!!” “That would never happen, you’re a terd!” “Oh yeah, well your mom just went to the bathroom, and her terd is your sister!”

As a capper to my misguided G.I. Joe youth, I experienced one of the most ironic turns of fate in that I not only received one of the most coveted of all G.I. Joe toys for Christmas one year (the U.S.S. Flagg aircraft carrier play set), but I also hated it with a passion and have since felt guilty as the memory of that holiday is more or less an unhappy one. All I wanted that year was a G.I. Joe Sky Striker. I had a weird obsession with that particular style of jet, the F-14 Tomcat, probably because of the popularity of Top Gun and the very cool Jet Fire Transformers toy (which was just a repackaging of one of the Veritech fighters from Robotech/Macross.) For some reason the Sky Strikers weren’t readily available that year and since they couldn’t find one, my parents instead popped for the insane 6-foot long behemoth that is the U.S.S. Flagg. I couldn’t help but be surprised when I found it under the tree that year, and after listening to my Dads woeful tale of trying to construct it and secretly smuggling it into the house the night before I couldn’t help but be grateful. Of course this didn’t stop me from hating it in secret. Not only was the toy constructed on a hollow, open bottomed base so that it could never be dragged out into the pond at the end of our backyard, but it was so big that it couldn’t easily be moved from room to room (not to mention that it didn’t fit in my own room as it was), so it took up permanent residence in our dining room, which was empty (except for the monstrosity that was the Flagg.) Over time my parents started to regret the purchase, as they wanted to get a nicer table for the dining room having to evict and dismantle the beast, putting it in the attic (where it stayed until it was lost in a move a few years later.) What’s funny is that all of my friends would have killed for that toy, and I so wanted to give it away, or trade it to anyone who would part with their Sky Striker.

At least, even though I feel like my experiences with G.I. Joe are very different from most other people, I know there are some shared commonalities. Many of my figures were missing their thumbs because I would end up biting the hands so that they would grip guns tighter and they’d eventually break off. Half of my figures had hardened old soap stuck in the foot and backpack holes after playing with the figures in the bath. Many of them suffered from the dreaded broken crotch, and a handful needed replacement O-rings (which back in the day meant trying to jury rig the figure with a normal rubber band.) And from talking with other fans years later I can admit that most of my favorite figures were ones that had ski masks or the most awesome accessory, the removable helmet (best when that helmet had some sort of facemask attachment or visor.) So even though I was weird about how I played with them, I can still relate to an entire generation of kids who also grew up with G.I. Joe figures.

Patrick A. Riley had a favorite character piece that ranked pretty high in my book, considering the choice:

Patrick A. Riley

My favorite G.I. Joe character is Cobra Commander’s son, Billy. While others think he is overrated and have grown weary of the public outcry for a Billy action figure, I find Billy to be a rather interesting individual. The disdain some people show for his character only makes me like him even more. Furthermore, he is seemingly unknown to some Joe fans and yet, unlike many popular Joe characters, Billy has quite a fascinating biography.

The fact that Billy is the Commander’s son is enough to make him a viable part of anyone’s Joe-verse. He is an underutilized character capable of having a more pivotal role in the G.I. Joe world. Billy has had to deal with the loss of an eye and a leg, as well as years of emotional damage caused by his father’s erratic behavior towards him.

I admire Billy for vowing to help the Joes defeat his father. I tend to root for the underdogs and there really isn’t a bigger underdog than Billy as he possibly awaits the ultimate battle against Cobra and his father.

And don’t forget, he became a ninja! And everybody loves those ninjas, right?

I didn’t really like the comics, but I thought Billy was awesome from the sheer fact that he wore Storm Shadow’s old costume. That meant I had the possibility of seeing the old costume and the newer awesome costume at the same fricken time.

That wraps up our look at some of the contest entries I received. Thanks again to everyone who entered. Hopefully, I can come across some cool thing to give away again so we can do something fun.

Oh and if you’re wondering why I ran this with a picture of a Panda holding a mini-gun, why not?