In his "Deus ex Comica" series of essays, Adam Besenyodi is taking a look at the impact of comic book pop culture on a personal level, from the Marvel titles' influence on his mid-'80s preteen and early teen years to the friendships formed around the books and characters, to what it's like rediscovering that world as an adult.

If I think too hard on it, my head starts to hurt: I am not a military kind of guy and have always leaned more towards introspection than a "blow 'em up" mentality.  And this makes my love of G.I. Joe all the more puzzling.  I have no idea how Marvel and Hasbro were able to get their hooks into me with this toy franchise, but they sunk deep.

I'm pretty sure it had something to do with my friend Mark.

Like everyone else, I was a certified Star Wars nut in the late '70s.  Six years old and I fell hard for George Lucas' vision of what took place a long time ago in that galaxy far, far away from Ohio.  I collected the action figures and drew the characters and played Star Wars on the playground just like my son does now.
 
G.I. Joe, on the other hand, belonged just to Mark and me.

I don't know which came first for us, the comic books or the action figures, but both became firmly entrenched in our world in a way that seems to have evolved out of Mark's family influences.  He had a dad who served in the Air Force Reserves and two older brothers, so there was a certain machismo in that house that my non-military, only-sibling-is-an-older-sister household might not have naturally sustained.

I have the first 56 issues of Marvel's G.I. Joe, and I have a dozen of those first few G.I. Joe action figures and a couple of the vehicles that Hasbro produced.  Playing G.I. Joe was something I did with Mark and rarely, if ever, by myself.  The memories I have of the toys are of letting my imagination run crazy with Mark's, either when our families were camping together or when I was over at his house.  Our families were friends, but we didn't live in the same school district, so getting together -- and playing G.I. Joe -- was special to me.  We'd concoct elaborate storylines and battle plans for our action figures on the pool table in his basement with more than a little improvisation thrown in -- string zip lines, box top troop transports, old blocks built into fortresses.

I was never one to leave things in their boxes and not play with them, but enjoying my toys never equated to destroying my toys.  And like my Star Wars guys, my G.I. Joes are pretty well-preserved.  I still have all the accessories that came with each figure, along with the file card dossiers carefully clipped from the cardbacks.  The bulk of my G.I. Joes are from 1982, and I know this because I only have two guys with "swivel-arm battle grip" -- Doc and a mail-in offer Duke -- which came out in '83.  This makes sense: The toys would have had a very limited shelf life as I entered my teens and became more self-conscious about fitting in.

Where my interest in the toys burned intensely but quickly and the television cartoon never made it on my radar, my love for the comic books lingered.  When I purchased my last G.I. Joe comic book, I was 16 years old.  (Seriously?! I was buying comic books at 16?)  I have no idea how I was able to sustain that habit for so many years beyond what might seem a realistic sell-by date, but I somehow pulled it off with apparently minimal damage to my high school reputation.

So, yeah, I was collecting comics in high school even after I was old enough to drive, but I could get it past my other friends who knew about my habit by pointing out that these were testosterone-filled comics about stuff like guns and ninjas and Special Forces and explosions!  This was all very manly, I swear!

That first issue of Marvel's G.I. Joe, cover dated June 1982, set me back a buck-fifty when the going rate for comics was just 60 cents.  But, oh was it worth it!  Produced on heavier Baxter paper, the two stories are nestled between weapons and vehicle profiles, a classified file on the G.I. Joe Command Center ("The PIT!"), and dossiers on four of the Joes on the team.  There are only four ads -- one for the G.I. Joe Mobile Strike Force fan club, one for Hasbro's mail-in offer for a Cobra Commander action figure (got it!), and two ads for Marvel Comics -- none of which interrupt the storytelling.
 
The main story in that first issue, "Operation: Lady Doomsday," is about a nuclear physicist peace activist who is captured by the Cobra terrorist organization to exploit her knowledge.  The Joes are called in to rescue her, sparking dissention among the rank and file about the captive's motives and individual rights versus the safety of the whole, to the point where head honcho Hawk has to remind this elite strike force that they swore to defend the Constitution, which "guarantees the right of every citizen to disagree with the government."

That's some heady stuff, man, especially for an 11-year-old to get his head around when he's just trying to get to the part where they blow stuff up!  But G.I. Joe godfather Larry Hama never shied away from the patriotic aspects of the title.
 
Over the next four-and-a-half years, I followed the Joes as they fought back the radical Cobra Commander and the Baroness, who were always looking for a way to bring down the government with the help of the chrome-domed Destro and the psychotic Zartan and his Dreadnoks.  There were also off-the-grid militiamen and the Russian October Guard to contend with, at least until Springfield ("A Nice Little Town") became the centerpiece of the Cobra mythos.

So as I was opening my eyes to the world of comic books for the second time in my life, I was also falling back into the hyper-patriotic world of G.I. Joe I had climbed out of 20 years earlier.  I was surprised just how well the stories held up.  I like to think I am able to cast a critical eye on even the most sentimental things and call crap "crap" when I see it.  I stood ready to do just that with the Joes, but a funny thing happened on the way to the stoning: I realized I still loved this world of special missions and crazy acronym weapon names and global struggles.  This was clearly jingoistic pap.  And I fell for it.  Completely.  Again.

Rereading the first 41 issues of G.I. Joe over the last 12 months was a lot like visiting Orlando for me.  I lived in Central Florida for ten years, so when I return to visit family and friends I can still get around without a map, and when I turn on the rental car radio I still hear familiar voices.  I felt the same sort of familiarity when The PIT was infiltrated by one of Cobra's Trojan robots, and when the Sierra Gordo storyline unfolded, and when the head of the Arashikage Clan was assassinated.

There are issues that are just as satisfying to me now as they were to my 12-year-old self.  A handful of issues are seared into my brain.  Issue #2, "Panic at the North Pole," with its introduction of the Eskimo Kwinn, remains in my top three favorite issues.  So does issue #21, the legendary "Silent Interlude," which is arguably one of the most influential and best single comic books ever produced.  Same with issue #34, "Shake Down," which takes place almost entirely in the air and ends with a respectful aerial salute between pilots.  Good, good stuff in those issues.

Through the trade paperbacks, I tagged along on the Joes' Reagan-era adventures of my childhood -- I prefer revisiting Original Collection titles in collections versus digging through bagged and boarded issues in long boxes -- and I have been able to get my hands on the first four (of five) Marvel reprint volumes.

A couple of these out of print trade paperbacks I found on eBay, and the seller of one of the auctions I won -- I think it was for volume three -- threw in the trade paperback of G.I. Joe: Declassified.  It's written by Hama, but was published in 2007 by Devil's Due after they took over the rights.  The three issues collected here are a prequel to Marvel's G.I. Joe #1: It tells how the original team was put together, describes their earlier missions and how their paths crossed, and throws in some background on what drove Fred Broca (get it?) to become Cobra Commander.  It's a little forced in spots, but it's a damn entertaining read for someone who grew up with this stuff!  And as a bonus, there is a great "Source Guide" in the back that ties the events and characters together with the Marvel continuity, as well as a "Where Are They Now?" section.  Remember the dossiers clipped from the action figure cardbacks?  There here too!  Complete with white dotted outlines.

I recently noticed that the cover date for the first, glorious issue of G.I. Joe coincides with the date I wrote on an index card probably around 25 years ago as the month and year I began collecting.  I had been buying and reading comics before June 1982, but it's curious that I would pick that date as when I suddenly considered my stacks of comics a "collection."

I don't remember buying the last comics of the Original Collection, but the decision not to buy the next sequential issue seems so much more monumental.  It was a step away from childhood, giving up another something so quintessentially kid-like and moving closer to young adulthood.  (And that's part of the reason why I am so encouraging with my son's Star Wars and comic book habits.  Have at 'em, I say, for as long as you want!)  Not to mention the idea that I was going to end an uninterrupted run of this title no doubt tweaked my collector's completist mentality.

I can see so much of myself in my son right now (poor kid), and in a couple years, when he's just a little bit older, I'll toss the G.I. Joe trade paperbacks on his bed and ask him to give them a read and let me know what he thinks.  He's a thoughtful soul, too, but I have a feeling he's got the right genetic makeup to fall for these stories just like his dad.  After all, he enjoys a good lightsaber fight, spaceships with laser cannons a-blasting, and the occasional web-slinging action just as much as the next kid.

Miss an installment of "Deus Ex Comica?" Here you go:

Part 1: Gateway Drugs

Part 2: Judging a Book by its Cover

Part 3: Ignoring Personal History

Part 4: "Sweet Christmas!"

Part 5: Bound for Greatness

Part 6: Marvel 1985

Part 8: It's a Sickness

Adam Besenyodi loves to talk pop culture. He is a former editor and staff writer for PopMatters, a participant in the Pop Conference and a freelance writer. Check out his blog, Random Thoughts Escaping.

FieldsEdge.com is an online magazine with a wide-angle lens. Click on one of the topics below to see our offerings related to specific subjects, or browse the main page and see what catches your eye. Got a story idea? We'll listen. Drop a note to writer/editor John Booth or photographer/writer Jim Carchidi.

Topics:
Current affairs Feature articles/essays Film Music Science Sports Star Wars Toys Travel
and sometimes we even go
Beyond FieldsEdge