History ComicBook / GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel

** In Issue #4, Cobra provides the First Strike militia with two nuclear weapons. As incredibly powerful and influential as Cobra would later prove to be, it's damned near impossible to imagine they wouldn't keep the WMDs for themselves.

* WhamEpisode: Issue #19 ends with the deaths of General Flagg, Kwinn and Doctor Venom with little dramatic buildup. While not toy line characters, their prominent roles in the series made the deaths unexpected. This was the first indication of how this is a series where AnyoneCanDie.

* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals: The "Fred" series of Crimson Guards... who are only series 1 out of around 5 or so. The inexplicable part isn't true, though, since they're the result of MagicalPlasticSurgery.

* AllBikersAreHellsAngels: The Dreadnoks.

* AmericaSavesTheDay: But not always...

* AnimalMotifs: Cobra.

* TheBaroness: First appeared in the comic before Hasbro put her in the cartoon.

* BlindWeaponmaster: The Blind Master.

* CoolBoat: The ridiculously gigantic ''USS Flagg'' built into a seven-and-a-half-foot long, three foot tall aircraft carrier, making it the largest playset in the line (though not the most expensive) and one of the biggest toy playsets ever released. Many futile notes to Santa were written requesting it.

* CoolPlane: Both the Joes and Cobras have some pretty impressive aircraft in their respective fleets.
** The early planes were largely based on some real-life Cool Planes. The Joes' Skystriker was based on the F-14 Tomcat, while the Conquest X-30 was based on the Grumman X-29; on Cobra's side, the Rattler was basically a tri-engined, VTOL-capable A-10 Thunderbolt II, and the Night Raven was loosely based on the SR-71 Blackbird. Later planes got a lot more fanciful with their designs.

* CustomUniform: Joes who reglarly wore standard military uniforms were few and far between.

* EyepatchOfPower: Major Bludd and Billy.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Issue 138 is set primarily at a castle that can change its shape at will. If that doesn't give you the [[Franchise/{{Transformers}} obvious image]], then it certainly does to [[spoiler: Megatron]].

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: Almost literally, at the end of issue 138. Comes complete with WhamLine

* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals: The "Fred" series of Crimson Guards... who are only series 1 out of around 5 or so.

* LightbulbJoke: Used in the 130th issue.

* LongRunner: At 155 issues, the original ''G.I. Joe'' is easily the longest-lasting toy tie-in comic. For comparison, for the runners-up, the original ''Transformers'' comic only made it to #80 and ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight'' made it to #75. That's without counting the ''Special Missions'' series, Yearbooks, Orders of Battle... oh, and Larry Hama wrote almost every word of it. When the title restarted at [=IDW=], it ran for 145 issues, totalling at a whopping 300.

* MagicalNativeAmerican: Spirit
* MaleGaze: In issue 5, the Joe's attend a parade with the Mobat. Steeler uses the tank's electronic gun sight to check out the Majorettes.

** Later, the 3 3/4" figures were sold in the UK and elsewhere as ''Action Force''. This incarnation reimagined Action Force as a European anti-terrorist organisation based in Europe, which sometimes cooperated with GI Joe.

* MixAndMatchMan: Serpentor.

* OneWayVisor: Cobra Commander.

* PraetorianGuard: The Crimson Guard.

%%* RaginCajun: Gung Ho and Muskrat.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Cobra Commander after beating Serpentor.

* SemperFi: Gung Ho and Leatherneck.

* SupremeChef: Roadblock.

* TankGoodness

* TunnelKing: Tunnel Rat. He was an EOD tech (like Hama) and the toy was designed to resemble him.

* WarIsHell

* WhamShot: One ''Special Missions'' issue had the Joes pursue a trio of terrorists who shoot up an airport and take a family of three hostage at their farmhouse. A surveillance run reveals a nasty-looking man holding a little boy hostage upstairs and two couples, one attractive and one sinister-looking, in the kitchen. The Joes conclude the attractive couple are the boy's parents and the sinister-looking couple are the terrorists. Lady J goes in posing as a door-to-door saleswoman and speaks to the attractive woman. During the conversation, she slips the woman a note saying they're mounting a rescue. On the next page, the woman shoots Lady J. It turns out the attractive couple were the terrorists and the sinister-looking couple were the boy's parents.

** Finally, in the late 80s, a short strip that appeared in a couple of Marvel UK comics had GI Joe and Aciton Force merge into a single entity to more efficiently fight Cobra. Henceforth, it was known in the UK as ''GI Joe the Action Force''. This made Scarlett's situation incredibly confusing
* MasterOfDisguise: Zartan, Zandar and Zarana for Cobra, Lady Jaye for the Joes. Zartan had limited shapeshifting abilities and Zandar had some sort of camoflauging power, while Zarana preferred to use makeup, prosthetics and costumes. Lady Jaye used similar tactics to Zarana, with a touch of MethodActing thrown in for good measure.

--> [[spoiler:'''Megatron:''']] Bah! [Destro’s transforming castle] is nothing but another non-sentient construct! Not one of us! [[spoiler: Not a [[Franchise/{{Transformers Decepticon]]!]]

** A much more dramatic instance occurs in issue #61: A small team of Joes is sent to rescue an imprisoned American journalist from the [[{{Ruritania}} east-European country of Borovia]], only to find him gone because another branch of the U.S. government had already negotiated for his release and the information had not filtered through to the armed forces. In the end, almost the entire team gets captured and sent to the gulag on a mission that was completely unnecessary in the first place.

* MechaMooks: [[GoddamnBats Goddamn]] [[{{Pun}} B.A.T.s]]. The odd mention of B.A.A.T.s isn't a case of SpellMyNameWithAnS, but a case of two similar sets of FunWithAcronyms; B.A.T stands for "Battle Android Trooper", while B.A.A.T stands for "Battle Armored Android Trooper".

A comic series launched by Creator/MarvelComics in 1982 to promote the return of the ''Franchise/GIJoe'' brand to toy shelves and to introduce the new individual characters developed for the new line. GI Joe was introduced as an elite counter-terrorist/special mission force that conducted covert operations around the world on behalf of the US Government. The primary enemy of the Joes was an evil organization called Cobra. Cobra was involved in various schemes and plots in an attempt to increase the organization's wealth and power by any means necessary.

The primary writer of the comic was Creator/LarryHama, who wrote all but a handful of issues over a twelve year run (as well as many of the [[ActionFigureFileCard character bios for the action figures]]). Prior to the relaunch, Hama had an idea for a Franchise/MarvelUniverse comic called ''Fury Force'', which would have seen the son of ComicBook/NickFury put together a team to fight Hydra, Marvel's resident terrorist group; his ''G.I. Joe'' series was based primarily on this unused pitch. Despite a large amount of restrictions and interference from Creator/{{Hasbro}}, Hama was able to make the comic more mature than [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero the cartoon]], also using his experience as a Vietnam veteran to color the dialogue with Army slang. It allowed bloody fighting, multifaceted characterization, losses for the heroes, and characters who could be killed off, eventually growing into a functional canon that developed into a fleshed-out background for its universe.

Perhaps the most famous issue is issue #21, which [[NoDialogueEpisode told a story without using any speech bubbles or sound effects]], and has been endlessly homaged and parodied.

* AndSomeOtherStuff: In ''G.I. Joe: Special Missions'' #13, Lightfoot explains how he is MacGyvering a fuel-air explosive out of supplies found in an enemy bunker. However, the panels have censor boxes placed over them so the reader cannot see what he is actually doing. Hama was a firearms and explosive ordnance technician in the US Army, and knew what he was doing.

* MechaMooks: [[GoddamnBats Goddamn]] [[IncrediblyLamePun B.A.T.s]]. The odd mention of B.A.A.T.s isn't a case of SpellMyNameWithAnS, but a case of two similar sets of FunWithAcronyms; B.A.T stands for "Battle Android Trooper", while B.A.A.T stands for "Battle Armored Android Trooper".

* PrivateMilitaryContractor: Destro's main job, as head of M.A.R.S. Industries. Cobra itself, particularly under Serpentor, attempted to market itself as such to smaller nations, selling Cobra vehicles and Terror Dromes to various armies.

* RaginCajun: Gung Ho and Muskrat.
* RatedMForManly

In 2010, Creator/IDWPublishing added ''ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroIDW'' to [[ComicBook/GIJoeIDW its catalog]] of ''Joe'' comics, effectively restarting the original Larry Hama continuity and picking up where the Marvel series had left off while rendering the Devil's Due continuity [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]]. This continuation ended at issue 300 after IDW lost the license to publish ''G.I. Joe'' comics at the end of 2022.

* LongRunner: At 155 issues, the original ''G.I. Joe'' is easily the longest-lasting toy tie-in comic. For comparison, for the runners-up, the original ''Transformers'' comic only made it to #80 and ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight'' made it to #75. That's without counting the ''Special Missions'' series, Yearbooks, Orders of Battle... oh, and Larry Hama wrote almost every word of it. When the title restarted at [=IDW=], it ran for another 139 issues.