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Mercenaries
Jesse Kwinn
- BFG: His .30 caliber M1919 Browning is smaller than Roadblock's .50 caliber, but it's a rather heavy weapon that most soldiers mount on a tripod, and Kwinn carries it by hand.
- The Big Guy: A giant of a man with strength to match. He's no dummy, though.
- Exact Words: He promised Dr. Venom not to kill him as he lived. When the traitorous doctor shoots him, a grenade falls out of the dead Kwinn's hand, killing Dr Venom.
- Fire-Forged Friends: While he and Snake-Eyes initially worked together out of necessity, they gradually became friends during their ordeal.
- Generation Xerox: DDP gave him a son, Ghost Bear, who is also a mercenary.
- Iconic Item: His skull necklace.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Kwinn often compares Dr. Venom to a weasel, but also believes that all men have a "weasel spirit" within. He ultimately decides to let the doctor go to overcome his "inner weasel". This proves fatal.
- Made of Iron: Held himself pretty well against Snake-Eyes in a one on one combat stalemate, while describing how he fought and beat a polar bear.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Does not particularly like Cobra, really hates the KGB, but takes jobs for both because they pay well.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Dr. Venom double-crosses him one too many times, Kwinn finally decides to track him down. When it's all said and done, he decides to spare the not-so-good doctor, but see Exact Words above.
- Shout-Out: To "Quinn the Eskimo" by Bob Dylan.
- Third-Person Person: Frequently referred to himself in the third person.
- Worthy Opponent: Sees Snake-Eyes as one. Eventually they team up to take down a certain Mad Scientist.
Arashikage Clan
The Blind Master
Portrayed By: RZA (G.I. Joe: Retaliation)
An American soldier who is blinded by a combat injury and "stranded in Tokyo", so he's taken in by the Arashikage Clan, eventually becoming one of their Masters.
- Canon Immigrant: Originally a comics-only character, but he's mentioned by Jinx in G.I. Joe: The Movie and actually appeared in Retaliation.
- Cane Fu: At times, he uses a cane as a weapon.
- Cool Car: A Ford GT 40 Mark V.
- Combat Pragmatist: Being part of the Rescue Arc for Stalker, Quick Kick, and Snow Job from a Borovian gulag n the original Marvel saga, he got rid of a posse behind him, Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, and Jinx by jumping from a moving car to another armed with a hammer and three grenades.
- Disability Immunity: For obvious reasons, he can easily detect Zartan regardless of what disguise he takes on.Blind Master: You can't fool us "vision impaired" folks with that hologram jive. Besides, I still remember the way you smell.
- Handicapped Badass: Despite being blind, he's still a master martial artist, is able to sense how close he is to the blast radius of a grenade, and he can still drive ("Only at night").
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist/Highly-Visible Ninja: Frequently wore quite notorious Hawaiian shirts and a Panama hat. This was occasionally lampshaded by other characters.
- Hoist by His Own Petard/Killed Off for Real: He was stabbed to death with the same switchblade he was about to kill Zartan with in the original Marvel saga.
- Made of Iron: He had a talent for surviving explosions.
- No Name Given: Besides his moniker, he's known just as "Sensei Moore".
- Mighty Whitey: He's black, but he is an American who gets trained by a Ninja clan and becomes good enough to actually become one of their leaders.
- Old Master/Old Soldier: He can be seen as both, his most outstanding pupils were Jinx, Billy Kessler, Nunchuck and a young street urchin by the name Tyrone.
- Spared by the Adaptation: He's still alive in Retaliation.
- Toyless Toyline Character: He was this for 26 years, but he eventually got a toy based on his aforementioned ''Retaliation'' appearance
including a cool and unique weapon, a razor-sharped hat ala Oddjob. - Your Eyes Can Deceive You: Teaches this to his students.
William Kessler AKA "Billy"
Cobra Commander's son. He was present for his father's Start of Darkness and grew to despise the madman that his father became. Becoming a Ninja Apprentice eventually and occasionally joins forces with others opposed to his father.
- Archnemesis Dad: Cobra Commander.
- Audience Surrogate: Provided a civilian perspective on the GI Joe vs Cobra conflict.
- An Arm and a Leg: Lost an eye and a leg when Scrap-Iron blew up his car with a missile.
- Determinator: This put him in a coma for six months, but he did not die.
- The Apprentice: Storm-Shadow is his Obi-Wan, the Blind Master is his Yoda.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: He is killed off in both the Devil's Due Publishing continuity that served as a continuation of the Marvel Comics series and the IDW Publishing continuation that has since replaced the Devil's Due series as canon, but both continuities have his death occur under different circumstances. In the former, Cobra Commander murders him with a poisoned dart. In the latter, he is slain by Blue Ninjas to sell them as a dangerous new threat.
- Expy:
- A teenager Ideal Hero with a pretty common name seeks revenge on a masked supervillain for "what he did to his father," turns out said villain actually IS his father. Trained by a master martial artist, settting out to confront the villain before his training is complete resulting in a disastrous encounter where he loses a limb and nearly dies. After recovering and getting a cybernetic replacement for a missing limb completes his training. Realizes that his father must be stopped, and that a confrontation with him is inevitable, but does not want to be put in a situation where he's forced to destroy him. Are we talking about Billy or Luke?
- Either you can see him like this, or like the new version of the original Adventure Team member Mike Power.
- Eyepatch of Power: His leg was replaced via experimental cybernetics, his eye was not.
- First-Name Basis: Usually just called Billy. Kessler is presumably his mother's maiden name.
- La Résistance: During his time in the Cobra controlled Springfield.
- Legacy Character: In "Transformers vs. G.I. Joe" issue 13 he inherits BOTH titles of "Snake Eyes" (from his Sensei) AND Cobra Commander due to the first Snake Eyes remotely detonating the explosives in the previous Commander's helmet.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Billy becomes a Cobra-G.I. Joe-Transformer-Arashikage-Reptile-human fusion after losing An Arm and a Leg against Snake-Eyes and having his limbs replaced after Megatron binary-bonds him to the Decepticons Army and Limbot. Billy not only leaded the remnants of COBRA as their new Commander, but also inherited the Master Sword and both; the "Snake Eyes'" title and costume. To show him embracing both roles now there's a COBRA insignia on his chest.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: More like Destro telling him "Billy, he IS your father."
- Missing Mom: Cobra Commander told Billy she was dead. He was lying.
- Related in the Adaptation: Transformers vs. G.I. Joe reinterprets Serpentor as the future son of Cobra Commander and the Baroness, which makes Serpentor Billy's half-brother.
- Restored My Faith in Humanity: One of the key catalysts in Storm-Shadow's Heel–Face Turn.
- Spared by the Adaptation: He remains alive in Transformers vs. G.I. Joe as well as the 2008 IDW continuity.
- Toyless Toyline Character: Finally remedied by the GI Joe Collector's Club in 2016.
Civilians
Hector Ramirez
Voiced By: Neil Ross (G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Sunbow series)
A sketchy tabloid television journalist who is always reporting on the Joes.- Immoral Journalist: A Downplayed Trope one but he's always reporting negative stories about the Joes and going for sensationalism over accuracy. He will report the truth, however reluctantly.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Is a Captain Ersatz for Heraldo Rivera.
- Tabloid Melodrama: He lives to report sensationalist garbage about the Joes that usually involves the bare minimum of investigation.
Candy Appel
A children's birthday performer who briefly stumbles into the war between G.I. Joe and Cobra.
- Badass Bystander: She doesn't have any involvement in the war, but helps Ripcord while he's attacked at Tomax and Xamot's circus.
- Killed Off for Real: She's in the same car as Billy when it's hit by a train then blasted by Firefly. Billy survives with a missing eye. Candy does not.
- Punny Name: Candy Apple.
Sioban O'Hara
Scarlett's sister.
- Amoral Attorney: She's an attorney with a speciality in torts, first introduced serving one up to take her sister off life support.
- Cain and Abel: Claims her motivations are just because she was worried about Scarlett spending her life comatose. However, the fact Scarlett cuts her off mid-explanation suggests the sisters have had some arguments before.
- Drama Queen: Sioban does not have a lot of middle gears.
- Inheritance Murder: On resuscitating, Scarlett immediately pegs that Sioban's actual motivation for everything was to get the family house, and tells her if she'd wanted it that bad, she could just have it.
- Master of the Mixed Message: Gives every indication she wanted Scarlett dead, but when Snake-Eyes kicks down the door of Scarlett's room she wails her head off and calls him an assassin, demanding he get away from her.
- Sinister Shades: Or at the very least mad.
