YMMV / G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel)

• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Does the concept of a volcanic island rising from the sea and several factions rushing to claim the land strike you as unbelievable? It actually happened. In 1831, a small island emerged near Sicily due to volcanic activity. England, France, Spain and Sicily (which was at the time a sovereign kingdom) all tried to claim the island.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Marvel had supreme difficulty finding someone to write the title. No one wanted to since comics based on toys were notorious short runners. Larry Hama has said he only got the job because everyone else said no and because he was desperate for a writing assignment. Of course, under Hama's writing, the comic was a huge success that lasted over a decade. At one point (1985 to be specific), Joe was the most popular comic book Marvel was publishing, while in 1987 the comic was receiving 1200 fan letters per week.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Near the end of the original run, and with both comic and toy sales declining, the writers were forced to include numerous gimmicky sub-divisions like the Eco-Warriors, Drug Elimination Force, and the Star Brigade. Hama would do his best, but it was clear the toys were dictating the direction of a lot of the stories, rather than the other way around.
• Catharsis Factor: Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow killing the S.A.W. Viper who had killed Quick Kick, Doc, Heavy Metal, Thunder and Crankcase in the 112th issue is immensely satisfying, especially after the murderous bastard had earlier gloated to Hawk that there was nothing he could do about it in addition to talking Cobra Commander out of punishing him for killing the Joes against his orders.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Due to the huge cast, this trope is inevitable.
  • Snake-Eyes, for example, is extremely popular among fans. For a later part of the Marvel Comics run, the cover title actually included "Featuring Snake-Eyes."
  • Dr. Sidney Biggles-Jones is an interesting case. Normally she'd just be a minor scientist (albeit a good-looking one), but she was a key player in the Transformers: Generation 2 crossover/Back Door Pilot, making her a memorable figure in two different fandoms.
  • Cobra Commander's Iron Woobie son Billy, who has a long and impressive character arc through the series and eventually gains an Eyepatch of Power that makes him even more impressive.
  • Among the characters who have yet to appear outside of this series, one standout is Captain Minh, the Crazy Survivalist boatman who gets stranded on Cobra Island and spends years in a cat and mouse game with the islands guards, before becoming an ally of characters like the Joes and later Zartan.
  • Inuit Genius Bruiser and Noble Demon mercenary Kwinn. He is dead by the twentieth issue, but his strong sense of honor and repeated besting of the Joes make him a fan favorite.
• Creator's Pet: As much as Larry Hama is the father of GI Joe, it's fairly obvious he has a fondness for Snake Eyes over all other characters.
• Fandom Rivalry: A somewhat downplayed trope given they're all part of the same franchise, but fans of the comic tend to follow a simple rule, the closer to the Marvel comic in plot and tone, the better. When the Devil's Due continuation added elements from the cartoon, comic fans were quick to criticize the writers for doing so.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Metal facemask, Absolute Pec-Cleavage, and a big old disco collar. Destro almost makes it work, somehow...
  • Besides, his Iron Grenadier outfit compensates for the original one.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In an early issue the Joes go against a Middle-Eastern dictator that commanded an army of radical zealots and was backed by a Terror group. Twenty years later America went to war against several Middle-East countries ruled by dictators backed by zealots with ties to terrorist groups.
  • Cobra Commander's class warfare rhetoric about the destruction of the American Dream, the corruption of the United States by corporations, and the fact they're patriots for wanting to take back the government by destroying it sounds eerily similar to a lot of later feelings from Americans in the 21st century from Occupy Wallstreet to the Tea Party. It also makes him sometimes come off as Unintentionally Sympathetic.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Among those sealed in the freighter, there's a little room for doubt about the fates of Captain Minh and Tyrone. While it's later stated that the bodies all of the "traitors" sealed inside were accounted for besides Billy and Zartan (with Firefly later being revealed to have got out and put his costume on a body already inside), Tyrone and Captain Minh ended up with the people who got sealed more or less by bad luck than design and weren't actual members of Cobra, so they might not have been considered in that tally, and their bodies aren't among those clearly visible when Cobra soldiers survey the freighter.
  • Despite Billy officially being described as the only survivor of a car blowing up, some readers like to think that his fellow passenger Candy could have survived as well and just been gone by the time emergency services arrived.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Seal Team 6 and the mission to kill Osama bin Laden (as recounted in Zero Dark Thirty) feels a lot like a real-life version of GI Joe, including bringing a dog along and wacky hijinks with the EOD guy.
• I Am Not Shazam: G.I. Joe is the name of the organization, not the name of any one character.
  • There is actually a character named G.I. Joe in the series: Joseph B. Colton, the legendary soldier for whom the organization was named—his name was Joe, and he was a GI (traditionally, from World War II). For the record, he's implied to be the very same gentleman from the orignal 12-inch action figure line, famed for his full beard and kung fu grip.
• Magnificent Bastard: See here.
• Moment of Awesome: Snake-Eyes is one of these personified, including breaking into Destro's castle to save Scarlett and actually taking on Storm Shadow and his ninjas with little weapons, and breaking free during a Cobra torture session, and going upstairs to rescue the people who were supposed to rescue him. In Snake-Eyes-Land, prisoner saves you!
• Moral Event Horizon: For a lot of readers, Cobra didn't really become evil until they ordered all Cobra operatives to kill their animals in #50's evacuation of Springfield. Seeing the cuddly red dog like Clifford with a gun to its face was worse than anything Cobra had done to the human protagonists.
• My Real Daddy: Larry Hama is pretty much this for the G.I. Joe franchise, with his characters and concepts forming the basis for the franchise going forward, save one-off spinoffs like G.I. Joe Extreme.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: Having done almost the entirety of the Marvel run of G.I. Joe himself, any writer not named Larry Hama will inevitably be compared negatively to him when writing Joe stories. IDW, perhaps mindful of this, brought him on board to write a revival A Real American Hero series that was independent of their larger Hasbroverse comics, which had their own incarnations of the Joes and Cobra.
• Technology Marches On: Back in 1984, Ace's brag about the Skystriker having 92K of memory was impressive. Today, even the cheapest "kiddie" MP3 player made has at least 256MB; meanwhile, a modern F-22 has 300,000 times more computer capacity.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Ripcord's girlfriend Candy was a decently interesting character who is killed off right after one of her best moments (a Damsel out of Distress scene involving one of the Dreadnoks) and before the implications of her dad being a Cobra scientist (something she had just found out) get much exploration.
  • Tyrone the ninja student. Right at the point where he had the potential to be at his most interesting (due to being on the verge of finding out Zartan killed and has been impersonating his mentor while developing a genuine bond with him) the two get sealed in the freighter and Zartan escapes while Tyrone is listed as among those who didn't.
  • Among the Joes killed in the Abysmia massacre (most long-time characters) Breaker can feel like the biggest loss.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: A lot of readers have expressed sympathy with Cobra Commander due to the fact this version of him was created due to both his Vietnam service traumatizing him as well as his rhetoric bemoaning the death of the American Dream and the demise of the middle class.

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