A character sheet for Hasbro's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Split up due to amount of characters, although not all characters are listed yet.
For characters from the IDW comic series, see here. For characters from the rebooted IDW comic series, here.
Oktober Guard
Colonel Brekhov
Real Name: Ivan Nikolevich Brekhov
Voiced By: Gregg Berger
The Ukrainian-born commander of the Guard, Colonel Brekhov is a consummate soldier with a sharp strategic mind.- Adapted Out: In the comics he was frequently seen smoking a cigar. He never did this in the cartoon.
- A Father to His Men: A characteristic he shares with Hawk and Duke. Alongside Dmitri Bukharin/Crimson Dynamo he stands out as one of the few Cold War-era Soviet Colonels that Marvel does not depict as a Bad Boss.
- Killed Off for Real: In the Marvel comic, Brekhov and most of his teammates are killed in Sierra Gordo after a standoff with Destro's Iron Grenadiers.
- The Leader: He commands the unit and is pretty much the Soviet counterpart of Duke.
- Smart People Play Chess: He and Daina can be seen being in the middle of a game when the Joes arrive at their headquarters.
Daina
Real Name: Daina L. Janack
Voiced By:
The only woman on the original team, First Lieutenant Daina Janack was recruited into the Guard after an impressive showing in the Czech Army. She has a multitude of talents, and her skills have gotten the team out of tight spots on numerous occasions.- Ace Pilot: Not shown in her home series but she appears in Transformers piloting an experimental fighter jet, that's stolen by the Egomaniac Hunter, Lord Chumley.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Blonde in the comics, brunette in the cartoon.
- Continuity Cameo: Makes a brief cameo in the Transformers episode Prime Target.
- Pink Means Feminine: In the cartoon, Daina wore a bright pink Telogreika, even in the desert.
- The Marvel comic averted this: She wore a green camo outfit as her standard uniform, occasionally switching to a light brown tank top and shorts for hotter environments (such as jungles and deserts). She also wore an aviator hat instead of an ushanka.
- The Smart Guy: One of the smartest members of the team, with Colonel Brekhov acknowledging that her skills as a tactician are second only to his own.
- Sole Survivor: She was one of two members of the Oktober Guard to survive the disastrous mission in Sierra Gordo that killed most of the original team. The DDP comics have her eventually join the Joes under the codename Vorona.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Horrorshow. She tended to be offended by his sexism and annoyed by his brutishness, but in a pinch, the two would have each others' backs.
Horrorshow
Real Name: Stepan Drukersky
Voiced By: Frank Welker
A Georgian specializing in infantry and small-arms, Horrorshow is on the stout side and does not have the brightest mind, but his superiors have come to appreciate his loyalty and willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done.- The Big Guy: Horrorshow is the burliest, most aggressive, member of the Guard.
- Dumb Muscle: Downplayed. He wasn't particularly stupid, but he was also nowhere near as intelligent as Brekhov and Daina, so compared to them he didn't seem like the brightest bulb.
- Killed Off for Real: In the Marvel Special Missions comic, he's killed by Iron Grenadiers in Sierra Gordo.
- The Rival: He and Gung-Ho develop an instant dislike for each other upon meeting and even come to blows a couple times. They eventually come to respect the other.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Horrorshow and Daina commonly argued like teenage siblings; Horrorshow would make a sexist comment that Daina didn't appreciate, and she retaliated with a biting snark about Horrorshow's weight. But when push came to shove, the two would have each other's back.Daina: Where's that fat Georgian Horrorshow? He probably stopped for a snack.
Stormavik
Voiced By: Stan Jones
The only member of the original team to actually have been born and raised in Russia, Stormavik served as the team's original Airborne Infantry specialist.- Badass Bandolier: Wears a metal bandolier over his uniform.
- No Name Given: His real name is classified.
Wong
Real Name: Wen-Yun Wong
Voiced By: Neil Ross
The only Chinese member of the team, born in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Though he is only an Officer Cadet, he is a skilled reconnaissance expert.- Canon Foreigner: Wong was created specifically for the Sunbow cartoon. In the comics, the Guard's Recon Man was an East German soldier named Schrage.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: Like a lot of Soviet personnel, he's actually a big fan of Western cinema. If the cowboy hat didn't give it away.
Others
General Austin
Voiced By: John Stephenson (G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Sunbow series)
A U.S. Army Major General who played adviser to the G.I. Joe commanders.
- Composite Character: The first Sunbow miniseries essentially combines Austin and General Flagg into one character, using Austin's model for the animated trailer for ARAH #1.
- The Brigadier: Major General indeed.
- Embarrassing Nickname: He's called "Old Iron-Butt" by the men under his charge for his stubbornness, a moniker he despise but at the end of the day even him admits it's quite fitting.
- No Name Given: His first name is classified. According to the Essential Guide it's Aaron, making his an Alliterative Name.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He has a thorough understanding of politics that enable him to see viewpoints from all sides. Consequently, he did not have as much trouble with "The Jugglers" as Hawk did.
- Take Up My Sword/You Are in Command Now: At the beginning, he had to take the role of the team's handler after Gen. Flagg was K.I.A. Working on this capacity he suddenly suffered a heart attack after the invasion of the first "Pit", so he decided to retire and named Hawk as his successor but under the wing of his replacement on the command chain, Gen. Hollingsworth.
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
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.
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.
