Gracefully Forgotten Joes

[Zbu Manowar]

I've been watching the cartoon series Saturday nights on Cartoon Network and despite the show holding up better than I expected, there were a few problems. A few problem Joes.

Quick Kick, I'm looking in your direction.

The problem with Quick Kick is that he's obviously the first choice for the Joes' version of Storm Shadow, i.e. the ass-kicking mad karate skillz master of Judo/Kung Fu/various forms of kicking ass. While he has an attempt at good character design with the sash that holds a bunch of crazy throwing devices and a sword, he has a few problems. Mainly, he quotes movies like a fag and his costume is a pair of pajama pants.

The man is a sorry fucker. His perchant for quoting movies makes him look like a sorryass Pat Morita. Come on, I know Karate Kid was a big thing, but making Quick Kick (or Suck Dick as he should be known) Storm Shadow's nemesis is just sad. Fortunately for all of us, the creators realized this and created Snake Eyes: a man who always dressed head to toe and who just shut up.

So, Quick Kick, welcome to the land of the Gracefully Forgotten Joes. Anybody else got any Joes they should be relegated to that big toybox in the sky?

Next up on my list: Alpine(?).

[Les Waste]

You dumbass. Snake Eyes was in the pilot mini-series of G.I. Joe, and Quick Kick was added later. Snake Eyes came first >:

And Alpine ruled. Why don't you just say Bazooka sucked? Jerk. >:

[Ninjavenom]

i liked quick kick. He was such a nerd.

[Zbu Manowar]

You dumbass. Snake Eyes was in the pilot mini-series of G.I. Joe, and Quick Kick was added later. Snake Eyes came first >:

And Alpine ruled. Why don't you just say Bazooka sucked? Jerk. >:

Quick Kick has a posse? :confused And they gave up Snake Eyes for him?? What the hell were the creators smoking?

And I stay by my doubt of Alpine's ability. Who the hell needs an expert in climbing mountains? Just get Wild Bill to fly you up there, Nuff Said.

[Bennett]

I'm gonna have to back Zbu Manowar... Alpine was a tool.
If you're going through snowing mountainous terrain, who could possible beat "Snow Job?" And what a great name, again what were they smoking? And for diversity's sake, why didn't they just put stalker in the show instead of Alpine. It was basically the same character, he just had a crappy all camoflauge outfit since he was first generation. Same character, cooler name AND he was from Detroit. Alpine can toss Stalker's salad... with maple syrup.

[Zbu Manowar]

Well, let's get back on topic. Anybody else got any more Gracefully Forgotten Joes? Here's a Cobra one to be fair:

ZANTAR

As far as the little cliques of Cobra goes, I never have anything against a Dreadnok. Sure, they're all products of their time, a bunch of punks designed with either bikers or New Wave music in mind, but their design was solid and convincing and they weren't complete dorks in the series.

That said, the least of their numbers is bad indeed. Zantar sucks.

Who is Zantar? That's the first problem. Nobody remembers him. He's a Zartan clone who doesn't have any distinguishing characterstics: he looks like some dork with a bow and arrow. Now, a bow and arrow can either make someone look like a badass due to the relative obscurity of the weapon and its possible weaknesses (like that Oatmeal guy in Hard Target) or make them look like they can't fucking hold a gun. Zantar is the latter. Compared to the badass leopard-print wearing/torn shirt/everyday objects as weapons motif that was the Dreadnoks, Zantar is the pussy. And his 'Billy Idol's Donations to the Salvation Army' clashes with the rest of them.

This is not to say that Zartanna is any better. The only way she is saved this indignity as her brother is that she's the chick of the whole group. A chick who's probably colorblind and looks like Ms. Trailer Park Whore/KKK Breeder of 1985, but at least she's not the member of the group that has a fucking bow and arrow and is backhanded violently for being derivative in a group that is quite unique style wise.

So, Zantar is just a Zartan ripoff with a bow and arrow and possibly mental issues when the other Dreadnoks mistake him for his sister after a long week party of drinking and pissing off Destro. And that's it. Fuck, what else could you say about a Dreadnok who makes Thrasher look somewhat original?

[Zbu Manowar]

Okay, here's one that I had forgotten about:

TOLLBOOTH (http://www.yojoe.com/action/85/tollbooth.shtml)

Don't know him? He's the guy who Hasbro included in their 'Bridge-Layer' vehicle. That one that 'laid bridges across five inch pits' but somehow could only make the actual vehicle across. And he's the Joe with the hardhat and the sledgehammer.

No guns, no actual way of defending himself. Let's face it, he's the Joe that we should all pity. While his filecard says he graduated from MIT, we all know the horrible truth: Tollbooth's sister was married to Duke. That's the only reason they kept him on. Each week while the other Joes do cool stuff, Tollbooth's the one that polishes that giant useless cannon in the front of Joes HQ. He's the one that everyone plays jokes on. What is he gonna do, run after them with his plain jackhammer? Throw his hard hat at them?

This isn't a slam against any construction worker. Far from it. But Tollbooth is a wimp. His name sucks, his vehicle isn't even a defensive one unless he blunders his way into a missile...he's just there. He's not even good enough to be a Dreadnok. Now, this is where Hasbro could have been creative...so, I give you the man who should have been in Tollbooth's place:

Lunchbreak

OUTFIT: Stained Wifebeater, yellow hard hat with Radioactive symbol on it, big pot belly, worn blue overalls, a pair of combat boots and tattoos covering his arms.

HISTORY: Lunchbreak grew up as the son of Polish descendants from the Solidarity Work Party. Raised in the ghettos and beaten up at school, Lunchbreak's twenty two hours a day at school then at work shoveling pigshit and coal mining gave him a solid work ethic. Thanks to an injury and seven years worth of living thanks to Workman's comp, Lunchbreak went into the Army and impressed the shit out of everyone by not sleeping for 72 consecutive days. This endurance and dedication made him a natural for the Joes but was a weakness when, during an important battle, Lunchbreak decided to build a bridge instead of engaging in the firefight. Hence, he now drives that Bridge machine so now he can start slapping bitchass instead of sitting around letting his asscrack show.

"The Fucker doesn't sleep! Jesus God, his blood is half fat, half caffeine! Through, while he's not the man I want behind my back when Armageddon comes, he's the man I want when I want those artillery shells moved by morning! All this for minimum wage!"

But no...we had TOLLBOOTH. :(

[Les Waste]

LIFELINE >: >: >:

What the hell is the point of a G.I. Joe who hates violence? >:

[Zbu Manowar]

Simple: because they didn't want to use Doc, who IS the medic for G.I. Joe. And who rocks, might I add.

[Zbu Manowar]

Dee Jay (http://www.yojoe.com/action/89/deejay.shtml)

Back in the early days of 1991, a local department store down the street closed its doors. Considering I live in a cornfield, this was met with some sadness as it was one of the last independent 'everything' stores that finally met its fate. It was sweet, because not only could you buy matchbox cars but also Joes. That was the place that I got most of my toys for cheap only a few years previous.

When stores like that close, you can either find good deals or bucketloads of crap that you couldn't give away or find themselves either at flea markets or stores close to the Canadian Border (no shit). Puzzles of failed movies like Police Academy 6. Doll parts that had been shoved underneath dust skirts and had only been unearthed after ten years, then had a price sticker slapped onto it. And dozens of Hardy Boy Casefile books that looked like a dog had used them as a chew toy then toilet paper. And the only thing they had left of the toy aisle was nothing but GI Joe knockoffs...and about twenty Dee Jay figures.

Dee Jay. The bastard of the ill-fated Battle Force 2000 line. The one that couldn't cut the mustard to score an overly-white bubbly vehicle that equated 'futurstic' with 'ripping off Ed Roth.' Nor could he put placed into two-packs with the others when Hasbro tried to resell him. And they couldn't fucking give him away.

So why add insult to injury? Because for a futurstic warrior, Dee Jay was pathetic. First, his name harkens back to a day where 8-tracks were high-tech. Second, his outfit isn't high-tech as much as he looks like a bright refugee from a Mad Max film. Last....well, if nobody was going to buy a Battle Force 2000 vehicle, they sure as hell wouldn't buy the crappy lone figure with baffling accessories. If you couldn't sell a Joe on figure design, weapon design was the best way to go. And Dee Jay didn't have even that. Which is sad, because if they had simply taken Sci-Fi or some other vaguely scientific Joe and repainted him, poor Dee Jay would either have sold or had company as the spokesman for a failed Joe niche.

Pity poor Dee Jay. Now, let's not imagine where those twenty figures went. I somehow think they met their end at a Salvation Army somewhere in Quebec, layered in price stickers like concert posters on a college campus, the newest one saying 'just take them, for fuck's sake, even Ebay won't touch these.'

[FS]

:lol

[Zbu Manowar]

I take it I have company in thinking Dee Jay sucks. ;)

[Protoclown]

Who is Zantar? That's the first problem. Nobody remembers him.

That would be because he didn't exist. You're thinking of Zandar, Zartan's brother. And yes, he sucked, but he wasn't a "ripoff" of Zartan anymore than your younger siblings might be "ripoffs" of you.

Okay, so he WAS a ripoff, but I'm trying to justify him here, alright?

And Zarana (not Zartanna! blasphemer!) was Zartan's sister. She was cool in my book.

QUICK KICK FUCKING RULED!!!! He was one of my favorites, but you're wrong about him being Storm Shadow's nemesis, I'm afraid.

Snake-eyes was one of the original seven Joes (the others being, if I recall correctly: Breaker, Zap, Flash, Stalker, Scarlet, and Grunt... and that's WITHOUT looking them up. How sad is that?), so he was around a good two or three YEARS before they brought Quick Kick (or Storm Shadow) around, as Les Waste pointed out.

And if you'll remember, they also had some kind of rivalry going between Storm Shadow and Spirit for a while, then they kind of had a brief thing with Quick Kick, but they pretty quickly hammered down that Snake-eyes and Storm Shadow were absolute arch-nemesis to one another. Stormy would occasionally duke it out with some of the other Joes, but Snake-eyes was the main guy they always put him up against.

I also loved Alpine and Bazooka.

The BEST Joe of all time though had to be Shipwreck.

I don't think I really HATED any of the characters until the movie, when they brought in Cobra-La. That was the beginning of the end, and EVERYTHING from that point sucked ass.

The old Marvel comics by Larry Hama fucking RULED. They're reprinting them all now in really nice 10 issue trade paperbacks, and if you never read them as a kid, check them out. They can still be a damn fun read today. They started getting really bad toward the end though, sadly. But I think I have all the issues from 21-135 or so.

[Zbu Manowar]

Okay, I admit fault with names of Zartan's bastard siblings, but that could also be proof that nobody really remembers them. Hence, gracefully forgotten Joes...through next time I'll do my homework, I swear.

Still, at least Zarana is slightly above Zandar for being the female Dreadnok. And that's still a slim margin...through can anybody tell me why Zandar's action figure comes with an arrow quiver yet no bow and arrow? Does the throw them at people? Was he originally supposed to be Lady Jaye?

[Mockery]

Storm Shadow broke Quick Kick's leg. :lol

[Zbu Manowar]

Thank God. No wonder the guy got so many figures then was made an honorary Joe upon retirement.

[Les Waste]

Storm Shadow broke Quick Kick's leg. :lol

That was during the Excalibur episode. That fucking Apache Chief bozo used his mystical powers to heal Quick Kick's leg, but than Storm Shadow broke it again, even worse.

I really do hate Quick Kick. >:

[Zbu Manowar]

Should we take a poll to see how many people aren't too fond of Quick Kick? Not to bash his fans, but compared to Snake Eyes...it's Gobots to Transformers, here.

[Protoclown]

Quick Kick was one of seven Joes that was killed in the comic book. For the longest time, Hasbro wouldn't let Larry Hama kill off any of the Joes, but finally they decided to let him loose on some of the older characters and he had seven of them taken hostage and then killed. It was funny, because it was all a misunderstanding. Cobra Commander told the guys who captured them to "take care of them" and they interpreted that as "kill them" but that wasn't what he meant at all.

[Zbu Manowar]

Who were the other six? And I thought it would have been better if Destro or Zartan or Tomax & Xamot took them out. You know, to make someone at Cobra look cold and calculating as opposed to comically stupid/stone cold crazy.

[Protoclown]

I can't remember off the top of my head. I think Breaker was one of them. They were mostly older Joes that didn't really go on many missions anymore, I think.

[Zbu Manowar]

Basically a bunch of placeholders, you mean. Ah, so it goes.

[Zbu Manowar]

Okay, another one:

Captain Grid-Iron

This one hurts the most, because he was my favorite Joe back in the dying days of the original 3 3/4 inch Joes. You see, Grid-Iron was cool. He was obviously the new head hancho of the Joes by this time (Duke, Flint, and the lame duck General Hawk being fazed out for either guest appearances in 'Night Force' or such niches) and the new Joes needed a new leader.

Unfortunately, they got one hell of a blunder.

The name 'Captain Grid-Iron' is just too lengthy. Why not just call him Grid-Iron? The title of Captain seems a very small one considering the Joes are supposed to be this elite band of commandos who take orders from higher up than Captain. Then on top of it all, some idiot decided that the football motif of this figure wasn't complete until every single freaking thing about him said FOOTBALL. Football grenades. His costume was a boiled down football outfit to an extent. His helmet was a football helmet. And while they could be cool to an extent.....it's a bit much, isn't it? Somehow, the whole affair came off to be not 'a Joe who has a hankerin for some pigskin,' but rather 'failed Batman villain #137 who was rejected because somehow the motif went overboard, drowned, and floated up to a retarded kid's summer camp five months later.'

It was just too much. It's not like being a football/sports fan was an unfamiliar motif to the Joes: Bazooka wore a jersey and a half helmet, the Basketball guy from the movie wore a jersey, and not to mention that a few years previous Fridge Perry was given his own special mail-order figure complete with Jersey and a fucking mace that was in the same of a football. Fridge Perry also looked damn cool. All Captain Grid-Iron looked like was some knock-off puss that somehow brought to mind the old 'Metal Brigade/Choose Your Stats' action figure with that fucking helmet of his. Complete with football grenades so you could throw them....huh?

All and all, nice try, but failed effort.

[Les Waste]

Proto probably knows more about G.I. Joe in general than I do, considering I never even bothered to read a single G.I. Joe comic book, but nobody knows more about the Sunbow (the good series) than I do. :(

Shipwreck is probably my favorite Joe, but I always rooted for Cobra. I don't know why, but as far back as I can remember I've always wanted the bad guys to win. I don't know what that says about me :(

[Zbu Manowar]

Well, I can tell you one thing: Shipwreck will never be a gracefully forgotten Joe. That man fucking rocks and is right up there with Snake Eyes in my book. Nothing says Joe like a fucking kickass take no prisoners sailor. However, if he had some really bad versions I'll be sure to take out those but only because it would fuck up the basics of Shipwreck..and we all don't want that, right?

Now, for yet another one..and this saddens me:

Gung Ho in Dress Blues (http://www.yojoe.com/action/87/gungho2.shtml)

Don't get me wrong: I love Gung-Ho. But this is a awful action figure.

Hasbro had a habit in the '80s of making Joes that were either cool, filler, or just honoring something/somebody because, at their heart, they were patriotic toys. And since Gung-Ho was a popular figure, it would make a lot of sense to redesign him for more sales and it if happened to be an honorary figure...hey, added bonus! Nothing says "$!" like a figure that does everything.

But sadly, Hasbro goofed here. As we all know, Gung-Ho isn't the GQ type. For fuck's sake, the man is a Marine. Tattooed chest, wears a vest and dirty pants and a hat because he's a swamp fighter. Making a swamp fighter the pinnacle of Marine excellence is hardly an intelligent move. And the filecard on him which they excuse his dress doesn't make him look hardcore as much as it makes him look like the alternative to Ken in Barbie wants another man. Add to this the utter lack of accessories--a saber is cool, but molded to the fucking scabbard is DUMB--and you have a Joe who doesn't do anything except stand there, his saber stupidly in his hand, looking out of place and uncomfortable. And why Hasbro didn't pay some poor guy $5 an hour just to put the labels on the figure's arms instead of having kids do it is just pathetic.

The truly sad part about this is if you click on the link, you can see the Brazilian version which is full of weapons like pistols and guns along with a cover design that looks kickass. Compared to Gung-Ho's filecard which has him standing at attention and you can see how badly Hasbro fucked up a good figure. So, while Brazil has a Gung Ho dressed to the nines and tearing new holes, we have one who likes shining his shoes and making sure his patches and awards are all nice and even.

Before he tries stabbing himself with his sad little sheathed saber. ;)

[FS]

Holy shit! I just found parts of an old Cobra action figure that must've been the worst of them all. I don't think they ever showed him in the cartoon, either.

It's a guy who's bare-chested, with a Robin-like eyemask on and a big nose. He's got an eagle's head as a hat, and he had a backpack with cloth wings on it. Before I lost it, he also had an eagle that could be perched on his arm, but I remember it breaking off all the time. Anyone got his name? Right now, he's lost his hat, eagle and backpack, his crotch's snapped off (they're always the first to go) and the rubber band keeping his torso and legs connected has torn.

[Vomit]

I think you're talking about Raptor (http://www.yojoe.com/action/87/raptor.shtml). He came out when Cobra was starting to get a little weird.

I kinda liked him. :(

[Zbu Manowar]

Yeah, I fondly remember Raptor. He was in that line with the Battle-Armored Cobra Commander and Big Boa. While I agree with the outfit (which makes him look like the Lone Ranger's pathetic younger cousin), it's really hard to easily dismiss those Cobras whose name does not end up ending with -Viper.

Still...that outfit is goofy.

[Zbu Manowar]

Outback (http://www.yojoe.com/action/87/outback.shtml)

History is a cruel bitch. What could be termed as acceptable one year could be something vastly different the next. While this change and the resultant change of attitudes and the fairness of it all could be argued, it does result in some entertaining paradoxes.

Such an example is Rambo III. You know, the one where Rambo goes into Afghanistan and helps the Rebels throw out the Russians. Put that into today's context, and you have Rambo throwing out one American enemy for another, more dangerous one. All of this is unfair, of course. One simply can't put a '80s brainless action flick up for today's rules unless one wants to put more of a restriction on subject material. While these paradoxes will and always will exist, it's simply a part of fiction.

So where am I going with this? Simple. Outback's filecard describes him as a survivalist from Idaho. This is unfortunate for two reasons: 1) the reason above, and 2) because he is the gayest fucking survivalist I've ever seen.

His 'uniform' is nothing more than fatigues and a stupid white shirt that says 'Survival' which he probably got from a crafts store. It's stupid. Survivalists--those who aren't stupid Biblebeating hicks who walk around their house in their underwear and holding a .45, mumbling about that darn government--are usually the type to either dress conservatively or effectively. What does Outback do? He wears some pants he probably weaseled from an Army surplus store and a shirt that could only blend in JC Penney. He doesn't look like a man who could live off the land as a poser who looks like he knows what kind of bark to eat but eventually gets rescued five days later on the other side of the mountain, in the fetal position, whining about his last bottle of Evian. Plus his head looks like a toned down Kris Kristoffson. Huh??

Plus the name is stupid. 'Outback' brings to mind Australia. Not some Idaho loser with an awful shirt. It's just a faux pas, really. But maybe Hasbro was trying to tie in this figure with the brief American career of Yahoo Serious? Mad Max? Jocko? Who the hell knows.

So, Outback sits next to Tollbooth on the 'unfortunate names' bench, remembered only because he was probably the Joe who got kicked out because he didn't pay his taxes, then sneaked back in to hand out pamphets with erronous, exaggerating facts about God full of those stupid number games that somehow foretell (after the fact) how the 9/11 attacks were all tied to the number 73. After an incident in which Gung Ho and Stalker kick his ass for being a jerk, Outback is kicked out off the grounds and for five days stations himself by the ditch by the Joe HQ entrance and stages a 'protest' with a crappy blue and purple K-Mart tent until he's taken away in an ambulance after his diet of strange red berries and squirrel shit cause him to get violently ill. After that? Nothing but a sad pathetic footnote in history.

[FS]

:lol Thanks for the picture. God only knows why they called him "Raptor". His filecard is pretty ridiculous too. "yuppie tax consultant..."

[Dynamic Dustin M.]

I ran across this when I was surfing through the archives and I had to throw my two cents in. Why? Because.

First off, Alpine was the coolest Joe simply because he was the token black guy on the show. He had some cool lines and how can you not like a guy who uses a Mountain Grappling Hook to grab unto a Cobra Bubble and then smash the bastard driving it through the window with a fist?

By the way, don't give me any shit about that basketball playing Joe being the token black guy. He can rot in hell.

Second, obscure Joes in my opinion are almost a dime a dozen. I always tried to figure out what the hell happened to the "not quite ready for Primetime" Joes that Sgt. Slaughter was training in the movie...

[Zbu Manowar]

Alpine wasn't the token black guy. What about Roadblock and Stalker?

[DocBubonic]

All the sports related G.I. Joe characters were awful.

Capt. Grid Iron, The Fridge, the loser with the basketball jersey in the G.I. Joe movie, and even Rockie (for a brief period of time) all were horrible. Now that I think about it, I think there was one joe called Slugger.

I'm glad these losers didn't make it to the comics (except Slugger, then again he's probably the best of the bunch).

The Cobra-la nonsense was a disgusting abortion of an idea. That horrendous idea pretty much killed G.I. Joe.

[Galvatron]

The most forgotten and BEST characters were the forces of Cobra-La, Golobulus, especially, was THE freakin' best.

[Zbu Manowar]

I dunno, the Cobra-La guys were kinda cool in the movie until they just started beating down Cobra Commander. Come on, Nemesis Enforcer was the MAN.

I should probably do a few of those water-spray figures, or maybe those goofy aliens.

[DocBubonic]

Cobra-la was a horrible abomination. I'm glad that mess never was seen in the comics.

I personally think Cobra-la was what caused the TV show to be canceled. It was a fucking cancer on the TV show.