Agreed. You can read more about that here and if you read it all may God have mercy on your soul. Does Flint outrank Duke? - HissTank.com Yes that was the Sunbow chain of command Flint lays out at the beginning of the Rise of Serpentor IIRC
More Joes in stock today. Had my pick of a couple Gung Ho’s and four Cobra Commanders. Got one with a nice symmetrical helmet. Also saw these But I already have a Hiss from the 25th line or something so I don’t need another one.
I loved going through the mental gymnastics on this as a kid, trying to reconcile rank/command for the comic book, the cartoon and the conflicts with the file cards. The original comic book squad made a lot of sense, as it was modeled on the special forces configuration. Handful of enlisted with an officer leading the unit. In fact, if you ever watched the show, “The Unit”, they did a good job addressing rank, with the specialists reporting to the Sgt Major in the field, and having the Col. back at base. But when they expanded the ranks and built up their own branch of the military (a full army, navy, Air Force within GI Joe), the chain of command issues popped up. Anybody flying an aircraft is going to be an officer. Got a degree in psychology like Psyche Out, you’re coming in as an officer. Somebody brought up Keel Haul already. But at the end of the day, what does rank and chain of command mean when you are fighting against the spliced genetic composite of Khan, Vlad, Casesar, etc.?
How I see it... G.I. Joe is a special task force, that recruits men and women from various branches of the military, but wants them for their individual field accomplishments/expertise, rather than their rank. I feel like the filecards do a pretty good job of more or less describing why each member was recruited. They don’t observe rank because those ranks come from those other branches, they don’t make them all wear one standard uniform (because Joes are seen as individuals), and they use codenames, presumably to protect their family (the Captives of Cobra two-parter does a good job showing why the Joe’s identifies are secret). Basically, the Joe team plays by its own set of rules. I’d be interested in seeing the chain-of-command past Beach Head and Sgt. Slaughter — if there even is one. It’s possible field-command responsibly is dictated by the situation, when the obvious command figures are not present. Also, in the animated movie, Falcon mentions that he outranks Duke (Lt. > Sgt.), but Duke don’t care because Joes got their own chain-of-command.
I still wonder how the hell that guy became a Green Beret in the first place. He's everything Rodimus Prime haters accuse Hot Rod of being (Hot Rod was well intentioned and messed up... Falcon was genuinely a scumbag).
Scumbag is special forces? It takes next level aggression to succeed in those disciplines; getting a few scumbags is par for the course.
What's interesting about Falcon is that in the comics, I forget which mission, but he basically is in charge and Duke is only offering him advice or whatever. Which I get in the real world that would be the case, but obviously wasn't the case in the cartoon... but then we have that instance in the comics. If anything it seems inconsistent between the different fictional depictions. Of course, Falcon's characterization in the comics was a far cry from the jackass they made him in the cartoon.
It might be because I was a kid, or maybe because at the time I didnt really understand the military organizational structure or whatever but as I kid I always thought it was hawk, Duke, beachhead, sgt slaughter. But I also never played as one meant more than another with decisions. Unlike the cobra side that always had a top dog leader in cobra commander and later serpentor when I got his figure, the joes were a cohesive team and each had a specialty so they never had to worry about who was in charge because they each were in charge of themselves. I mean at the end of the day there was the few I mentioned rank wise but when I played and they were in the middle of fighting and whatnot they didn't have to have someone tell them what to do because they were already doing that job.
Was the retro awe striker supposed to be released before, after or concurrently with the H.I.S.S. tank? I’ve found the H.I.S.S. locally, but coming up empty on the striker.
I think concurrently. The FANG is the only announced vehicle in Wave 2. I've seen AWE Strikers but no HISS tanks. I scored one on eBay for $26 plus shipping.
shocking the distribution sucks. That’s a good score I’m seeing $45 shipped as the low end for either.