If the game is not going to treat it like a real military, then why would I want to play it? Cobra is a terrorist organization. If they aren't attacking public spaces, murdering tons of innocent people, they're not doing their job.
Hasbro certainly doesn’t perceive, treat or present Cobra in that way though. We, as adults, do, but that is separate from how they are presented as an idea and characters in the toyline. They are villains who are pursuing villainous objective but they certainly are not presented as murderous terrorists that actually kill people in the pursuit of their goals.
I just found the Target exclusive Cobra Island Roadblock at a toy shop for cheap. I only bought it because the ankles were nice and tight and my Retro Gung Ho has super duper floppy ankles. The boots aren't the exact same color but they're good enough.
omg GridIron is killin' it! With three color options, no less! GA0277A 1:12 (R) Deluxe Weight Rack great for G.I. Joe Classified, Weight room, lifting, Gym Diorama, Cobra, Mr. T, Roadblock, Stalker, WWE, Custom Action figures, Hulk Hogan, Wrestling Gridmas GA0277C 1:12 (CB) Deluxe Weight Rack great for G.I. Joe Classified, Weight room, lifting, Gym Diorama, Cobra, Mr. T, Roadblock, Stalker, WWE, Custom Action figures, Hulk Hogan, Wrestling Gridmas GA0277B 1:12 (OD) Deluxe Weight Rack great for G.I. Joe Classified, Weight room, lifting, Gym Diorama, Cobra, Mr. T, Roadblock, Stalker, WWE, Custom Action figures, Hulk Hogan
Oh absolutely. Not trying to be negative at all. Just musing on how I see the show now compared to when I was a kid. And yes! The writing did the trick because 1986 is my absolute favorite series of Joe toys. Although we never did get figures of the bikini-clad distractions. Such a disappointment.
Okay, and? The cartoon was an utter joke that was full of bumbling idiots who wouldn't even be able to stand up to a child with a bebe gun. Go watch Resolute. That's how GI Joe should be. The comics did. Plus, the idea of terrorism has changed a bit. To be a threat, you need to act like one.
So whomever nudged me to but the Viper 3-Pack - thank you! I’m about done giving them their Future treatments and I’m just loving these figures. The blast effects of course, but I like the muted blue on the Vipers so much more. And I just realized they are different ethnicities! The leader just has an extra big of swagger to him with the different colors and red pistol. In the off-chance this set hit a deep discount I’d likely get another. I imagine Hasbro is already planning a Crimson Guard pack and another one for the BATs. These are great molds they can milk for years.
The comics show people directly tied to combat or the conflicts dying to present the threat of serious consequences to the conflict but I don’t recall Cobra being shown killing civilians to create terror around Cobra. They were called terrorists but never shown to inflict terror through murder and violence.
You lost your innocence... I'm sorry for that. Toys and cartoons can exist in a better world. I loved the bumbling nature of the show. I personally did not like Resolute very much. Kind of like the TF shows of recent years, they were made for jaded adults and lost most of what made the originals so great. Death on a grand scale was never the goal of Cobra, just a misguided pursuit of world domination and ever more money.
Pretty much. The original template of Cobra is something akin Spectre, more specifically from Roger Moore era Bond Movies as an improbably large organization voted to global domination unaffiliated to any specific country. The characterization as a terrorist organization is more because there is nothing like that in the real world, while using "criminal organization" would have probably been refused by the marketing division with the risk of confusion with police inspired toys.
The original premise referred to Cobra as a Ruthless Terrorist Organization Determined to Rule the World. At least when the 80's Joe Revival occurred and Joe needed a nemesis, remember the 60's era G.I.Joe was an action doll inspired by genuine military branches and the like. The cartoon did not portray them as effective, yet the world saw them as a threat... and you can't tell me that schemes involving dominating the weather or neutralizing all power on a global scale through the dreaded Pyramids of Darkness wouldn't cause mass deaths, especially in Hospitals and other such places where power would be required to maintain life support systems. The cartoon was fanciful, good guys always win and everybody has a parachute so we don't show death to the kiddies, in all seriousness though the genuine truth of the matter would be that people would die. Hell when Cybertron was dragged into Earth Orbit during the three-parter with Arkeville a lot of those events probably resulted in death as well. Just because it was never mentioned on screen or shown to have happened doesn't mean it couldn't or didn't. Realistically it should have and it helps to explain certain plot problems that sometimes crop up. The comics were a much different kettle of fish, we saw deaths on a semi-regular basis. Hell the infamous SAW Viper situation that resulted in a ton of deaths... and then there's how they got rid of Serpentor by sealing him up in a tanker with his supporters after the Cobra Civil War... if memory serves. The cartoon involved innocence and portraying an unrealistic narrative to ensure that children weren't traumatized, but a lot of kids would clearly start asking questions, especially if they had any kind of curiosity about such things. I know I watch those old cartoons today and have questions even as an adult... sure some of what I come up with is Headcannon only to me, however it is a fact that people die. Duke is dead, Serpentor killed him. I don't care what lazy ass edit they make to the original animation, the dude was killed. First genuine casualty in the war and Hasbro lost their balls when they caved because of all the deaths in TFTM. This is the same era where Don Bluth was terrorizing kids with dead mothers, evil mystic rats and a giant fucking t-rex chasing a bunch of kids long before Jurassic Park ever came onto the scene. And Disney made The Black Cauldron not long earlier. Animation was trying to be something else at the time, human sensibilities changed considerably. Now we've got shows talking about death in a genuine narrative style. Steven Universe, Adventure Time and so much more. Overall, perhaps I see things differently, but if I was playing a video game, I'd want Cobra to be an effective and competent threat. Mass bombings, large kill counts, those sorts of things make sense to me in a video game setting, especially for a FPS dealing with Joe vs. Cobra. Unfortunately, much like other franchises, games aren't exactly ever going to be as good as they could be. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready to pick up my POL shipment and finally crack open my CGs.
I had some GI*JOE figures before 1986, but that was definately the year I became obsessed with GI*JOE. I think that was partly because of Season 2 of the Sunbow show and partly because the 3rd year of Transformers just didn't excite me as much as the first 2 years. I'm with you. I enjoy R rated violent material but I can also enjoy light hearted campy material too. Everything doesn't have to be all dark and Christopher Nolany.
The cartoon called them a ruthless terrorist organization and then never proceeded to show them as ruthless or commit acts of terror. Saying it was marketing copy that simply established a threat, but it was never shown because that type of violence and terror is simply not part of the brand regardless of whether adults wish it would be. As I said previously, the deaths in the comics did not present Cobra in this way because they were isolated to immediate combatants, the purpose of which was to show the threat to the soldiers who fight against Cobra not create terror.
Threatening to destroy the world's economy by destroying all the money could be terrorism. Threatening to destroy landmarks and whole cities is def terrorism. And who could forget attacking the US capital to overthrow the government?
Well, in the comics we don't explicitly see them doing anything we would associate with Terrorism, but I believe it was mentioned more than once that one of the ways they got money was by engaging in terrorist acts. Just because we never saw them slaughter an entire mall full of people for whatever scheme they concocted doesn't mean bad shit wasn't going down that we never saw in the books since the implication of some of the incidents ...unless GI Joe somehow magically managed to evacuate entire towns/cities of civilians... imply that there would have had to have been civilian death involved in many of the things they did in the comics. Either directly or indirectly due to their actions. Particularly the actions they took in third-world nations during some of the arcs. I get the feeling there was only so much Hasbro would allow Hama to actually depict Cobra doing and, frankly, for a comic aimed at kids Cobra's depiction even without showing the direct death of civilians was pretty damned mature and a far cry from the bumbling buffoonery of the cartoon.
What possible reason could Hasbro have for not wanting a bunch of toys that they're trying to get the parents of 10 year olds to buy to be portrayed as mass murderers.
