Larry Hama relaunches his '80s 'G.I. Joe series

[BCI Guy]

This is VERY cool.

--------

Larry Hama, the man whose creative force turned the G.I. Joe toy line into a multimedia juggernaut in the 1980s, is being called back for another tour of duty.

Hama is teaming with IDW to publish G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero No. 155 ½ for Free Comic Book Day on May 1, and the issue will pick up where Hama's original 155-issue Marvel Comics series left off. But there's even better news for longtime Joe fanatics: IDW is relaunching Hama's series in July and making it an ongoing title starting with issue 156.

Much more at the link:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/...4-gi-joe_N.htm

[markatisu]

So sweet, I have my comic book guy holding two copies of 155 1/2

Both Devils Due and IDW used Hama as a writer and consultant so its great he gets to continue doing what he loves

[AKA-DOM]

Awesome news Larry made the GI Joe line with those file cards

[Firefly]

I was pretty big into the original comic until they went ninja crazy. I might have to pick this up.

[Lord_Of_Destruction]

So if I understand this correctly it's a new series that picks up where the original Marvel run ended just like the Devil's Due run did but it will disregard the Devil's Dun continuity and furthermore it will have nothing to do with the other IDW series.

Now this I may give a shot. I tried the IDW series but quickly grew to dislike it due to the radical changes to characters. Then after what those a-holes did to Jinx, my all time favorite character, I officially boycotted the series.

But a series that continues the Marvel storyline that I will go with

The Good:
Undoes death of Lady Jaye!
Undoes General Hawk's paralysis
Undoes resurrection of Serpentor (granted he died again but come on!)
Erases Red Shadows from continuity
Keeps characters as I know and love them

The Bad:
Undoes death of The Jugglers
Negates new characters added by Devil's Due (Firewall, Zanya, Kamakura)

Could go either way:
At the end of the Marvel run Storm Shadow had been placed under brainwashing to serve Cobra again. So if the series picks up there he'll be a bad guy, however it was repeatedly stated this had always been intended to be a temporary storyline and Larry Hama is the one who developed Stormy into the kick ass hero I grew up with and loved in the first place so hopefully he'll quickly return to the Joe team WHERE HE FREEKING BELONGS!!! (no I will not let this issue drop!)

[BCI Guy]

That's what it sounds like. Similar to what Marvel is doing with their "Forever" books.

Picking up right where he left off, ignoring anything that happened since, and I'd assume letting him tell whatever stories he wants without worrying about the toy company forcing him to use or not use characters.

[Lion-O]

Cool news. Thanks for posting it.

[radrcks]

This is just... so.. EPIC! and AWESOME. Even EPICALLY AWESOME!

I just hope we get to keep some of the Devils Due/IDW characters.

I'll take a hint from someone who already posted but I'll continue it:


PROS:
Baroness and Major Bludd were written fantastically by him.
Cobra Island Civil War was possibly the best story arch he ever wrote.
Flint and Lady Jaye were almost always written well by him.

CONS:
Undoing the buried tanker thing and suddenly most of the people were still alive. (I don't want to see this type of story telling again, yes you can retcon a few things but you can't undo an entire frakkin war.)
Larry got a little bit ninja happy near the end. Scarlett - sure that was a natural progression but the story near the end became all about Billy, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Slice, Dice all the other ones I can't remember.
NEON MOHAWKED ZARTAN..... (nuff said.)

All that though I am excited about it, I just hope that the story is mature and that there are actual consequences to actions and stuff. I don't want to see someone get shot and say 'oww' then climb a mountain the next panel.

Now what I want to see....

More:
Falcon
Jinx
Cover Girl
Zandar
angry!manipulated!(but not in a Rise of Cobra way)Baroness
FIND A WAY TO MAKE PYTHONA & NEMESIS ENFORCER CANNON! (& not silly)

Less:
Ninjas
Killing Mindbender and Serpentor every 20 issues or so, either write them in leave them in or write them in and write them off forever
NO CLONES

[Lord_Of_Destruction]

So you want more Jinx but less ninjas? You do know Jinx is a ninja right?

In all seriousness though I agree with the first part of that at least. I want to see lots more Jinx. (Especially after the IDW disaster) I just hope they don't romantically link her with a not so cool character. I'm not a big Falcon fan, he's okay but I don't like him as a love interest for Jinx. Devil's Due hooked her up with Budo of all random characters. (which really doesn't work because he's a samurai -they tend not to like ninjas very much- actually I think they eventually broke up) and IDW... oh I don't even want to think about that train wreck!

As for Zartan's mohawk blame Hasbro for that one. The comic was sort of under obligation (or at least they felt they were) to showcase the new figure outfits and that's what the latest Zartan figure looked like at the time. I'm not saying it was a good looking figure at all but it wasn't really Larry's fault the design was used in the comic.

For that matter it could be argued that the whole too many ninjas thing was because of Hasbro's Ninja Force series of figures. (Still Storm Shadow's Ninja Force outfit is one of my favorites)

Honestly I'm not sure what you mean by undoing the buried tanker thing. Billy and Zartan escaped pretty much immediately. Firefly was retconned into having escaped later, but as far as I recall pretty much everyone else died and stayed dead. (Dr. Mindbender was brought back later but he was a clone of the original oh and of course there was the whole Serpentor thing YEARS later)

Also now that I think about it since Kamakura has appeared in toy form he should be fair game to use. Not so sure about Firewall though. I hope she can be worked in I always liked her.

[radrcks]

Okay I'll take this one at a time.

So you want more Jinx but less ninjas? You do know Jinx is a ninja right?

In all seriousness though I agree with the first part of that at least. I want to see lots more Jinx. (Especially after the IDW disaster) I just hope they don't romantically link her with a not so cool character. I'm not a big Falcon fan, he's okay but I don't like him as a love interest for Jinx. Devil's Due hooked her up with Budo of all random characters. (which really doesn't work because he's a samurai -they tend not to like ninjas very much- actually I think they eventually broke up) and IDW... oh I don't even want to think about that train wreck!

Yes. Jinx was fine and I was cool with her in it because - well I don't really know, but I did. I just meant that from like issue 110+ it got to be too much, (actually going to yojoe.com for this one here) we had:

Jinx (who was far too underused)
Scarlett (I can excuse this - it seemed natural progression for her character)
Banzai (don't see the point or his importance)
Bushido (meh)
Slice (I guess we needed a 'stable' evil ninja that didn't switch sides)
Storm Shadow (established so okay and yeah his NF costume was the best)
Dojo (come on, he only got 1 version of his figure.. that speaks volumes)
Nunchuck (I liked he was like Ninja!Dusty)
T'Jbang (again only 1 figure... epic failure in my eyes)
Dice (okay sure only 1 figure, but not gonna lie I loved him as a kid)
Snake Eyes (Canon from way back, can't touch this)
Zartan (meh I can give or take his ninja status)
Night Creeper Ninjas (ugh)
Billy was a ninja
Firefly was a ninja
Hard Master
Soft Master
(then add in)
Kamakura from the reboot (I liked him, just did no reason why)
Destro and Baroness had an army of ninjas too

It just simply got to be way too much.

As for Zartan's mohawk blame Hasbro for that one. The comic was sort of under obligation (or at least they felt they were) to showcase the new figure outfits and that's what the latest Zartan figure looked like at the time. I'm not saying it was a good looking figure at all but it wasn't really Larry's fault the design was used in the comic.

For that matter it could be argued that the whole too many ninjas thing was because of Hasbro's Ninja Force series of figures. (Still Storm Shadow's Ninja Force outfit is one of my favorites)

That doesn't mean I have to agree with it, I didn't mind some of what they did but changing Zartan that drastically was just too much (and this is coming from one of the like 3 people who enjoyed Superman when they split him Red/Blue)

Honestly I'm not sure what you mean by undoing the buried tanker thing. Billy and Zartan escaped pretty much immediately. Firefly was retconned into having escaped later, but as far as I recall pretty much everyone else died and stayed dead. (Dr. Mindbender was brought back later but he was a clone of the original oh and of course there was the whole Serpentor thing YEARS later)

The Cobra Island Civil war was a huge event and while some belief can be suspended you can't retcon things that much. I can get behind Billy, Zartan and Firefly escaping. But if you're going to kill off a lot of characters you either need to only bring like 1-2 back (at most, and not all shortly within each other's return) and leave the rest dead, or don't bring anyone back in ANY form. Bring Firefly back, sure, but don't do all of his reveals all at once when you bring him back and then bring Zartan back the next issue, and then like 3 issues later Billy is back.. spread it out.

Mindbender shouldn't have been brought back after he was killed off. If I remember correctly he came back around the time of the Transformers arch and Ninja Scarlett 'joining' Cobra he was a clone. And then he went off into space at the end of the arch. I forget how he was reintroduced into the reboot a few years ago but I'm guessing he was either a second clone, or he ended up back on earth.

Serpentor was a good idea if done correctly, but don't go back and basically retell the exact same story only to kill him off after he tries to do the same thing he did before only this time you kill him in like 5 issues instead of 30-40 issues later.

Also now that I think about it since Kamakura has appeared in toy form he should be fair game to use. Not so sure about Firewall though. I hope she can be worked in I always liked her.

I liked Kamakura and Firewall, actually I liked a lot of the new joes that were introduced in Dark Horse/Image/Devils Due (haven't read IDW yet) I liked that Zandar did a little bit more in the reboot *he is still massively underused though) I liked Zartan's daughter the only thing I wasn't a fan of was the whole thing with Baroness being pregnant with Destro's baby and Lady Jaye being killed. So I hope we do get some of the newer characters at least for a few issues.

You didn't touch at all on me wanting Pythona or Nemesis Enforcer in the comic. I can respect Larry for saying he didn't want to do it because it would be too 'out there' but we've already got Frankenleader, like 8 billion ninjas, men in falcon costumes and tights, soap opera-esque twists and long dead characters suddenly showing up breathing air, clones of dead characters coming back only to be taken off of earth by an evil space robot... talking transforming cars from outerspace (IN CANON!, not a non canon mini-series)... yet you draw the line at a mostly bald chick who hisses and has fingernails that drip acid? Really... Really...?


I guess to make a long story slightly more long I enjoyed the first run of Joe, and a lot of the reboot but oh man do I have issues with G.I.Joe Vol 1 issues 110-145 approx.

[Sorceress]

Cool! From watching the interview with him on the dvd boxset, Hama sure knows his stuff.

[vadersfist]

That sounds really cool but I would love to see another Joe series cartoon just like the 80's series was back then Hand drawn and really cool looking from that time period I miss the most.

[jocurtis28]

Glad to hear the dreck made by DD is no longer. They lost me when they killed off Flash. You don't kill off the original 13. I know Hama killed Breaker, but that's different IMO. I'll have to pick up the free one and check out the new series.

[MOTUfan]

VERY awesome I canot wait for this. the 155 1/2 comic very soon then a short two months until the Marvel/IDW run begins

I like the IDW Series but hate that what happened to Jinx.

So Image/Devils Due never happened or could just be a alt future for those that want to read it np I liked it honestly. But am so excited for the original to continue

Time to read #1-155 again

[markatisu]

Time to read #1-155 again

I am doing the same thing, loaded them all on my iPad in anticipation for 155 1/2 that comes in a few weeks

[Wacky Martin]

I personally really liked the DD series, but am still greatly looking forward to this!

[MOTUfan]

I am doing the same thing, loaded them all on my iPad in anticipation for 155 1/2 that comes in a few weeks

Few weeks, only 11 days

then July's 156

Need to dig out my Marvel timeline again. Think I found a simplified timeline to read the comics in with the 1-155 and the special missions. JMM's GI Joe site is awesome but like the Star Wars Gold Chronological timeline WAY to difficult to follow

EDIT:

Found it:

G.I. Joe: ARAH # 1-52
G.I. Joe: Yearbook # 2
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 1
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 53
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 2
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 54-56
G.I. Joe: Yearbook # 3
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 57-58
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 3-4
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 59
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 5
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 60-61
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 6
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 62-63
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 7
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 64-65
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 8
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 66-67
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 9
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 68
G.I. Joe: Yearbook # 4
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 10
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 69-71
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 11-13
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 72-74
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 14-15
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 75-80
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 16
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 81-82
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 17-18
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 83
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 19
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 84
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 20
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 85
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 21
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 86
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 22
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 87
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 23
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 88
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 24
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 89-90
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 25
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 91
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 26
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 92
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 27-28
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 93-134
G.I. Joe: ARAH (Snake-Eyes) # 135-145
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 146-155
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 155 1/2
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 156

[MossMan710179]

I caught the last half hour of the pannel they had this weekend at C2E2 and it caught my intrest.
Never really cared for G.I.Joe but I will give this comic a read ...

[MOTUfan]

I caught the last half hour of the pannel they had this weekend at C2E2 and it caught my intrest.
Never really cared for G.I.Joe but I will give this comic a read ...

You MUST read 1-155 :P and the rest which I have given you a handy list in reading order, and I have PMd you a well. And received your reply.

I will reply after lunch.

[Firefly]

I was able to get a copy today. They only had one stack of them at the comic store I went to. I plan on reading it later tonight. I don't think I've read the last issues of the original comic since I stopped after it got too ninjafied, but hopefully it will be easy to follow.

[Cropsy]

Sounds good, and did you know he's also the producer and designer of Bucky O Hare?

[MOTUfan]

G.I. Joe: ARAH # 1-52
G.I. Joe: Yearbook # 2
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 1
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 53
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 2
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 54-56
G.I. Joe: Yearbook # 3
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 57-58
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 3-4
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 59
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 5
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 60-61
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 6
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 62-63
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 7
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 64-65
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 8
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 66-67
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 9
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 68
G.I. Joe: Yearbook # 4
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 10
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 69-71
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 11-13
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 72-74
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 14-15
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 75-80
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 16
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 81-82
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 17-18
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 83
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 19
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 84
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 20
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 85
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 21
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 86
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 22
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 87
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 23
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 88
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 24
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 89-90
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 25
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 91
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 26
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 92
G.I. Joe: Special Missions # 27-28
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 93-134
G.I. Joe: ARAH (Snake-Eyes) # 135-145
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 146-155
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 155 1/2
G.I. Joe: ARAH # 156

When you read the first series in the order listed here and then 155 1/2 it really is a awesome read, even with the numerous ninjas and Transformers involved. Can't wait for July.

And at least the Brainwave scanners brainwashing is only temporary, as seen in this issue So, hopefully soon Storm Shadow will be a Joe again and not a brain washed Cobra agent.

[Lord_Of_Destruction]

And at least the Brainwave scanners brainwashing is only temporary, as seen in this issue So, hopefully soon Storm Shadow will be a Joe again and not a brain washed Cobra agent.

Amen to that!

[Firefly]

I got issue #156 tonight, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. They had both the A and B covers there. I got the A "wanted" cover.

[Orakk]

Have you read it? Is it any good? There were some 25th anniversary stuff made a couple of years ago. I bought some of my favorites, but then it started getting strange to me with Resolute and Rise of Cobra so I lost interest. I always liked Hama's stuff with the Joes and if he's back I might give it a chance.