G.I. Joe Debates & Hot Takes: Settled Once & For All?! | G.I. Retro Mail Call #1

The first-ever G.I. Retro Mail Call is here! You sounded off, so I'm going into the comments, questions, and emails to respond to YOUR takes on the debates I've been tossing out on the show so far!
Zartan: Hair or Hood, the greatest rivalry in G.I. Joe, and that Scarlett love triangle! Plus some exciting channel news and going to JoeFest!

This community has been the best part of doing the show. Let's keep the conversation going. What do YOU want to know for the next Mail Call? Yo Joe!
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Does this answer your question? A gem of that size answers all my questions. No gem, not even any holograms, but I still will endeavor to answer all your questions. This is G.I. Retro. Now back to G.I. Joe. Yo, Joe, and welcome everyone, back to GI Retro, where we are revisiting and celebrating each and every episode of G.I. Joe, a real American hero, the Sunbow Run. And we're already through two miniseries, The Mass Device and The Revenge of Cobra. So I thought we'd take a beat and do something a little different today. And that's respond to some of your questions, your comments, you weighing in on some of the questions that I have posed to all of you and do our first ever edition of a full-fledged GI Retro mail call. But before I get to your comments, questions, and the like, I do want to first sincerely thank all of you once again for this community within the GI Joe community that we're building and creating here at GI Retro. It's been really rewarding for me to see. You know, we're about 10 episodes in now, and I'm already starting to recognize a lot of names that are commenting and weighing in on each episode. You know, like Snow Leopard, who comments and shares each and every episode, also on social media, which I really appreciate. Die in a Fire 920, you're everywhere. Matthew Duvall, same thing. Mark White Raven, Bad Air 647, Springfield Population One always with really great, insightful comments and others. I don't mean to leave anybody out. I couldn't write everyone down, but just, you know, again, already seeing these regulars crop up. I look forward to seeing all of you weighing in. It's really cool. And then on Twitter, social media, you know, Destro Designs, such a supportive leader within the GI Joe community. And big shout out to Serpentors Lair on there as well, who are not only hosting episodes of GI Retro, but sharing each and every episode each week. Just the support and again, the community within the community. It's been a really rewarding experience so far. And it's going to keep building, and I'm excited for that. So, with that, without further ado, let's dive into some of what you had to say, responding to me, and we'll go through it. Let's let's start with some of the questions I posed out there. And this one was more so in passing. I'm sure we will revisit it down the line, but I think it was from the first episode because this is the, you know, this sort of the first debate that I put to all of you, and something that is, you know, I think one of the bigger third rails in the the GI Joe community, sort of hotly contested, depending on which side you fall on. But it was Duke and Scarlet or Snake Eyes and Scarlet. And I didn't really lean in heavily on it. I had other things to get to. I really wanted to talk more about the cartoon. But as we've gone along and I've posed some other questions, this is one that, you know, maybe, maybe we should have spent a little bit more time on. That being said, some of you did have some things to say. So uh let's let's dive into it. Starting right off the bat with Snow Leopard. And he said, even though I was much more familiar with the cartoon than the comic, I'm in the Scarlet and Snake Eyes camp. And that is sort of an interesting take, not, you know, un sort of unheard of, that even though if you weren't super familiar with the comic books, there just is this sort of broader sort of through osmosis that's like, well, yeah, it's kind of like Snake Eyes and Scarlet. So I've definitely have seen a lot of that. Dyna Fire 920. Same as you. My introduction to the Joes was with the cartoon and not the comics. And I didn't know about Snake Eyes and Scarlet's relationship until the internet age. Having said that, I still prefer the Snake Eyes Scarlet combo instead of Duke. For some reason, never liked Duke and preferred Flint. And, you know, sort of backing up Snow Leopard there as well. That's not sort of unheard of that you would have that opinion, even not having sort of the knowledge before the internet age. And I agree with you. Like I like Duke, but he was never my favorite. Flint was always my favorite of the leaders of G.I. Joe. He's my favorite G.I. Joe in general. So I'm with you there in terms of preferring Flint over Duke and why that would lead you to say, ah, you know, maybe Scarlet and Snake Eyes would be the thing. Okay, Sky underscore rider says, Duke and Scarlet all the way, man. I say this as a kid who grew up with the comics and the cartoon, and Duke just made more sense. I think Skyrider's perspective is a little bit more on the unique side. Within the GI Joe community that I've seen, the folks that grew up with both the comics and the cartoon overwhelmingly lean Snake Eyes and Scarlet. So I really appreciate Skyrider weighing in with that perspective. And I do think within the cartoon, it it just makes more sense for Duke and Scarlet to be a thing. We've we've talked about it, you know, the restrictions of the medium and love them or not, Duke, one of the main heroes, one of the main characters of the show, uh, along with Scarlet, you know, they they just make more sense of a as a pairing in that regard. Aikens U6D says, poor Snake Eyes. First he loses his girl to Duke, and then he even loses his arch rival to Spirit. However, as you said, it was arguably necessary due to the medium. We can get inside a mute character's head in the comics through thought bubbles. In the cartoon, not so much. And yeah, that's that's where I was driving at. That in the cartoon, it just makes too much sense to not have Duke and Scarlet be together. You know, you can have that witty, flirty banter. We see that right in the first episode, right in the first, you know, few frames of the first episode, they're back and forth with one another. You can't you can't do that with Snake Eyes in the cartoon unless they were to commit, in my opinion, what would have been an even bigger betrayal, and that's having Snake Eyes talk. Like, could you imagine what that would have been like and what the response would be like then? And I think probably even harsher now. So I think they made the right call for what they had at the time because you know, with a lot of these questions, you know, that come down to, well, did you side with the cartoon or the comics and stuff like that? Springfield, who is one of the regular commenters, he really sums up that sort of dueling continuity quite nicely. And where G.I. Joe, in my opinion, really exists in this beautiful and unique space with the two continuities coexisting peacefully. Then we'll we'll we'll get to that in a minute. But on to the next question, and that is I think the biggest debate that we've had so far, and it will be maybe the biggest on the show, and it's certainly the most fun for me. I've revisited it a few times now, and I revisit it every time I'm watching an episode that Zartan is in, and I look over at Mrs. Retro and I say, that's hair. And that is, of course, hair versus hood when it comes to the Master of Disguise for Cobra, Zartan. And yeah, it cropped up here. Obviously, he made his debut in the Revenge of Cobra. And so I want to get to some of your comments weighing in on the hair or hood debate. So, and this is one of my favorite comments on the topic, just on the sort of broader end that it is even a topic at all. And that's uh Chris Miller Crazy House says only true G.I. Joe fans can have this debate and take it seriously. I remember Zartan being my favorite action figure because he could churn blue in the sunlight. Yeah, what a great action figure. But again, yeah, the fact that this is a not only a question, but a debate and one that is passionately sort of argued or defended on both sides. TAT Lawson says, ah, what a topic. I was an adult when I first heard the hooded Zartan idea. I can't see it, even if I try. Zartan had rock band hair, period. And that's largely sort of where I come down as well. And to reiterate how I feel about it, I am aware of what it was supposed to be and what it is throughout all the other forms of G.I. Joe. You look at the card art, you see a hood. The comic books explicitly, it is a hood. My point is that in the cartoon, no matter how it happened through something getting lost in translation, my stance on it is what we got, and in the pre-internet age, without being able to understand what it was supposed to be, what we got in the cartoon was hair. That's what I grew up believing and seeing, to the point where even on the original action figure, I thought they were trying something out to make it look like hair because I didn't have access to the card art, you know? So I know what they were going for. I know what it was supposed to be. But what we saw, the devotees of the cartoon over anything else that we had as we were playing with our toys, we saw hair. And it's just so hard to unsee. And again, regardless of what it was meant to, the drawings oftentimes throughout the series come back as hair. And so I think that's it's why it's so fun that we have so many people sort of just like planting their flag. It's completely ridiculous, but I love it. All right, continuing on. Azreel Saint Dumas, 1982. I always thought in the cartoon his hair was long for the 80s rock and roll biker look. Yeah, a lot of people feel that way. On the other side, though, for Team Hood, Light Ship Inexplicable, it has to be a hood. My stepsister had that toy and it was a hood. It matches the color of other parts of his outfit. That's what Mrs. Retro says every time I get on her about it being hair. It matches the other the color of the other parts of his outfit, which they wouldn't do if it was hair. Marin's World, obviously a hood. As Zartan did not like the sun. Well, yeah, maybe that's why he grew his hair out. Uh, Joseph Bottom, I have the action figure. It's depicted as a hood. It looks like it looks more like hair than what, you know, long hair than what they had going with Scarlet. Uh, I digress. Okay, couple more before we move on. And let's get to Jack Burton here. In an interview with the creators, they mentioned that the offshore animators misunderstood the instructions and drew his hood like hair. So it was an accident, but it's supposed to be a hood. Supposed to be, but not. Uh, Dark Saint. It's a hood. The animation studio misinterpreted his hair. It confused me as a kid, but after I understood the animator's not perfect under tremendous schedule crunches, and I accepted that it was both. Very mature of you to accept it as both. Uh, but this is the closer. I think I actually mentioned this on a previous episode, but Michael Gene Fleming, I think the hood everywhere but the Sunbow cartoon, where it is hair, is the best answer. But I think the absolute best answer to steal from the old suave shampoo conditioner commercials is if you can't tell, why should we? That's the mic drop from Michael Gene Fleming. We will put a pin in hair versus hood for now. I can't promise that it won't come up again, but I think I think we have given it sufficient oxygen. If you want to keep the conversation going on it, feel free. But we'll leave it there for right now. And let's go ahead and get into another question I asked, which is the greatest rivalry in G.I. Joe. And this is another one where Snake Eyes, in terms of the cartoon versus comic, they come into sort of friction points because in the comic, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow clearly sort of this great rivalry. In the cartoon, though, that's not what we get. And it was in the Revenge of Cobra that we get the start of Storm Shadow versus Spirit, a rivalry that I absolutely love. And so I put it out there. Is this the greatest rivalry in G.I. Joe? I also made other suggestions like Cobra Commander and Destro, Destro and Zartan, as we see throughout the Revenge of Cobra miniseries, a great rivalry in its own right. And a lot of you weighed in with some of your other thoughts. Old Man Winter. I always really enjoyed the Spirit Storm Shadow rivalry. Shaman versus Ninja, Western Mystic versus Eastern. And yet I always thought if they hadn't been on opposite sides, they could have been friends. And I think that's really well said, Old Man Winter. That's that's the beauty of it. Both that dynamic of East versus West and that clear idea that they both have this code of honor to where if they were on the same side, they would have been really close. And I think that came across, and it is really surprisingly nuanced for a cartoon of that era. And so I really appreciated that. Once again, Snow Leopard weighing in. I didn't have the comics growing up, so Spirit and Quick Kick were Storm Shadow's main rivals to me. And yeah, a lot of people weighing in about Quick Kick uh being sort of another rivalry that they loved uh for Storm Shadow in particular, obviously in the cartoon. Uh Philly Man says the top rivalry has always been Snake Eyes versus Storm Shadow. Okay, also weighing in on this, Nathan GR81. He's talking about the intro to The Revenge of Cobra, and he says the only time in the entire Sunbow show that Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes have any interaction with one another, and it's considered so insignificant that I've seen extremely few mentions of it online. Talking about in that intro sequence there, yeah, it's probably that's pretty much you know one of the few things we get. I'm glad the Sunbow animators thought at least to have this, but nothing else. They had to have known that Storm Shadow was supposed to have some connection with Snake Eyes, or else they wouldn't have even given us this. Plus, the Snake Eyes file card, the next year mentioned connection to Storm Shadow. But I don't know why they said, okay, that's it, and decide to have no mention of them in the actual episodes. I'm okay with Storm Shadow versus Spirit and later Quick Kick, but there should have been at least one scene where Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes at least acknowledge one another, even if they didn't fight. But at least there's that. So yeah, I I agree. And you know, to this point, I think the Spirit and Storm Shadow uh rivalry really works as we talked about before, that sort of East versus West code of honor and mysticism, everything like that, and their banter back and forth, being able to express that. That being said, I do think that there is room, even with the medium, to at least have a few scenes, if not an episode, where it is all about Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow dueling with one another. I think they could have made it work. Obviously, other characters would have had to have been involved to sort of convey the dialogue necessary, but you know, it it would have been nice to sort of get more of that. But you know, we must dwell on this. We must dwell on this. All right, we can't dwell forever. And this next comment has Quick Kick catching some strays. This is from Dyanifier 920, and he says, As a kid, I love this rivalry being Storm Shadow and Spirit. I was a big fan of ninjas, and seeing Storm Shadow in action with honor was superb. I didn't like the rivalry between Storm Shadow and Quick Kick because I just didn't like Quick Kick. He was too talkative like a buffoon. Another rivalry I love during the series, nobody talks about is Lady J and Destro. They even share a bloodline. And Dynafier, thank you for that. I am excited to get into that about Lady J and Destro. We will get there. But to sort of put a bow on this whole thing on more than one question when it comes to the continuities of G.I. Joe, whether you fall on cartoon or comic book, I mentioned it earlier, but Springfield Population 1 weighed in on it. And he was really eloquent, and I really sums it up nicely. So let me just get into it because I agree with him. So Springfield says, you know, I definitely preferred the cartoon more as a kid, but I also read the comic. And guess what? Even back then, I knew there were two different universes and never had trouble wrapping my brain around that. Cosigned, completely agree. It's odd how so many Joe fans, comic fans more, I noticed, but both really just have to put one above the other. Why not just be happy that we had a great cartoon that worked for its medium and a great comic that worked for its medium? Two different Joe worlds to follow that were good in different ways. There's enough room in this world for multiple continuities for something as great as Joe as the current comics continue to prove. So basically, I'm saying that in terms of the two different Storm Shadow rivalries and the Scarlet romances for that matter, I think both work for each other's continuities. And Springfield, thank you for that. I think that's incredibly well said. I like posing this these questions out there for everyone to weigh in on. But I do agree with you. And as a kid, even though I was much more familiar with the cartoon at first before getting into the comics and stuff like that, there's still, and I I've talked a little bit about it, this idea that a lot of Joe fans, we were aware of both universes. And I do think for the most part, they coexist peacefully. And the ability, like you so greatly put, the ability to wrap our heads around as a as a fandom around both and embrace both, I think for the most part is what G.I. Joe fans do. I think these conversations are fun, you know, to talk about, but in reality, it's not a one or the other situation. I think it really is both. You can enjoy both. You can take what you like, leave what you don't. And that's something that I think is really cool about the G.I. Joe continuities and the universe. And for some reason, it doesn't interfere as much as you know with other fandoms like Star Wars or Star Trek and things like that. There is this idea of, again, I'll you're using your terminology, being able to wrap your head around the multiple continuities, which I think is really a strength of the G.I. Joe fandom. So thank you very much for weighing in on that, Springfield. And again, I like to throw these questions out there. It's not meant to be any sort of serious this or that or comics versus cartoons. Very much so, just wanting to have some fun with this. Uh, but I think that was really well said. I want to get to a couple emails before we get out of here. This first ever G.I. Retro mail call. Our first email comes from Shepard, who says, James, I'm loving the Sumbo Review Series. Have you thought about doing an even deeper dive for hardcore fans on a Patreon or buy me a coffee or something? And Shepard, thank you again for writing in. James at GIRetro.com. If you want to email me, by the way, in case you forgot. But yes, Shepard, thank you very much. I know I answered you directly, but I want to answer it for everyone here. And yes, we are going to be launching a Patreon here at GI Retro, I think in the next month or two. I've got some things planned for it, you know, early releases, you know, once you know YouTube does its thing, ad-free releases and all that stuff. Still sort of finding my way. I want to have, you know, more firm footing for you all before launching something like a Patreon. We're asking for you to support something. I want you to have proof of concept. I want to sort of build the community further with you all and everything. But yeah, the plans are in place for a Patreon to eventually happen. Support that way if you wish. Never will be any pressure to do so. But yeah, some early release stuff and also just building out the sort of what we're going to be doing here at GI Retro, a little tease ahead. Planning on talking more GI Joe comic books, specifically the Energon universe in the future. I'm very excited about that. I have a comic book expert that will be joining me as we do that discussion. So yeah, stay tuned for all of that. Patreon and all that good stuff is coming. Our last email and last entry for this first ever GI Retro mail call comes from Danny. And Danny says, been loving the channel. Quick one for you. I spotted that starduster on the shelf behind you. I'm pretty sure it's one from the SoCal Joe show. Did you make it out there this year? And bigger question, are you going to be at Joe Fest? If so, what's on your toy hunt list? Anything you've been chasing for the collection, yo Joe. Uh sharp eyes, Danny. That is from the SoCal Joe show. I actually wasn't there. I got that up at StocktonCon uh this year, which is a convention up in Northern California. Love StocktonCon. Encourage you to, if you are in the California area or if you're planning on coming out, StocktonCon is a great one to be at. Uh, but in answer to your bigger question, yes, I am going to Joe Fest. It's coming up. That's why I want to make sure I got this mail call entry out to all of you. We'll be going to Joe Fest. My older brother and I are venturing forth from California, going all the way out to Augusta, Georgia for Joe Fest. Very excited. I've actually never been to one before, so this will be my first time. And very excited for this brother-brother bonding trip uh and connecting maybe with some of you that are going to be out there at Joe Fest as well. So very excited. Uh, it should be a great time. And also, what I am looking for at Joe Fest, and this is something I I've I've talked to my brother about. The G.I. Joe commando attack board game is what I'm really looking forward to finding. And I know you can find them online and stuff like that, but I want to find it myself. I want to find one that's in good condition, and we'll see what kind of price I can get on it out there. But I have very, very fond memories of playing the G.I. Joe commando attack board game, specifically me and my dad playing it together. You know, my dad and I have a very close relationship, and you know, he'd usually be Cobra, so he would start having the Baroness is gonna go frolic, go off and frolic with Destro. So, you know, setting the tone early on in life that, yeah, the Baroness had it going on. Anyway, a lot of fond memories playing that board game. So I'll be looking for one of those that's in good condition uh to bring back with me. Uh, but then also I'd like to just get eyes on the Firefly saboteur kit. I've never actually seen one in the wild. I know they're rare and they go for a lot of money. So I would even just just even to see it would be really cool. But main thing, I'm excited to take in the whole experience. It's my first Joe Fest. I've covered tons of Comic Cons before, and I'm excited to go out there and cover Joe Fest. So yeah, I'll be doing some coverage, hopefully connecting with some of you, and I will see you out there in Augusta, Georgia. And the next time you see me here, we'll be getting into the Pyramid of Darkness, starting the third miniseries of GI Joe. Very excited for that. Hopefully, there won't be a delay. As I just said, I'll be out there with so many of you out in Georgia for Joe Fest. I'm gonna try and get the first episode breakdown of the Pyramid of Darkness done before I hop on my flight. But we will see. If there's any delay, it will be short and hopefully worth the wait. Thank you so much for joining me here. Pyramid of Darkness up next. But until then, if you didn't know, now you know. Take it away, Flint. And knowing is half the battle.