Saturday, May 21, 2011

Pop Culture References in G.I. Joe Missed by Jerks.

The G.I. Joe comic book was occasionally better than a STAR COMICS imprint, because of this there were a number of references that dudes into G.I. Joe (Fat white guys) missed. A great example of this is Marvel G.I. Joe # 12 (June, 1983)


Real ass quotes from the first two comic recaps I found: Yo Joe's says this "the streets of San Francisco. The chase continues through the streets with exchange of gunfire between the Joes and the Cobra operatives. An unsuspecting civilian, in his car, haphazardly places himself in the path of the oncoming Cobra van subsequently has his car ripped to shreds as the van then the VAMP tear right through it."

MyUselessKnowledge had this to say "..." nothing, because that site is pretty useless and has had the same 80 Comic summaries since like 2000!

Anyways the "unsuspecting civilian" is actually a clever stereotype providing an ironic reference. Check these images!







There's a reference to a pretty fucking rad band, known as the Plasmatics, who's lead singer would blow cars up and destroy television's in an effort to subvert materialistic pricks. Could the fact there was a reference to that in the most materialistic type of media (Toy Commercials) be subtle irony or Larry Hama just thinking "Shit there's punk rockers in San Francisco". I'm going with the latter, as Mohawk boy is more of a caricature of an image obsessed L.A. punk from the late 70's.

Am I surprised no one ever mentioned this sly reference? Nope! G.I. Joe is pretty good at attracting dudes with bad taste and a lack of awareness to cultural phenomenon's that aren't "80's toys" and "Action Movies"

2 comments:

  1. So you are saying JMMMMMMM's(maybe some more M's) Comic Home Page isn't the up-to-date comics source that it never was?

    The way the van shreds that car, maybe Hama was making commentary about something else, too...I don't the make of those vehicles. Perhaps JMMMMMMMM's GI JOE comic homepage can help...

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  2. JMMMMM's Comic Home Page is the best thing, as it's had about 4 face-lifts since I first visited it, but no actual content updates.

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