(Intelli-Gaming: Article)

"G.I. Joe: An American Hero"... I can still hear the theme song of the animated series in my head, 30 years later. As a kid, I really liked my G.I. Joe toys. They had a great sense of realism, with just enough fictional aspects to keep me interested, without being over the top.

In this article, I take a look back at some of those toys that fuelled my imagination and inspired me. Along the way, I examine why it is that the military has such an attraction power towards young boys.

America's Movable Fighting Man

Created by Hasbro in 1964, the original G.I. Joe toys are known to be the brainchild of Donald Levine, who worked there at the time. The year before, in 1963, some design had been made by Stanley Weston, an american inventor who then sold the rights to Hasbro.

Multiple versions were made over the years, in various formats. The one I am the most familiar with, was the 9.5 cm format.

A funny fact is that it was believed that boys would not play with "dolls". Unless... the dolls were dressed in combat fatigues and were reminiscent of Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), Commando (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and other movie stars who acted in military movies.

The Attraction of the Military

I've asked myself previously why I was so attracted by military machines and powerful heroes. I found my answer: Because the military powers of the worlds have the best technology and because the military promotes pragmatism, efficiency and performance above all else. Cost is really secondary, even tough "money is the nerve of war" as is often said. But overall, its lethality, which includes speed, reliability and destructive powers that are important for military vehicles of all types, be they Chinese, Japanese, American or Russian - or any other.

Also, there is the attraction of the heroes, something that we have ingrained deep within our DNA since lifeforms are in competition for finite resources and for the best shelters and the best mates. Many young boys thus admire powerful heroic figures, even when some of them overpower others with the power of their minds. I do want to point something out however, before I proceed further:

• This article celebrates the G.I.Joe toys and the power of the U.S.A. military

• This article does not celebrate violence or the use of those weapons

So as a kid, I loved my G.I.Joe toys. They had a sense of realism, with a touch of imagination. Often, the vehicles were based on real-life vehicles. I do believe that I have been influenced positively by the design, the paint colours, the engineering aspects of those toys. Today, in this article, I will share some of the vehicles that I owned and some that I wanted. I will also establish links with their real counterparts using images. Also, while on the topic, I will touch upon the movie Top Gun. While the movie was not my favourite, it is well known and also represents a celebration of the United States military might.

Cobra Organisation, Commander and Emperor

Archie Goodwin is credited for coming up with the name "Cobra", when he was at Marvel Comics. Again, Hasbro was reluctant to introduce those villains, thinking that they would not sell. Eventually, this "evil" line of toys would represent 40% of the income of the brand. If I look back at the toys I owned, I did have less than 40% that came from the Cobra line. But for me, it did depend mostly on how cool the vehicles looked or how cool the soldiers were. I imagine that many kids like me felt attracted by the Cobra Commander, the Cobra Emperor and Storm Shadow. The price was also a big factor when selecting toys for my birthday or Christmas so it is not as if I could get all the toys that I wanted. I had to be selective and getting some variety and opponents for my "good" G.I. Joe's was a necessity.

The Vehicles

What fascinated me as a kid were the vehicles. While I also liked aircraft scale models, G.I. Joe had an array of modified real-life vehicles, such as aircraft carriers, jet fights, infantry fighting vehicles and tanks.

One of the most famous toys which made all my friends and I envious, was the aircraft carrier. It was not affordable for most kids of my age. But among my friends, we had a good collection and would sometimes exchange them for a period of time, or we would bring them to our friend's home to play together.

I also have memories of playing with my father. He had given me some of my favourites models.

Aircraft Carrier

One of the largest and most impressive - and expensive of course - of the toyline, the U.S.S. FLAGG was indeed the flagship of the G.I.Joe's forces. Truly representing the air superiority and military might, it was a dream for many of my friends and myself.

I never got to play with it since none of my friends had this toy but my imagination and drooling over the picture were the only experiences I had with it.

Today, the real aircraft carriers are what allows the US military to project military power all over the globe. They serve as strike platforms and also as mobile military bases. However, I would add, in more recent times, roughly since 2015, with the popularisation of hyper-sonic missiles, the aircraft carriers have somewhat turned into liabilities. If all it takes to take them down is a cluster of hyper-sonic missiles where some of them hit the deck, it will cause significant damage, kill many sailors and destroy nearly all aircraft stationed on deck. Of course, they also cost a fortune to keep at sea, some estimates evaluating it at somewhere around 50 million USD per day.

Another problem making carriers a liabilities is their need for fuel tankers and a recent incident shows that if a lone tanker is taken off, it can leave the carrier vulnerable.

The F-14 Tomcat

The perfect complement for the aircraft carrier is the strike air superiority jet fighter. Named accordingly, the Skystriker (XP-14F) was based off the F-14 Tomcat, once again a US military production craft. The jet featured adjustable wing configurations, as the real F-14 tomcat did.

I never possessed this jet but again, like the aircraft carrier, I often dreamed about it. Once I visited the Frederick Maryland Air and Space museum where I saw a real F-14 with my own eyes and I can attest that it is a beautiful machines, bigger than I had imagined with angles that make it seem even more advanced than it is.

A-10 Tank Killer

Another of my favourite toys was the equivalent of the A-10 Tank killer. For the Joe's, its name was the A-10 Thunderbolt. It was a souped-up version of the real world equivalent, here featuring 3 engine (the 3rd was mounted in the rear, centre of the place) along with a top-mounted gunner turret.

With its adjustable wings that could rotate, it was also designed as a VTOL (Vertical Take-Off Landing) craft, thus making it even more fearsome.

The model that I possessed had a different paint scheme than what you would normally find: It was yellow and black, with a tiger-like camouflage, which I loved. It was also name differently; Tiger-rat was the name. Those differences are explained because the toy belonged to a new line of toys called "Tiger Force".

Snowcat

I really loved this vehicle, the "Snowcat". It featured a simple and realistic design and the small details made it more realistic. For instance, it had a wiper for the front windshield, radiators, fog lights and many stickers, giving it a life-like appearance.

I remember bringing this one with me on multiple occasions, partly because of its convenient size - it wasn't too large or cumbersome - and as such, I could easily carry it around in my hands.

Assault Gunboat

If you are unaware, the assault gunboat was named "Tomahawk" and that words is taken from native American inhabitants (also called "The First Nations") and it represents a thrown axe that was used against the modern day Americans during the years when they were exterminated.

The word is still used today, but it denotes the cruise missile of the United States. So the name has been appropriated by the USA to name their weapons.

Some of my friends had the Tomahawk and it was not as beautiful as on the picture. The camouflage was not the same but still, it is a toy that I had wanted in my arsenal. It was heavily armed to provide fire support and troop transport and it featured many design elements inspired from real military vehicles.

Soldiers

My article would be incomplete without mentioning the soldiers themselves... The "Joes" who piloted all those vehicles. I never owned many, mostly just the ones that came with the vehicles but occasionally, on Christmas, I might have chose one or two of those very cool-looking soldiers. Some that were on top of my wish-list included:

• Tunnel Rat: Nice camouflage and a big weapon

• Law & Order: Because having a K9 as part of your force was always nice

• Cobra Commander: For obvious reasons, explained below

• Jinx & Storm Shadow: Those were Ninjas and nothing was cooler

• Falcon: Again a nice camouflage fatigue outfit, with a falcon

• Croc Master: Because having a crocodile as a pet is just so awesome

Phantom X-19

This was one of the last G.I. Joe's toys I would get. And it's design was just amazing. All the angles made this plane look super advanced and its internal weapon bays made me understand general principles of stealth that are today still being used on real stealth fighters.

The futuristic look, the triple reactors, the large air-intake, the missiles which had miniature wings of their own and the overall colour clearly made this one of my favourites.

Defiant - Shuttle Launch System

This massive toy is probably the last one I got. I sold many older toys such as Transformers to get the money to buy it. It acted like multiple vehicles and like a base of operations for G.I. Joes. It featured multiple weapons but the focus was really on the shuttle's launch systems.

The large shuttle had a quite futuristic command cabin with many details and I loved it. The smaller shuttle, on the other hand, had a hatch to transfer between both shuttles. The smaller one also had a manipulator arm that was multi-jointed and which served to manipulate space objects. Again, like in many other toys of this brand, the attention to details and the level of realism is what set them apart.

Cobra Commander

All armies need their Hero figure to lead the common soldiers forward. The Cobra commander was the hero of the Cobra Organisation.

While I never read much about his origins or why he was leading the organisation, I did not feel the need to do so. The mere fact of having a figure to represent the main bad guy was enough for me. It did take me some years before finally getting a figure of this bad boy and when I did, he would be part of nearly all my play sessions and he would rarely die.

One thing that was great about the Cobra Commander is that he was mostly just a common man, a little bit like Batman lacks superpowers. The Cobra Commander thus felt like well rounded elite combatant. It was not his equipment or his vehicle that set him apart, but just the will to conquer and martial prowess forged in the heat of war.

Cobra Terror Dome Fortress

The Terror Dome fortress is not a toy that I had in my collection but it was still an iconic toy. It was featured in the animated series on TV and it had a distinct "Fully Retractable Silo Doors" at the top in the centre.

Mostly, this toy was in demand because it provided the Cobra organisation with a much needed base of operations. G.I. Joes had their own mobile command centres as well as an aircraft carrier and the almighty Shuttle Launch System described above. But Cobra also needed a base if you were to play seriously!

Cobra Mamba

Pictured above is the blueprint for the Cobra Mamba. One of the many things making those toys attractive were those blueprints and technical details. When you read the various elements, you can notice how much thought was put into the design of these vehicles.

The Cobra Mamba featured two detachable air vehicles and the bigger, mother-ship kind vehicle from which they detached, which was equipped with dual rotor blades.

Conquest - Inverted Wing Fighter

The Conquest forward-swept wing jet fighter was definitely one of the coolest toys available. The model is based off of real prototypes made by the USA and Russia. Notably, the Grumman X-29 and the Sukhoi Su-47.

The one depicted above, in the G.I. Joe line of toys, featured the Python Patrol theme of serpent camouflage. Again, the attention to details and the overall look of the toy is what made it one of the best sellers.

Other honourable mentions

There were many other toys of G.I. Joe that I owned and others that I wanted. To name but a few of the other cool ones, I should mention the Night Raven, since one again, it was inspired by a real plane and looked very cool:

The Cobra Condor was yet another jet fighter with inverted wings. The G.I. Joe's Thunderclap was a mobile, detachable field artillery. The Mauler was the typical MBT (Main Battle Tank). The Rolling Thunder featured an enormous MIRV (Multiple Independant Re-entry Vehicles) ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missle) on a large wheeled launcher. It was really cool and I remember playing with this toy with my dad. The Cobra Maggot, Cobra Wolf and Cobra Jet Pack all expanded on the variety of your military arsenal. The H.A.V.O.C from the Joe's belonged to one of my best friend and I do remember playing with him in a big battle.

We Own the Skies

When I was collecting G.I. Joe toys, circa 1986, it was also the relased of the movie Top Gun. Needless to say, that movie was a huge success. It showcased the American Air Superiorty. It was popular amongst kids of my age and has stayed a classic ever since, even seeing the release of "part 2" in 2022.

Indeed, especially back in the 1990s, the American had a clear air superiority dominance over the skies. Their aircraft carriers, exemplified here by the F.L.A.G.G., made that superiority and power projection truly global.

The F-14s seen in the movie Top Gun are now obsolete and they were replaced by more modern aircraft such as the F-22 raptors in the late 1990s and during the first decade of the 21st century. The sheer number of aircraft is what set the USA military far above its competitors. Nowadays, concepts are made and they directly bear the name of the goal itself: Dominance. So the new fighters will be the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance):

With such power at hand also comes some hubris however. If you think about the names of many air vehicles or projectiles that the US military uses, you can find names such as the Apache Helicopters and the Tomahawk Cruise Missile. Apache and Tomahawk are two names taken from the original American natives, often referred to as American Indians. Appropriating the names of your defeated enemies to label your own weapons is quite bold.

That period, the end of the 1980s and the 1990s, was also replete with other glorification of the strength of the US military. If I just take a look at popular titles in the movie theatres, such as Rambo and Commando, you can quickly see popular and superior the Americans were back in those days.

Looking at other names, or acronyms to be more precise, those days were also, in my opinion, the peak of the concepts of NORAD and NATO to name just a few. The Americans owned the skies and their technology and allies represented an overwhelming force.

And there is beauty in the all powerful, much like there was beauty in my G.I. Joe toys and in the modern military hardware produced all over the planet. To wit, here is a picture of a very secretive concept aircraft shown recently by China at the ZhuHai Airshow 2024. The aircraft is called "White Emperor":

In the future, I will write other articles to share my passion for those military vehicles. But back to when I was a young kid, I must mention that I loved to play with my LEGO. And there was no military toys in that range of toys as a choice made by LEGO to offer ONLY non-violent toys to their customers: Check my article about LEGO right here: No military here.

Coming Up Next

The next article will be a book review for the important essay written by Dr. Walter Rodney titled: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. If you missed my previous series about Castles and Fortifications, check them out right here. And with that, I leave you with some wisdom from G.I. Joe: "Knowing is half the battle"