G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #117

“Escape from Castle Destro” (Destro: Search & Destroy: Part 2 of 3)

Writer: Larry Hama
Penciler: Rod Whigham

Summary:

Destro, Zartan, Chuckles and Billy escape into Europe. Cobra Commander puts out a worldwide bounty on Destro for 20 million bucks. With a little misdirection, Chuckles tricks two of their pursuers; the Beirut Terrorist Front and the Corsican Brotherhood; into fighting each other. The Night Creepers also hear of the bounty and mobilize.

Meanwhile, the Joes are anxious to negotiate with Destro. They figure he’s the only trustworthy guy in Cobra and could help in bringing them down. They unleash Snake-Eyes to ferret him out. Snakes puts a call in to Storm Shadow (with Morse Code spelling out the Arahsikage hexagram) to NYC, where Stormie has been training the new GI Joe Ninja Force.

Notes:

• Dumb title, since they had already escaped from Castle Destro, last issue.
• With the destruction of Castle Destro, this pretty much ends the presence of MARS in the Marvel series. Destro will still hang around, but I don’t think we’ll see any MARS vehicles or Iron Grenadiers from this point on.
• This issue has one of the lamest cliffhanger endings in the series. A couple of bumbling mercenaries are about to break into a hotel room where Snake-Eyes is waiting for them. Yeah…that’ll turn out well for them
• Snake-Eyes checks into a hotel in Beirut with the name “Mr. Hebime”. Hebime supposedly loosely translates as “Snake-Eyes” in Japanese.
• The 3 new Ninja Force guys all have Arashikage connections:
  -Tjbang was a student of Professor Onihashi
  -Nunchuk was trained by the Blind Master
  -Dojo was trained by the Soft Master

• The Ninja Force trains in the basement of an old abandoned Cuban Chinese restuarant. Pretty darn sure this is the Soft Master’s old restaurant– last seen in issue 27.
• A fan letter mentions the WWF’s Sgt. Slaughter and how he was suddenly an Iraqi sympathizer. The editor answers that the “Real” Sarge is not part of the GI Joe Universe. I’m sure this fan was also perturbed to find out that wrestling was also not “real”.
• Cobra is using a new seaworthy oil tanker: The Arbco Valdez
• GI Joe Dossier is of Firefly…. who appears in a new costume. Complete spoiler, as Firefly was thought to be dead. This really ruins a surprise that was coming up in about 10 issues. The last line reads: “He is notorious for escaping apparent certain death, therefore his files remain open…”

Appearances:

Characters (figures): Hawk, Chuckles, Snake-Eyes, Flint, Low-light, Big Ben, Lady Jaye, Lift-ticket, Storm Shadow, Dojo, Tjbang, Nunchuk, Destro, Baroness, Zartan, Cobra Commander

Characters (“comic-only”): Billy

Vehicles and stuff (toys): Tomahawk, Cobra Hurricane, MARS DEMON (wreckage), Cobra Rattler (cameo)

Vehicles and stuff (not toys): Cobra transport/gunship helicopter, Cobra Valdez

Firsties:
Characters: Tjbang, Nunchuk, Dojo

Vehicles and stuff: Cobra Valdez

Rating: 3 Flag Points