Customer Reviews

G.I. Joe vs. Cobra: The Essential Guide

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At first glance, this book looks like the perfect reference to the world of GIJoe: A Real American Hero. Unfortunately, though it is a worthy effort at such a volume, it suffers from some rather serious flaws.

First, and definitely worst, is an attempt to integrate the various disparate GIJoe continuities (prior to Rise of Cobra) into one. This sounds like a good idea, and sometimes works well, such as mentioning the 1970s career of Joseph Colton (the "Original Joe") leading a civilian group called the "Adventure Team," apparently based on the 1970s Adventure Team toys. And, sometimes, seemingly contradictory elements are melded together more flawlessly than might be expected. For example, Bazooka was described in the comic and toyline as "decisive and quick-witted," but was a ludicrous moron in the TV series; here, it says his manner of speech makes him seem stupid and causes others to underestimate him, but he's really quite smart.

The Marvel and Devil's Due continuities work quite well together, since Devil's Due published a continuation of the Marvel series set about a decade later. The trouble comes from trying to integrate these with the 1980s cartoon and the totally unrelated Sigma Six series, as well as the early 2000s Valor vs Venom and Spy Troops series of figures. For example, the bio of Lt Falcon, who was a screw-up in the cartoon, mentions his addiction to a Cobra-produced drug from a later episode of the DiC cartoon (the series that took place after the movie); this is completely incompatible with the noble character as he appeared in the comic. Cobra Commander's biography gives his Marvel origin as a disgruntled former used car salesman, but mentions his Cobra-La origin from the animated movie as a separately-circulated story. This seems like a good way to handle it, except that Roadblock's bio treats GIJoe: The Movie as fact, and specifically refers to Cobra Commander's further mutation from the movie, which simply cannot be made to jive with the more realistic comic version (who has always been 100% human).

Possibly silliest, and most confusing, are the attempts to integrate totally unrelated series that happened to share a name. GIJoe: Sigma Six is referred to as a scaled-down version of the team, but most references seem to place it somewhere in the second year of the Devil's Due series. Valor vs Venom, which didn't even warrant a comic or TV series, appears to take place just prior. It's confusing, and most entries indicate a timeline was worked out to reconcile all this, only it's not anywhere in the book, and some of the entries make little sense (even to GIJoe geeks) without such a reference.

Second, the choices as to who and what are covered in detail are sometimes confusing. There are a few strange omissions. For instance, why would Short-Fuze, a minor character who largely went unused during the entire series, warrant a bio entry as opposed to, say, Airborne, a fan favorite of some importance on the team, or even a character like Shooter, whose importance to the GIJoe origin story only appeared in a later comic? Why give Crystal Ball, widely acknowledged as of trivial importance, an entry but not Croc Master? Why list William "The Refrigerator" Perry (who was only released as a mail-away figure) in the complete roster of Joes, but not mention Sergeant Slaughter? (I can't stand Sergeant Slaughter, but the figure was in continuous production for the longest of any GIJoe, and he played a huge role in the cartoon.) For that matter, why is there no complete roster for Cobras?

Third, there are no artwork credits anywhere in the book. Given how heavily this work rests on reproduced comic book covers and images, this is a shame. There are some beautiful images here, and these talented artists deserve at least the mention of their names on an appendix page. For that matter, there's no "real world" information at all. This wouldn't have to be in-depth, and would be more useful than the "bonus material" of two previously-published short stories from IDW Publishing's new GIJoe comics.

Perhaps I've spoken at too much length about the flaws, though. If you're a GIJoe fan wanting a quick reference guide, or even a novice wanting a basic "roadmap" of what's come before, this book is well worth picking up. The pros of this book do indeed outweigh the cons. Just don't expect it to be the perfect, complete guide that the title "The Essential Guide" would indicate.

Those hoping for a "Transformers Ultimate Guide" style book (one that seperately looks at the Joe cartoons, comics and figures) are out of luck. The bios of the various Joes are good, borrowing more from Marvel with attempts to mix in the cartoon histories as well. That can be tricky due to contradicting viewpoints and focusing more on some characters than others doesn't come off as well. Many might be confused at the different histories depending on how they know Joe and while the artwork is good, it doesn't line up with some of the stories. Still, it's good to get the concise histories of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow and the rundown of the various vehicles used by both sides (including bases like the Pit) is a good addition. I also enjoyed the rundown of missions, most those multi-part epics from the cartoon show but also a couple from the comics. However, the sudden shift to a new "GI Joe Origins" comic is a bit jarring and there's no mention of the movie. So a good in-depth look at the Joes but not quite the overall analysis of the franchise one might expect.

This book covers a limited amount of characters and events in the GI Joe universe, meshing together comic book, cartoon, and file card histories into a cohesive whole. While a great many popular characters are overlooked, several characters have very well-rendered entries. Sadly, the limited focus and range of subjects serve to decrease the value and enjoyment of this work.

For this book which I thought was good but lagging in specific areas and having parts of confussion to the world of G.I. Joe. The reviews given by others have been very thourough in pointing out areas which could have been done better and making the continuity of the Joe universe more smoothly without much complication.

Ideas for improvement should have subsections denoting the different series being the DIC cartoon, the Marvel comic, and the Devils Due (DWI) comic series as well as the toy lines/tie-ins. (Note: I am not a fan of the Sigma 6 cartoon which to me takes away from what I know about the G.I. Joe universe. The cartoon was not at all great and neither was the toyline and I'm not familiar with the Sgt.Savage toys either but did like the Real American Heroe line and the Valor vs. Venom lines which lead into the upgraded 25th Anniversary and The Rise of Cobra lines plus the new Resolute cartoon kicks but even though it only lasted 11 episodes.) There also should have been a Cobra Roster of personnel like what was done for the Joes because characters like Croc Master and Big Boa weren't mentioned and are part of Cobra (minor or not) and no explanation about Cobra La though it was part of the cartoon. Also, I agree that there was no mention of Sgt. Slaughter who had a role in the cartoon series but left out of the book. Nothing was mentioned about any sub-teams like the Joes Tiger Force, Eco-Warrios, or Slaughter's Marauders or Renegades or the Cobra Python Patrol to list as examples which should have been discussed.

One last idea was no listing of Joes or Cobras who sacrificed themselves or who were killed in the line of duty...A Hall of Rememberance which would help in defining the Joe universe.

Finally, I would say the book is good in giving the generalized basics to understanding the world of G.I. Joe but to fans of this world maybe all that has been suggested by the reviewers will help in making a better 2nd edition to satisfy all and possibly reach Larry Hama the original creator/writer of the original comic book series to add his imput to how a complete guide should cater to fans old and new. YO, JOE!!!

Even after reading the other reviews giving this book fairly high ratings I can not get past the issues that they addressed (and are just irrating once you really read it). The character information is fractured at best - most that were killed off in the comic books give no mention mention of it while other bios mention the events (example Doc's death is mentioned but Breaker's; killed in the same event was not). The glaring omission of most of the Cobra Line up is completely inexcusable. Doctor Venom is mentioned briefly in the Brainwave scanner and SNAKE listing but then not listed as a character, Scarface is missed completely (and they finally made a figure of him recently). The attempted incusion of Sigma Six really does nothing except further push the issue that they were attempting to put so much in that they completely missed the important information.

With the release of the big screen G.I. Joe film there's a broad array of mass merchandising. One of the items is this book from Del Rey. The book is a guide to G.I. Joe (And Cobra) from 1982 - 2008. The book looks at the characters that have passed through comics and cartoons from the Marvel Comic's series in the 1980s, to the present day titles being produced by Devil's Due and IDW, and everything in between.

It's a guide to who's who in the G.I. Joe universe, laid out in encyclopedia style alphabetically, staring with the members of the Joe team and then dealing with Cobra, and sections on vehicles, mission reports, etc...Each entry gives the characters code name, real name, serial #, birthplace, rank, and primary, secondary, other specialties, followed by a biography and a mission report detailing one of their more noted (or notorious) adventures. The major characters get a full-page (or longer) entry while minor characters like Mainframe and Sci-fi get half-page entries.

You'd need a book much longer than this one to detail all the vehicles that have been used throughout this era and so I question why Hidalgo included them at all since he was only going to detail a handful of them. To his credit he does list an index to all the vehicles under the Motor Pool roster. It's a good book for those who are new fans but even old-timers will enjoy it as a resource tool.