What Characters would you have liked to see developed more?

[Cerebral Dissolution]

Grand Slam was one of my favorite figures as a kid - the dark green and silver version that came with the Jet Pack. I have always been dissapointed that much wasn't done with him in the comics, and the time when he got replaced with Flash I think in issue six when they faced off against the Oktober Guard (I think issue #5).

Short Fuze's figure was also another favorite of mine, although I hated his glasses in the comic.

I guess I can see it being tough to write two guys who do artillery into stories that generally involve special forces actions, but I wish I could have learned more about them as opposed to seeing Breaker and Stalker in every early issue.

I didn't so much care about later characters as much. I enjoyed seeing Duke and Flint, etc get a lot of attention because I like them, but I really think most of the original 13 were so undeveloped.

[thunderdan19]

I agree that a lot of characters only really got background or supporting roles throughout the Marvel Joe run. You have to remember that it's hard to come up with ways to make every character palatable to the reader. So I think that Hama boresighted onto the characters that had something going for them from the start (Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, CC, Destro, some of the others), and just tried to keep from totally ignoring the others by adding some quirks and things just to get them some kind of face time in the mag.

I mean, especially later on, poor Larry had to try to come up with ways to endear wack characters like BF2000, Raptor, Crystal Ball, Big Boa and the like to potential fans. As I understand it (I was out of Joe by then) he killed off a bunch of these guys off at once or in a couple incidents. I can understand why for some of these.

I also think that Hama introduced a lot of peripheral characters that became way too prominent (even overused) for much of the series. I remember even as a kid getting sick of all the Ninjas, Candy (if I remember her name right), Fred and Billy crap. But I understand it's tough to keep developing motivations for a bunch of characters (99% male and doing essentially the same job)developed for a toy line, so he had to walk a fine line between ignoring some of the toys and keeping the comic interesting.

So ultimately it's true, but it's also hard to judge the motivations as well. We'll just have to see how they handle this in the new comics. Sorry for the thesis... :)

[Troynos]

Grand Slam got some of his due in the DDP run. When the Joe team had to go down to 8 members, he was one of the ones picked. He was in his DTC outfit as well.

I'd like to see more of Barrell Roll, for some reason I really liked him in the DDP run and he is a favorite of mine, just hasn't gotten very good figure treatment.

Spearhead, Airborne, Hit&Run would have liked to have seen more of.

Flash and Grand Slam were the same outfits when they first came out in 1982, they made Grand Slam silver to distingush him from Flash. And Grand Slam wasn't replaced by Flash in #6, Flash was always supposed to be the one in that mission, it was a misprint to have Grand Slam's name.

[Sean_C]

I mean, especially later on, poor Larry had to try to come up with ways to endear wack characters like BF2000, Raptor, Crystal Ball, Big Boa and the like to potential fans. As I understand it (I was out of Joe by then) he killed off a bunch of these guys off at once or in a couple incidents. I can understand why for some of these.


Actually, Big Boa never appeared in the Marvel series. Crystal Ball only appears in a Special Missions issue written by Herb Trimpe (and Hama didn't consider such issues as part of his storyline).

Cobra-la, Copperhead, Gnawgahyde, Overkill, Sky Creeper, Overlord, and Interrogator also never appeared in Marvel run.

[thunderdan19]

Actually, Big Boa never appeared in the Marvel series. Crystal Ball only appears in a Special Missions issue written by Herb Trimpe (and Hama didn't consider such issues as part of his storyline).

Thanks for the clarification. Sorry about the inaccuracy. I read about the killings off in the comics on another website (myuselessknowlege something-or-other) that unfortunately is down for maintenance (so I couldn't verify exactly which characters were involved). The point was that Hama was given the characters from the toy line and had to do the best he could with them in the comics. Some were just hopeless from the start.

Special Missions would have been a great way to showcase some of the more obscure or ignored characters. I didn't read enough of them to know if it actually did that or not.

[Troynos]

Kind of funny where Hama didn't consider Special Missions part of his run since there was alot of back and forth between the two titles.