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10-15-2009, 06:32 PM | #9521 |
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One of the side-effects of Hasbro's introduction of Colton as the guy who founded GI Joe in 1962 is that it screwed up Hama's origin for the GI Joe team as a unit created post-Vietnam War and really screws up the overall story timeline.
The existence of a GI Joe team in 1962 opens up a lot of questions. For instance, if the Joe team already existed in some form in the 1960s, where were they prior to 1982 (when Hawk and Stalker started assembling the GI Joe team as we know it)? Did this original GI Joe team deploy in Vietnam? It's interesting how Hama trid to set the creation of Hawk's GI Joe around the late 70s when Delta Force was created to imply that GI Joe might be Delta but I think Delta should be a smaller, independent unit, from which GI Joe recruits some of its members. I think that GI Joe should fall under SAD. Sort of like the third division, equivalent to SOG and SAD's Political Action Group. Last edited by Tanksmasher; 10-15-2009 at 07:47 PM.. |
10-15-2009, 07:45 PM | #9522 |
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USRDF was created via executive order in 1979 (which is roughly the same time Hawk and Stalker would have started putting the team together based on the timeline presented in GI Joe #26 and 27). Even the GI Joe team's first mission, an incursion into the Middle East (the one where Snake-Eyes gets disfigured in) mirrors USRDF's mandate of being a quick reaction force geared towards operations in the Persian Gulf area. Of course, USRDF these days is much changed from its original incarnation and is more of a conventional unit than a special operations task force. |
10-15-2009, 07:53 PM | #9523 |
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I always thought Hama's take on GI Joe was more inspired by the United States Rapid Deployment Forces (USRDF) than Delta Force, and figured that their being officially named "Anti-Terrorist Task Force Delta" was more coincidence or a throw-in nod to 1SFOD-D than anything else.
USRDF was created via executive order in 1979 (which is roughly the same time Hawk and Stalker would have started putting the team together based on the timeline presented in GI Joe #26 and 27). Even the GI Joe team's first mission, an incursion into the Middle East (the one where Snake-Eyes gets disfigured in) mirrors USRDF's mandate of being a quick reaction force geared towards operations in the Persian Gulf area. Of course, USRDF these days is much changed from its original incarnation and is more of a conventional unit than a special operations task force. |
10-15-2009, 08:01 PM | #9524 |
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Although if memory serves, Delta Force was a subordinate unit of the ad hoc RDF at the time of Eagle Claw (this was several years before USSOCOM's creation). So we could just be talking about the same thing, just on different levels of organisation. |
10-15-2009, 08:04 PM | #9525 |
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The chronology regarding GI Joe's creation is problematic. In early issues like 26 and 27 the date of SE's tour of duty is unknown, and Stalker tells Hawk that he remembers seeing the Araskikage symbol "more than 10 years ago" which again sets us in the general time frame of the war. But in issue 94, we get an actual date: Jan 30, 1968. This date puts Hawk's recruitment of the original 13 somewhere around 1975, roughly six years before issue 1, published in the middle of 1982. That means the first 13 Joes were operating for 7 years! Here's how I came up with 1975:
Before the infamous ambush, Tommy and Snake-Eyes had served one year and were starting a second tour. Stalker had been with them for six months at this point. So Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes had been together for at least six months before Stalker joined them. All three were together on January 31, 1968 during the TET Offensive when the Baroness’s brother was killed (issue 94). But how long had they been together at this point? If they had just met Stalker then the ambush did not occur until six months later near the end of July. Or they had already been together for almost six months and the ambush occurred in the ensuing weeks. DDP Declassified states that Snake-Eyes’ sister died February 26, so the writer assumed the latter to be true, which means she died February 26, 1968, the day Snake-Eyes returned home from Vietnam—permanently or on leave, we don’t know—still dressed in bandages. This chronology also implies that Snake-Eyes arrived in Vietnam around February 1967, since he had already served a tour with Tommy up until his sister’s death, and therefore enlisted in the Army at least six months prior in order to have completed BCT, AIT, Jump School and his 30-day leave. That puts his enlistment at around August 1966. He could have enlisted at the age of 17 with his parent’s permission, and if so, then he would have been born July 5, 1949 or 1948 at the earliest. However, if the DDP writer’s assumption is false and Stalker just met Snake-Eyes in January of 1968, then Snake-Eyes would have enlisted around January 1967. Either way, he most likely turned 17 or 18 in July of 1966. Snake-Eyes had about one and a half years in service before getting wounded, so he still had six more months to serve in the Army, in Vietnam or perhaps in the States, depending upon the seriousness of his wounds. Since he had re-upped for another tour, prior to getting wounded, he was probably going to serve out the rest of his time in Vietnam. Regardless of where he finished his service, he would have gotten out of the Army around January 1969, assuming he enlisted in 1967. From here on, he would have been free to visit Japan, where he trained with Tommy’s family for three years. So he would have returned to the States again at the start of 1972, and then built a home in the High Sierras where he lived for three years before Stalker and Hawk recruited him for GI Joe. Hence 1975 marks the advent of Hawk’s command. The Joes would have then trained for the next several months or even years, prior to the helicopter crash that scarred Snake-Eyes’ face and left him mute. He spent the next six months in the hospital. Yet the GI Joe adventures begin with issue 1 in June 1982. Last edited by Tanksmasher; 10-15-2009 at 08:13 PM.. |
10-15-2009, 08:19 PM | #9526 |
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You really put some thought into fleshing out the timeline. Everything fits neatly, although there's still the question of his being in Vietnam as late as 1975: in GI Joe #10, one of the memories that appears on the Brainwave Scanner vid-screen is of him riding in the last US helicopter out of Saigon (the iconic photo of the last Huey flying from the roof of the US Embassy was taken on April 30, 1975).
That's problematic for a few reasons. If we go by the established fact that he was in Vietnam as early as 1967 (and he was in Vietnam at least as early as the Tet Offensive of 1968, as indicated by his shared history with the Baroness), then he would have far exceeded the number of tours in Vietnam alloted for a serviceman if he was still operating in Southeast Asia in 1975. Of course, the easiest explanation is to just disregard the Brainwave Scanner memory as being mis-labeled as the last Huey out of Saigon (we never get confirmation if it actually is the last helicopter out of Saigon... we only have Dr. Venom's supposition that that is what the memory is). |
10-15-2009, 08:19 PM | #9527 |
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But here's another problem.
According to the issue where Wade Collins returns, we learn that Wade spent two years in the “hole” as a POW before he was released. POWs were released in February 1973 during Operation Homecoming, after the Paris Peace Accords. So was he captured in 1971, which conflicts with the evidence that the ambush took place in 1968? Or did he actually spend several more years as a POW, and the two years he spent in the hole was just a reference to a particularly nasty POW camp that he stayed in during his entire imprisonment? |
10-15-2009, 08:23 PM | #9528 |
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According to the issue where Wade Collins returns, we learn that Wade spent two years in the “hole” as a POW before he was released. POWs were released in February 1973 during Operation Homecoming, after the Paris Peace Accords. So was he captured in 1971, which conflicts with the evidence that the ambush took place in 1968? Or did he actually spend several more years as a POW, and the two years he spent in the hole was just a reference to a particularly nasty POW camp that he stayed in during his entire imprisonment?
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10-15-2009, 08:29 PM | #9529 |
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You really put some thought into fleshing out the timeline. Everything fits neatly, although there's still the question of his being in Vietnam as late as 1975: in GI Joe #10, one of the memories that appears on the Brainwave Scanner vid-screen is of him riding in the last US helicopter out of Saigon (the iconic photo of the last Huey flying from the roof of the US Embassy was taken on April 30, 1975).
That's problematic for a few reasons. If we go by the established fact that he was in Vietnam as early as 1967 (and he was in Vietnam at least as early as the Tet Offensive of 1968, as indicated by his shared history with the Baroness), then he would have far exceeded the number of tours in Vietnam alloted for a serviceman if he was still operating in Southeast Asia in 1975. Of course, the easiest explanation is to just disregard the Brainwave Scanner memory as being mis-labeled as the last Huey out of Saigon (we never get confirmation if it actually is the last helicopter out of Saigon... we only have Dr. Venom's supposition that that is what the memory is). Medal of Honor recipient Bob Howard spent 5 tours in Nam, mostly in SOG, according to Plaster's book. |
10-15-2009, 08:31 PM | #9530 |
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Edit: In fact it was issue 43. Wade says, "And then one morning it was over. The war had ended and we were free. I was going home." So I'm assuming he was released. Last edited by Tanksmasher; 10-15-2009 at 08:37 PM.. |
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