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04-03-2014, 09:40 PM | #1 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Halcion
Posts: 176
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A conversation started on beef664422’s “Who is the ‘X’ Greatest GIJOE character of all time” poll threads was begun by me and a few others therein. I’ve been slowly building a custom GIJOE chess set (still building the figures, currently. Sorry, no pics :( ) and during the process I needed to ask myself this same question in order to pick who to use in the set.
I analyzed based on what I could recall from the DIC, Sunbow, Animated Movie, Action Force, Renegades, Resolute, Sigma 6, ARAH comics, IDW etc, as well as what I assumed were the fan choices for strongest characters. Along the way a new continuity began to emerge that incorporated what I saw as the best plots. I asked myself “if I could retcon and reboot the entire Joe Universe; distill and filter its strongest aspects what would that look like?” Should it take off, this is intended as a multi-part thread. I’d like some feedback, advice, and debate, if you guys are up for it? If we were to reboot the figure line and retell the stories through an action RPG trilogy that utilizes an engine similar to Mass Effect what would we use, and how? Part one, The Dreadnoks: They’ve been a notable part of the Setting since the early days. There’s a lot to consider when trying envisioning a complete setting – a lot of dead weight, and ideas that could use a little sprucing up and refinement. Dreadnoks are a great example. If incorporated, their Biker backstory needs a bit more fleshing out to be qualitatively appropriate to a military based story-arch. Redefining them as special-ops, urban, mercenary fireteam composed of top Cobra agents achieves that, imo. It also allows us to have the Dreadnoks function within the niche currently held by the Plague Troopers. The goal is to distill the strongest aspects of the Joe-verse and overlap and combine elements where we can; this strengthens the core-concepts we use by fleshing them out further. Throughout multiple incarnations and reboots of the Joe-verse the Dreadnoks have often been portrayed as a 3-person unit. Running with that, it’s best to go with the most recognizable characters within the sub-team as a whole. When we consider the original three, only Buzzer truly stands out as a fan-pick. Torch and Ripper are usually included solely due to being in the original three, but their characters have largely been left fallow; it’s like they’re there, just because they’re there. As far as character development, Zarana, Roadpig, and Buzzer have the most out of the Noks. Give Roadpig a beard and sunglasses, and Zarana a flamethrower, and neither Torch, nor Ripper, would be missed. What about Zartan? Zartan functions best as a lone agent, sniper, and infiltration specialist. He’s often portrayed that way in many of the continuities. I simply don’t see him fitting in with the Dreadnoks, but having Zarana as the Nok leader still allows for much crossover between the Noks and Zartan. Conclusions: 1.) Redefined as a 3 man, special-ops, urban, mercenary fireteam, led by Zarana, retconning their backstory to that of the Plague Troopers. It can be assumed that they'd use a modular array of Cobra weapons and equipment, on top of the traditional and archaic weaponry choices preferred by the Noks. 2.) Zarana as a former Viper: From the waist down she already wears the same uniform as the 86 Viper, recommend swapping out her gloves for those of the 86 Viper, and have her favored weapons be incendiary devices (flamethrowers) to retain the core elements of Torch’s character, within the Dreadnok team. Keep her as Australian, but touch on the difficulties she faced combating misogyny throughout her career to get where she is. Change her name to “Harriet Nod” – A trope of the original Dreadnoks were their names; “Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod”, as well as “Tom, Dick, and Harry”. 3.) Roadpig as a former Cobra Trooper/BAT: Fluff out his backstory to elaborate on the multiple personalities being the result of a Brainwave Scanner accident that divided his psyche into two distinct halves. He wears a BAT uniform from the waist down and wields the massive hammer central to his character. Aesthetically he keeps his tattoos, shoulder pads, and traditional white haircut, replacing the red streak for yellow (BAT colors). Give him Torch’s black sunglasses with a white beard in order to keep the feel that Ripper, Torch, and Monkeywrench gave to the Noks. The Jersey born Italian background can stay, but change his name to Thomas Winkin. 4.) Buzzer as a former Cobra Officer: His post-secondary academic background would usually signify Officer training. If we add an exemplary military record overshadowed by psychopathic, sadistic, and homicidal tendencies we can cast him as malicious, cruel, and inconsiderate to the welfare of those under his command; painting him as an ends-justify-the-means officer who compromises nothing for mission success. The focus of his sociological academic research would more appropriately be traded from Biker gangs to rebel gangs in Liberia – having him crawl through their ranks, akin to Krake from IDW. Make him South African, instead of Australian. Keep the “Richard Blinkin” name and chainsaw weapon choice, then give him the traditional Cobra Officer uniform (except with the rolled up sleeves we saw worn by Flint V13 figure) and Torch’s biker vest. Link to part 2 here: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ml#post4639088
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GIJOE: Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity; a NATO special forces team of ignorant troops who believe they're fighting for freedom, led by a General fully engorged within the military industrial complex. Cobra: has been spin-doctored in the media and portrayed as a totalitarian terrorist organization when in truth they're an anarcho-collective co-operative corporate-military based on meritocracy, and funded by developing nations to combat Western Imperialism. Last edited by Fred; 04-04-2014 at 07:56 PM.. |
04-03-2014, 10:37 PM | #2 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 1,617
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I agree that the Dreadnoks as envisioned in ARAH are out of date. No one is going to buy that a bunch of euro-biker hooligans with mid-range two-digit IQs abducting a random scientist of the week with Home Depot weaponry are a serious global terrorism threat anymore.
To Me, Cobra is an entity of approximately three divergent arms. 1) Paramilitary defense contractors, Cobra Defense. This is what most of the World sees as 'Cobra' and while highly controversial in the US, abroad they provide a number of nations with security against more mundane military and terrorist threats. As such they enjoy the political protection afforded by international politics. Cobra's Major General Bludd is the commandant of this organization. 2) Extensive Enterprises, a private corporation dealing in legitimate business. It's co-CEOs are identical twins Tomax and Xamot. The link between EE and Cobra is not well known as EE has a lot of dealings with Cobra Defense, but then again it has a lot of dealings with everyone. 3) International Crime and terrorism syndicate headed by Zartan who is a mid-eastern cult leader based on his POC figure. Each international branch based on locale and specialty is headed by one of the traditional Dreadnoks who dress and act like professional mob bosses. They drive limos and luxury jets, not swamp boats and American Chopper reject vehicles. Nobody knows that one of its main purposes is to stoke fires of insurrection, fear and terrorism, for which Cobra section A is a remedy. Few within the organization know of the links between these three arms of COBRA. *Keep in mind NONE of this is supposed to resemble real world entities companies, nations, etc. so lets keep politics out of this, eh?
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http://joeintelops.blogspot.com - Joe Scaled Vehicle Reviews and Commentary. Latest Review January 18, 2023 - GI Joe Retro: Hiss Tank Review http://joeintelops.blogspot.com/2023...nk-review.html trade feedback/Buy-Sell-Trade http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...ck-thread.html http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ruins-bst.html |
04-04-2014, 12:36 AM | #3 |
G.I.Joe medic
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Litchfield, ME
Posts: 3,160
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These are some good ideas. I had a similar one to Ruin's in which Cobra uses the Dreadnoks to incite fear in small communities around the world, and then charge a steep price for "protection". I also see the 'noks as being involved in gunrunning and drug smuggling, among other things.
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04-04-2014, 07:57 PM | #4 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Halcion
Posts: 176
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Quote:
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To Me, Cobra is an entity of approximately three divergent arms.
1) Paramilitary defense contractors, Cobra Defense. This is what most of the World sees as 'Cobra' and while highly controversial in the US, abroad they provide a number of nations with security against more mundane military and terrorist threats. As such they enjoy the political protection afforded by international politics. Cobra's Major General Bludd is the commandant of this organization. 2) Extensive Enterprises, a private corporation dealing in legitimate business. It's co-CEOs are identical twins Tomax and Xamot. The link between EE and Cobra is not well known as EE has a lot of dealings with Cobra Defense, but then again it has a lot of dealings with everyone. Quote:
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Each international branch based on locale and specialty is headed by one of the traditional Dreadnoks who dress and act like professional mob bosses. They drive limos and luxury jets, not swamp boats and American Chopper reject vehicles. Nobody knows that one of its main purposes is to stoke fires of insurrection, fear and terrorism, for which Cobra section A is a remedy. Few within the organization know of the links between these three arms of COBRA.
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Noks as black-market gunrunners for MARS (allowing MARS to sell weapons to all sides in a conflict) I like, as well. Drug smuggling to subsidize Cobra is perfect, and ties them to real-world organizations that’ve used the cash generated off-the-books through the drug trade to fund a multitude of wet-works programs. Link to part 2 here: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ml#post4639088
__________________
GIJOE: Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity; a NATO special forces team of ignorant troops who believe they're fighting for freedom, led by a General fully engorged within the military industrial complex. Cobra: has been spin-doctored in the media and portrayed as a totalitarian terrorist organization when in truth they're an anarcho-collective co-operative corporate-military based on meritocracy, and funded by developing nations to combat Western Imperialism. Last edited by Fred; 04-04-2014 at 08:11 PM.. |
04-05-2014, 12:17 AM | #5 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 1,617
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[QUOTE=Fred;4639089]Totally agree, and thanks : )
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I’m running with those angles for the CGs, actually, with no separation between points one and two you listed. EE and CG as one and the same public organization that offer private security, legal, and financial services – that’s all in the next section that I’ve linked to at the bottom of this comment, as well as edited into the topic post.
That’s a neat idea I could see how you’d go with that, however, when it comes to Zartan and the setting continuity, as a whole, him as a “lone-wolf” type, like Firefly, Major Bludd, and Storm Shadow (to a degree), to me, fits the overall character and his story-arch more. The cult angle was handled wonderfully, IMO, in IDW through Serpentor (who I’ll get to later). If Firefly is the Boba Fett of the GIJOE canon (which it seems like he is to me), Zartan is a male Mystique (X-Men). Cool concept – problem, reaction, solution. The Noks create a problem and EE (economic aid)/CGs (security aid) sweep in to solve it, thus profiting all. The mob-boss/jet-set archetype works best with the Crimson Twins, as well as Destro, Cobra Commander, and Baroness to a large degree (just my opinions). To keep the Noks as close to possible with their original conception (while updating and editing out the unrealistic aspects that prevent one from a suspension of disbelief) the best trope to run with that I can think of is to combine them with the Plague Troops (but to each his own, mate, and your vision for them and Zartan is pretty cool : ) ). My imagining of Zartan is that he's probably the second most important individual in the organization to Cobra Commander, and one of the most interesting. While I would rate my own Joeverse as being in the 90-95% realism range, there are a few people and entities with geniune mystical powers. Zartan is one of those persons (certain members of the Arashikagi clan are others). His influence cannot be understated as a cult leader who is essentially a cross between Mola Ram, Rasputin, Ghandi, and the Dalai Lama. Quote:
Lol, we’re going to have to agree to disagree there -- I think fiction works best as social commentary!
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Yeah, I can definitely get behind that idea. The only thing I’d change is to combine it with Ruin’s idea of using the Noks as extortion for “Cobra Section A”, and redefining “Cobra Section A” as the CGs.
Noks as black-market gunrunners for MARS (allowing MARS to sell weapons to all sides in a conflict) I like, as well. Drug smuggling to subsidize Cobra is perfect, and ties them to real-world organizations that’ve used the cash generated off-the-books through the drug trade to fund a multitude of wet-works programs. Link to part 2 here: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ml#post4639088 Can you imagine the secret Cobra meeting between the smug Crimson Twins and the enraged Destro when EE buys out MARS through a hostile takeover just because they can? Hillarity!
__________________
http://joeintelops.blogspot.com - Joe Scaled Vehicle Reviews and Commentary. Latest Review January 18, 2023 - GI Joe Retro: Hiss Tank Review http://joeintelops.blogspot.com/2023...nk-review.html trade feedback/Buy-Sell-Trade http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...ck-thread.html http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ruins-bst.html Last edited by Ruin; 04-05-2014 at 12:22 AM.. |
04-05-2014, 02:54 AM | #6 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Halcion
Posts: 176
|
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My imagining of Zartan is that he's probably the second most important individual in the organization to Cobra Commander, and one of the most interesting. While I would rate my own Joeverse as being in the 90-95% realism range, there are a few people and entities with geniune mystical powers. Zartan is one of those persons (certain members of the Arashikagi clan are others). His influence cannot be understated as a cult leader who is essentially a cross between Mola Ram, Rasputin, Ghandi, and the Dalai Lama.
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Actually, it's not that I disagree with the ideas of mixing fiction with social commentary (even though it's a risky slippery slope), it's just that this is a promising thread I dont want to see shut down for rules violations. To be clear, I didn't mean to indict you or anyone with this comment.
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…Or the idea of EE & CG competing with MARS for Cobra, NATO, and other special government and private contracts. Destro cozying up to the Baroness to secure venture capital in order to stand a chance against EE, with the Commander playing one against the other to drive down the price. <I'd like to read, or see, those convos.
__________________
GIJOE: Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity; a NATO special forces team of ignorant troops who believe they're fighting for freedom, led by a General fully engorged within the military industrial complex. Cobra: has been spin-doctored in the media and portrayed as a totalitarian terrorist organization when in truth they're an anarcho-collective co-operative corporate-military based on meritocracy, and funded by developing nations to combat Western Imperialism. Last edited by Fred; 04-05-2014 at 02:59 AM.. |
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