Introduction

One of my favorite comic book series growing up was Marvel's G.I. Joe. The series, chock full of action, paralleled my enthusiasm for Hasbro's toy line for a good long while. Even when I wasn't buying the figures any longer, I was still reading the comic. Like a number of kids my age, G.I. Joe was the "gateway" comic that led to reading other comics. The amount of money per annum spent on comics can be blamed squarely on picking up my first issue of G.I. Joe.

Toward the last year or so of the series, I stopped reading as things had become a bit too silly thanks to Hasbro's mandates that characters and situations created for the toys had to be featured in the comic (with one notable exception—Cobra-La). Thanks to keeping up with the comic-related press at the time, I learned of the series cancellation ahead of time and managed to pick up the last few issues. When I visited a comic show this past December, the last five issues tend to sell for much much more than cover price.

It's unfortunate that both the toy line and the comic book went out with a bit of a whimper instead of a bang. Eventually, both would return and the fever pitch of the toy line as I type this is almost on par with the situation 25 years ago. It's certainly a good time to be a Joe fan.

This index is my attempt to index the G.I. Joe comics "universe" as I know it. We'll begin with the Marvel series and its subsequent spin-offs in chronological, production order. Eventually, we'll get to the modern stuff but you'll find references to the modern comics scattered throughout. If something has been omitted or is just outright wrong, feel free to tell me in the comments section for each book.

Some of you comics "old timers" might recognize the format of the index as the one used by George Olshevsky during his days of chronicling Marvel comics back in the 1980s. Olshevsky's format was co-opted by Murray Ward for his line of DC comic indexes and then again when Ward and Peter Sanderson attempted to revive the indexes for Marvel in the mid-1990s.

I'm not sure what else to say at this point so strap in and get ready for Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine to take us to a time when A Flock of Seagulls inspired stupid haircuts, Michael J. Fox was charming audiences on Family Ties, and Coca-Cola lamely tried to hide switching from sugar to corn syrup with New Coke.