Commercial Break - G.I. Joe #11, #14, and #16

By 1983, G.I. Joe was a phenomenon for boys between 5 and 12 (I'm sure some girls liked it too, but I never knew any). That year debuted three additional commercials for the comics (not to mention a buttload for the toys). Let's take a look, shall we?

First up is G.I. Joe #11, which made young De super excited to see new Joes added to the roster:



Even the commercial alluded to the mysterious air around Destro by shrounding him in shadow. One somewhat interesting note is the Joe flying the hang-glider. That's Grunt in his tan uniform, which was the figure included with the Falcon Glider "toy" (quotes used because that thing was a giant piece of styrofoam crap that glided about as well as a rock) whereas it was Airborne flying the glider in the comic itself.

Let's take a look at the ad for G.I. Joe #14:



Despite his lame voice in the commercial (thankfully changed to Arthur Burghardt's rich bass voice in the cartoon), Destro is still considered the mack daddy of bad guys. Love the song lyrics too: "Destro is his name. Destro is his name!" and now G.I. Joe is fighting Cobra and Destro. The guy gets his own billing too!

Take a look at the Joes hopping out of the personnel carrier. Tripwire wouldn't appear until two issues later but he's brandishing his metal detector like a can of whup-ass. And there was only one Skystriker jet in the comic, not a squadron.

Lastly, the commercial for G.I. Joe #16 is a potpourri of product placement (not like the comic itself wasn't):



Did the songwriter even read the comic? Major Bludd was "trained by Destro"? I guess mentioning Major Bludd being hired to assassinate Destro wasn't deemed suitable in an advertisement for kids. The Cobra Officer captured as part of the plan wouldn't happen until G.I. Joe #18. Cobra managed to escape in this issue when Cobra Commander shot Hawk in the back (after deciding not to shoot Destro!).

We'll return to the comics shortly.