Retrospective: Larry Hama's 2010-2022 G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero

Last year IDW's use of the G.I. Joe license came to an end, which meant it was the final year in which they published Larry Hama's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, ending the series at issue #300. If you know anything about the history of the Real American Hero action figures then you know that Larry Hama is the single most important person in the toys' development because he was the one who came up with the backgrounds and personalities for the figures. Over the decades there have been plenty of departures from what Hama established - be it cartoons, feature films or alternate continuities in the comics - but even if all they used were the codenames Hama created, that would be enough.

For that reason, I didn't take much interest of IDW acquiring the G.I. Joe license until they confirmed Larry Hama would be contributing to their comics - and ultimately would be writing a revival of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, picking up where his original Marvel series left off. Why read what would be (at best) an imitation of Larry Hama when you could have the real thing?

Hama's revived G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero ran 2010-2012, basically as long as the original 1992-1994 Marvel books. Hama was granted more freedom as he wasn't under obligation to use new toys in his stories (although there were some new characters created during the run). He wrote the series in the same fashion he says he's always written - turning out pages to make his deadlines, never planning in advance what the next issue would be about.

I admire Hama's seat-of-the-pants approach despite the hiccups it created. Sometimes he'd introduce subplots then forget to continue them into the next issue, then forget them altogether. On the plus side, it meant you weren't quite sure what to expect; when he decided to kill off the most popular Joe, Snake Eyes, in the 3-part story "the Death of Snake Eyes," he wound up killing him in part 2! "Part 3" turned out to be an epilogue.

The 2010-2022 run of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero certainly changed how I feel about Hama's work on the franchise; I'd always heard he wasn't a big fan of the over-the-top sci-fi elements that Hasbro had forced him to include in the past series. But in the new run he constantly worked in sci-fi stuff; his Brainwave Scanner had a near-constant presence in the series as Snake-Eyes' time in the scanner way back in the 1st series was an extremely important bit of continuity throughout the run. He brought back Serpentor - twice - and used other clones. He introduced the cybernetic Blue Ninjas who were a permanent villain group throughout the series despite being hopelessly ineffectual. It turned out that Hama really enjoyed mixing sci-fi with the military, but I felt he did his best work when the emphasis lay on the military side.

I stuck with this series from the first issue to the last even when I felt the series had lost its focus. I stuck it out because every time I started to think, "maybe it's time to stop," Hama would pen something really impressive. His best issue was probably #228; while putting that issue together, Hama realized all the main players were female characters, then decided to eliminate the usual male cast members and use only female characters for one issue. It was an interesting experiment and one that spoke to how much Hama had done to increase the female cast (when the toys were first made, Scarlett was the only female figure; Hama immediately created the Baroness to give Cobra its own female character).

There were also a number of great stand-alone stories (a real rarity in today's comics landscape) such as the "Special Missions" from issue #251-255 and "Untold Tales" that ran from #276-280. I think my favourite of those was #279, which focused on some of the Joe pilots having to use their wits to survive a superior Cobra combat wing.

Hama said in the past that Duke was one of his least favourite Joes, so I was surprised at how much he gave Duke to do in the series - Duke appeared much more frequently than Hawk, who was Hama's preferred leader. Perhaps Hama wanted to overcome what he saw as issues with the character - he felt Duke never quite jelled as the team's sergeant. Duke received more character development than most Joes as Hama made Duke's wife a significant supporting character in the book.

Of course, Hama loves humour as much as military shoptalk and many familiar jokes appeared throughout the series. No one on the Joes' team can ever remember Ghostrider's codename. "Granny Demon" always has a fresh brick in her purse. Dr. Mindbender is really a dentist. And what does the Fort Wadsworth Chaplain's Motor Pool need with all those heavily-armed vehicles, anyway?

Hama put a lot of emphasis on Snake Eyes, as expected; I saw some fans were a little tired of Snake Eyes' overexposure. Perhaps that's why Hama killed him off. He immediately made Sean Collins into the new Snake Eyes but even though Sean was a fan-favourite character, fandom didn't seem to warm up to the character. Then, he introduced Dawn Moreno as a 2nd Snake Eyes and *that* went over quite well. Dawn is probably his biggest contribution to the franchise in the 12-year run and of all the new faces he added, hers is the one most likely to keep turning up.

I would like to sum up how I feel about Hama's lengthy work on this franchise and elaborate more on what I felt the book's strengths and weaknesses were, but Hama didn't wrap up the series on #300, he fittingly ended the series on the seat of his pants, concluding with a cliffhanger. Thus my review ends here.