I grew up in a very small town. My nearest comic shop was about an hour and a half away, so most of my childhood comics came from drug stores, the grocery, and second hand stores, like antique shops and five and dimes. And I know that all makes me sound like I’m 65 years old, but I’m not. That’s just the way it was. Limited outlets meant limited selection, but thankfully, there was one comic I could always count on — at least for the majority of my elementary and middle school years — and that was Marvel Comics’ G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.
Seriously, I love Larry Hama G.I. Joe like most dudes love Chris Claremont and Jim Lee X-Men. And while there’s an awesome surplus of just really stellar Joe tales in the series’ 155 issue run, for my money, there’s one that stands above the rest. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…
THE SNAKE-EYES TRILOGY
For, like, the three of you who don’t know this (and you should be ashamed, you three!), Snake Eyes is the ever silent mystery man of the G.I. Joe team. He dresses in black, and is both a commando and a ninja — yes, a NINJA COMMANDO. He’s basically like a real life Chuck Norris. He’s the Joe team’s attack dog, and when the poop hits the ceiling fan, that’s when people start looking for Snake Eyes, okay? But really, by then — when you start looking for him — he’s already in the middle of whatever you were going to throw him at, and most likely, a sword swipe and an uzi burst away from saving the entire world. I mean, is he the greatest character ever created? Well, yes… yes he is.
After the tragic death of his family (they died in the same car accident that took the life of Cobra Commander’s brother — THAT’S SOME COINCIDENCE!), the man that would be Snake Eyes left the United States and went to Japan to train with his old army buddy Tommy Arashikage, aka Storm Shadow. Even more tragedy followed, and Snake Eyes returned to the states where he was soon recruited by Hawk and was one of 12 original members of America’s highly-trained special mission force. But during one of the team’s earliest mission, a helicopter carrying several Joes, including Snake Eyes and Scarlett went down in flames, and in a selfless act of heroism, Snake Eyes pulled Scarlett out, but not before his face and vocal chords were hideously and irreparably damaged… supposedly.
Long rumored to have originally been intended as a Marvel Graphic Novel, the story called “The Snake-Eyes Trilogy” actually ran through G.I. Joe #s 93 — 96, picking back up at #s 103- 106. While the whole thing might suffer from the most inaccurately labeled story arc of all time, it really is an epic for the ages, and features the traditionally detached Snake Eyes at his happiest, his most vengeful, and eventually, his most emancipated.
The Snake Eyes Trilogy and everything that spills out of it was recently collected in IDW’s Classic G.I. Joe volumes 10 and 11. You can buy both of them, and the rest of the Classic G.I. Joe volumes HERE.
