Marvel’s involvement with G.I. JOE started in a men’s room, Jim Shooter explains, where Marvel President Jim Galton and Hasbro CEO Stephen Hassenfeld met while at a charity fundraiser, and this led to a more formal meeting:
They showed me what they had. A logo: “G.I. JOE, a Real American Hero.” That was about it. They didn’t want to revive the big doll. Yes, I know it was verboten to use the word “doll,” and I didn’t in front of them. They were thinking about three and three quarters inch figures, like the Star Wars figures, but they hadn’t even settled on that yet. And they wanted a line of figures, not just one. Someone said, “So, besides G.I. JOE, do we have G.I. George, G.I. Fred…?
I said how about if “G.I. JOE” is the code name for the unit? Call in G.I. JOE?” They liked that. I also said it should be an anti-terrorist team. Not a “war” toy. That was obvious to everyone, I guess.
They were sold. They wanted us to proceed and develop a concept. Everybody shook hands and Galton and I took a cab back uptown.
Then they took what editor Larry Hama had come up with for a new version of Nick Fury that they hadn’t launched yet…
There were only two contributions, I believe, that were not Larry’s, one minor and one notable.
The minor one was mine. Larry wrote the outline that was the basis for the series and, essentially, the plot for the first issue. He wrote it like a regular Marvel plot, straightforwardly, just the facts. I knew it had to be a pitch piece as well as a plot, so I rewrote it into a more dramatic presentation. I changed not an iota of substance — I simply amped up the sturm und drang. Hasbro loved it.
The notable contribution was Archie’s. He came up with the first bad guys, the Cobra Command and the Cobra Commander.
We had a meeting or two, I think, with Hasbro people in New York. We definitely flew up to Pawtucket further along in the development to see their prototypes and discuss the launch plan. Possibly Mike Hobson was with us on that trip.
They explained the rollout. They didn’t plan to have any villains in the launch. We protested. “Who are they going to fight? They need bad guys!” Archie pitched his bad guy concept. The Hasbro people resisted on the grounds that villain action figures “don’t sell.” We persisted. Finally, they caved in and included one Cobra figure.
Later, by the way, villains became 40% of their volume.
At some point along the way, we asked for female characters to be included in the line. We had women in the comics, and it seemed odd that there were none (or very few) among the toys. “Female action figures don’t sell,” we were told. I suggested that they include female figures with the vehicles. That worked. I probably wasn’t the first one to suggest that.
I love this legal loophole:
As part of the deal, Hasbro ran TV commercials ostensibly promoting the comic books, but not really. Merely collaterally, in fact.
Toy commercials were heavily regulated at the time (probably more so today). Use of animation was severely restricted. Actual children playing with actual toys for a certain percentage of the spot was required. Etc. However, there were no regulations whatsoever governing the advertising of comic books. By making “comic book ads” that were, in fact, thinly disguised ads for the toys, Hasbro circumvented regulation. And those were some exciting ads — the best toy ads on TV.