Yo Joe!

My love affair with comic books started when I traded a bag of shooters for G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #2 during the summer of 1982.  I read it that sunny afternoon and within minutes of finishing it, I was on my bike riding to the Dairy Mart 1/2 mile away where my friend said he bought it.  I walked into the convenience store and there it was- a circular wire rack of comic books.  I remember finding G.I. Joe #3, Avengers #225, Star Wars #66 and Captain America Annual #6.  I don't remember any DC Comics from that trip or for quite awhile to be honest.  I was a Marvel Zombie.  DC didn't get their hooks in me until 2 1/2 years later.  Rom, The Incredible Hulk, The Defenders and Spider-Man all quickly followed.  The Fantastic Four.  Marvel Two-In-One starring the Thing.  Marvel Team-Up.  Before I knew it, I had read everything that Dairy Mart could provide.  The phone book led me to three different comic book stores in Springfield (AKA the "Big City" in Western MA): Treasure Island, Rebel Peddler and Bob's Hobbies & Collectibles.  There were whole stores devoted to comic books!  This was too good to be true.  I convinced my mom to drive me to the Rebel Peddler.  It was a hole in the wall little store that had tables of long boxes.  I had discovered back issues!  My meager allowance wasn't going to be enough.  I quickly got two paper routes (the daily Union News and the weekly Pennysaver)  to make money.  Within months, I was taking the bus into Springfield every Friday afternoon, catching one or two transfers depending on the shop I was going to.

Looking back at G.I. Joe #2, I can't honestly say what it was that hooked me so hard.  It's a great story (I recently re-read it as part of IDW's collection of the Marvel run).  A Joe team consisting of Stalker, Breaker, Scarlett, and Snake-Eyes parachutes into the Arctic to investigate what happened to a US research station that was attacked. They cross paths with Kwinn, an Eskimo mercenary who is working for the Russians.  The Russians were preparing to use a fear wave on the US, but it backfired on the Russian team that was deployed to use it.  The Russian team, in a fit of paranoia, attacked the US research station.  Kwinn was hired by the Russians to recover the fear ray and destroy the evidence.  Kwinn gets the drop on the Joe team (so much for them being an elite counter terrorist outfit) and takes the firing pins from their weapons, adding them to his weasel skull necklace and he leaves the Joes stranded at a deserted Russian base.  Kwinn is torn by his conscience; not wanting to work for the Russians once he realizes they were using fear as a weapon, but forced by his word to honor his contract.  The Joe team scavenges enough equipment from the research station to make an ice sailboat and chase after Kwinn.  Meanwhile, Kwinn leaves his weasel necklace (with firing pins) hidden in an ice cairn and delivers the fear ray to the Russians and leaves, warning them that the Joe team is on the way.  The last panel of the comic shows the Joe team with Snake Eyes on point wearing the weasel skull necklace marching through the Arctic towards the Russians.