GI Joe: The Complete Story of America's Favorite Man of Action

by John Michlig

From the creators of the GI Joe Masterpiece Edition comes this exclusive history of the world's greatest action figure. The only book to tell the whole story, from the initial concept born in the early '60s through the phenomenal GI Joe renaissance of the '90s, GI Joe takes us behind the scenes with the people who made it all happen. Featuring over 200 color photographs showing early prototypes, sketches, rare items, and more, including many Hasbro archival shots never before published, this is the ultimate book for fans and collectors everywhere. Brought to life in the words of the inventors, artists, and executives who helped create the original hero, here are all the memories -- from GI Joe's tough scar to his revolutionary kung-fu grip. A rare account of the making of an American icon embraced around the world, GI Joe proves that old soldiers never die, they just keep on selling.
1997 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. GI Joe, the logo, and all group, character, and vehicle names are trademarks of Hasbro, Inc. Used with permission.
Masterpiece Edition is a trademark of Chronicle Books. All Rights Reserved

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[Henry Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the guys at Hasbro got to reading an encyclopedia, and his son became fascinated at all the different medals listed therein. That's where the seed was planted. Toy soldiers have been around probably as long as real soldiers have, and now at Hasbro, plans went forward to develop a toy soldier for the 20th Century.

One of the toy Moguls involved in the Barbie line lent them some business advice that stuck: "First you sell them the razor, then they have to keep buying the blades." Or something like that. With Barbie, little girls got the doll one time, but turned Mattel into a toy empire buying accessories for it (different clothes, purses, doll houses, etc.). This was a perfect strategy for Hasbro, too, since Joe could be any flavor of GI a boy wanted him to be: deep-sea diver; scuba diver; pilot; astronaut; grunt with rifle; submachinegun; flamethrower... And speaking of Barbie, Hasbro was adamant that their new toy was for boys, and should never be called a doll. This is when, where and how the term "action figure" sprang into the American vocabulary.

I chuckled when I read how Hasbro settled on his name. There were only three TV stations to choose from in any given city back in the early 1960s, and it turns out that during the period when they were agonizing over a name for their serviceman, one night, with no planned coordination among them, the members of the Hasbro think-tank all wound up watching the same movie: The Story of GI Joe. The next morning, they unanimously decided to adopt Ernie Pyle's (the movie was based on his war correspondence) catchy euphemism for their entire "action figure" line. In a cockeyed way, this part of the tale gave me a sort of personal connection, having read about that film years before and pondered the title.

There are many interesting tidbits revealed in this book, like how Joe's backward thumbnail came to be and why they kept it; how they designed his face; and how they staged that picture of the fighter plane I mentioned above. The reason behind Joe's transformation from a GI into a smoke-jumping paramedic in the 1970s is explained in the book, though hardly a mystery to anyone who knows anything of those times. It can be summed up in one geographical name: Viet Nam. (And had Joe not burned his draft card, grown a beard and put on an orange jump suit, my mother probably never would have allowed me to own such a toy. So Hasbro's demilitarization was a wise move, I suppose. Sigh. Pragmatism...)

The book takes Joe up into the fantasy paramilitary organization of the 1980s, complete with cartoons and comic books, and it's all an interesting read if you have an interest in toys, business marketing, or pop-culture.

In many ways the evolution of GI Joe mirrors the mental journey of the boys who first played with him. Their fathers and uncles had saved the world from the Axis in "the war" (WWII), and as children they idolized fighting men, and thought it great fun to simulate war in their bedrooms or back yards. Then they saw their big brothers drafted and sent overseas to kill and die for a cause nobody could, or would, define. When big brother came home, it wasn't to tickertape parades and universal gratitude from the folks on the home front, but to Marxist protestors spitting on them, calling them war criminals, baby-killers, murderers. Often big brother came home in a wheelchair or a body bag.

I won't go into all the cultural conditioning undergone by the baby boomers. There was a lot of it. But between that and the natural process of maturation that transforms men in every culture, war ceased to be an opportunity for unlimited adventure, and became a gruesome, smelly nightmare. The military went from an being an honorable profession and a patriotic duty to a brutally half-witted dictatorship dedicated to crushing personal liberty. (I suppose there's some truth in all those perceptions.)

GI Joe probably came on the scene a decade too late for his own good. Yet his is a household name, connoting different images to different people and different generations. To Ernie Pyle, GI Joe was an everyman in uniform, a regular Joe (pun intended) thrown into the trenches to fight for his life. To the young boys of the 1960s, GI Joe was a cool, heroic warrior, fighting in noble conflicts of whatever scale their imaginations dictated (and whatever accessories their parents could bankroll). To my generation, he was a smoke-jumping paramedic with a beard, an orange jumpsuit, and Kung Fu Grip. To later generations he was a member of a secret paramilitary government organization thwarting COBRA's quest for world domination. In my opinion, the later incarnations merely hijacked the brand name, and bear little resemblance to what GI Joe was intended to be.

There's a whole lot of cultural commentary Joe could make after studying America through his plastic, painted eyeballs, too.

Some men remember the true GI Joe fondly. Some despise him because of what they feel he represents. But wind the clock back far enough and he was a loyal comrade, indefatiguable personification of their own warrior spirit, or an imaginary friend, to almost all of them.

Thanks, Joe.

[R.Friend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully designed by Tolleson Design, featuring amazing photography and subtle graphic elements. Focuses on the original prototypes and early figures in the collection--not much mention of the smaller ones from my generation, but that certainly doesn't detract from an overall terrific book.

[Stephen Heverin]

GI Joe: The Complete Story of America's Favorite Man of Action by John Michlig (1998)