G.I. JOE #10
A Nice Little Town
Like Ours...

Cover Date: April, 1983
Scripter: Larry Hama
Penciler: Mike Vosburg
Inker: Chic Stone
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colorist: Christie Scheele
Editor: Denny O'Neil
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

"Springfield. It used to be a nice little town..."
— Billy

Summary: The Joes are staking out a building in Manhattan that is a suspected Cobra stronghold. Snake-Eyes, Scarlett and Zap are on the roof, and the other Joes are spread out around the building and in the sewers. Inside, a Cobra soldier tells the Baroness that there are Joes on the roof. She touches a button, and the roof collapses, dropping the three Joes into a cell. They miss their radio check-in and Hawk orders the Joes to storm the building. They get to the roof just as the top of the building becomes some kind of aircraft and flies off. Hawk tells the other Joes that Scarlett Snake-Eyes and Zap are on their own.

Much later, Scarlett and Zap are put in a cell with a young boy. Then, the Baroness fills the cell with gas that causes the Joes to have strange hallucinations. "Less than five miles away" a Cobra scientist named Dr. Venom has Snake-Eyes hooked up to his invention, the Brain-Wave Scanner. As he explains to Cobra Commander and the Baroness, the machine will peer into Snake-Eyes' mind and give them the location of G.I. Joe Headquarters. Back in the cell, the boy tells the Joes not to drink the water given to them by a guard because it has been filled with hallucinogens. Meanwhile Dr. Venom tries to get Snake-Eyes to show him G.I. Joe HQ, but instead Snake-Eyes fills his head with thoughts from his youth, including a gas station where he worked and his high school prom. Then he fills his mind with painful memories of a helicopter crash in the Middle East that first disfigured him. Venom tells Snake-Eyes that he will not give up so easily. Back in the Joes' cell, the boy explains that he used the heat of the light bulb in the cell to conteract the drugs in the water. They plan to escape. The boy tells the Joes they're in Springfield. "It used to be a nice little town..."

Back in Venom's lab, the doctor is fascinated with Snake-Eyes' travels to Berlin, Cuba, Cypress, Chile, Laos and Cambodia. Snake-Eyes fills his head with more painful memories that appear on the scanner's monitor: the U.S. leaving Vietnam and the death of his family in a car accident. Then, he begins to show images of Joe HQ. In the cell, the boy starts shouting about a Anti-Cobra underground meeting. The guards arrive to take him to Venom for interrogation, but the Joes reveal they're not unconscious and overpower the guards. Scarlett and Zap put on the Cobra uniforms and the boy poses as their prisoner. Snake-Eyes keeps trying to block images of the Pit with painful memories. Scarlett and Zap are in civilain clothes and the boy finds them a car. As they drdive through the streets of Springfield, he explains that the ordinary town is Cobra front. It was a real town until the "soap people" came, promoting a pyramid scheme, selling cleaning products for extra money. Everyone got involved and people became indoctrinated and it was made to seem "un-American" to get involved. Any resistors disappeared, and back rooms became command centers and weapon storerooms. They arrive at an arcade that hides Venom's headquarters. They arrive inside and the children there recognize the intruders. The huge video game gun in the arcade swivels toward them. The boy warns that it's not just a toy.

As Snake-Eyes starts to show Venom images of Hawk, a guard tells him that Snake-Eyes heartbeat is becoming erratic. He's almost dead. An intruder alert sounds and Venom and the guard rush to see what's happening. On the monitor images of Snake-Eyes being taught ninja techniques to still breath and heartbeat to resemble death. The arcade gun starts firing a laser at the Joes. Venom sees that the "junior officers" have things under control and returns to his lab. When they aget there, the monitors show that Snake-Eyes is dead. Venom and the guard unstrap Snake-Eyes who wakes up and knocks out the Cobras and steal the guard's machine gun. He arrives in the arcade and disables the gun by shooting the fuse box. The Joes and the boy escape in the car to the airfield. They subdue the guards and steal the block-shaped aircraft that brought them to Springfield. The boy tells them he has to stay behind. His family is there and he can't run away from his home. The Cobra pilot in the aircraft says he won't tell them anything. The Joes don't know where they are and are flying blind in a storm. When the pilot tries to shoot Snake-Eyes, he kills the pilot with his machine gun, but also hits the controls. They don't know where they are now that all the navigation equipment is "shot full of holes." Zap keeps the craft steady until they reach a large seaport city. They aim the craft out to sea and bail out. They land on the Incredible Hulk, or at leats a man in a Hulk suit at the opening of a new shopping mall. The Marvel booking agent Marsha Rosenberg gives the Joes bus fare back to the Pit. The bus driver sees Snake-Eyes and says, "Hey! No weirdos on my bus!"

Commentary: While the storyline for issue #10 is a fairly mediocre one, it is important to the series because of the first hints of major storylines to come. But first, the story itself. In what is probably the last appearance of all the current Joes in one story, a secret Cobra hideout is being staked out by the Joes. But Hawk and the others only play a short role. The use of Zap as a main character is the onnly time he'll be so important in a storyline. Scarlett, Snake-Eyes and Zap are then captured by Cobra and flown away in a strange aircraft that seems like something drawn by Jack Kirby and appearing in The New Gods comic book, but most of the Cobra vehicles look like that before the real vehicles appear. The drugs placed in the prisoners food create some frightening images: Scarlett sees her hands as claws, while Zap seems to be melting like a candle.

This issue marks the first appearance of Dr. Venom, who will be a major part of the storyline until his death in issue #19. It''s interesting that Larry Hama created a Cobra "mad scientist" character years before Hasbro would create Dr. Mindbender. Venom's Brain-Wave Scanner will also appear many times later in the series, even after his death. One nice touch in the story is Venom's explanation of how the scanner works. It almost makes sense and for once someone tried to explain how a mind-reading machine might work. The scanner shows the "subject" pictures and images, then records his brain's reaction to it. Starting off with an apple, the scanner "learns" how a person's brain works. It almost makes sense in a unscientific sort of way. While Venom scans Snake-Eyes, we learn some important things about Snake-Eyes past, that will be expanded on later in the series: 1) Snake-Eyes was disfigured in a helicopter crash in the Middle East; 2) His family dies in a car accident; 3) He serves in Vietnam; and 4) He is trained as a ninja. Snake-Eyes finally breaks free from the scanner by using a ninja technique of slowing down one's respiration to appear dead. He then escapes, knocking out Venom and his guard. This incident is repeated nearly exactly in the story shown in the G.I. Joe Yearbook #3, where Dr. Mindbender uses the scanner on Snake-Eyes.

Even more significant is the first appearance of the Cobra-controlled town of Springfield. Springfield was first mentioned in issue #5, as the name of the marching band cover for Cobra's attack on the MOBAT tank. We also learn how Cobra came to be and why so many people follow Cobra to their death. The "soap people" pyramid scheme that took in the whole town is very interesting. It also bases Cobra in the United States, not some terrorist-filled country. This explanation of Cobra makes it seem more possible that Cobra is not beaten easily, since they are hidden in plain sight. There are some more chilling, almost Nazi aspects of the town. CHildren are indoctrinated to become "junior officers" in Cobra, willing to kill at a young age. The arcade has become a training center. Springfield will be a major part of the series until its invasion by G.I. Joe in issue #50. Conveniently, the Joes don't know where Springfield is since their aircraft's navigation equipment is destroyed. The young boy who helps the Joes in this story will later be revealed as Billy, Cobra Commander's son. He ran away from his father to fight against Cobra. Although, I tend to think that Hama never intended the boy to be CC's son until he reappeared to try and assassinate CC in issue #33.

The only problems with the story are some of the strange and silly scenes and dialogue. When Venom sees an image of Snake-Eyes' high school prom he says, "Some sort of adolescent courtship ritual?" This line was meant to be funny, but it just leaves you thinking. "Where's this guy from? Outer space?" The in-joke at the end involves the Joes dropping in on a Marvel character appearance at a shopping mall. The Marvel booking agent's name is even mentioned. It may have been funny "around the office," but to the reader it's just misplaced. Other than those oddities, #10 was an alright issue, but mostly because of its importance to the rest of the series.

First Appearances:

  • Recurring Characters: Dr. Venom, Billy
  • Geography: Springfield
Reprinted in:
  • G.I. JOE Comics Magazine #4 (June 1987). Digest format from Marvel Comics. Includes issues #9 and #11.
  • Tales of G.I. Joe #10 (October 1988). Reprint series from Marvel.
  • G.I. JOE: Volume 1 (May 2002). A trade paperback collection from Marvel. Includes issues #1-10.
  • Classic G.I. JOE: Volume 1 (January 2009). A trade paperback collection from IDW Publishing. Aside from some slight changes made to the cover, this is a reprint of the earlier Marvel collection. Includes issues #1-10.
  • G.I. JOE: Best of Snake Eyes (July 2009). Part of a series of reprints from IDW. Also includes issues #21, 26, 27, 31, 144.