G.I. Joe/Headscratchers

G.I. Joe General

• Anyone ever wondered why the G.I. Joe logo has the flag of the Netherlands on it? A Real American Hero!... From the Netherlands.
  • Pshaw. Everyone knows that there's only one awesome nation using those colors today. Though in all seriousness, it was probably done to keep the white part of Red, White, and Blue in the middle, preventing too much blending in/bleeding out when the logo was place on a white background.

G.I. Joe Cartoon

• Why does Cobra always surrender in those shootouts with the Joes? It's been a while since I've seen the cartoon, but I always remember these scenes where they would just fire at each other from behind crates and crap, and in spite of NO ONE ever dying, one side just decides to surrender? Did they not bring enough ammunition or just get bored with looping animation frames of shooting lasers at walls?
  • Been a while since I've seen it too, but generally I think Cobra surrendered when either the Joe reinforcements arrived, their scheme finally went down in flames, or both.
  • While we obviously have a problem reconciling real combat and surrender behavior with the Never Say "Die" attitude of the cartoon, real warfare troops surrender when they think they are all going to be killed if they don't or when their commander decides any further fighting is unlikely to achieve their objectives (thus leading only to more casualties) and retreat isn't possible. Now, while the Cobras and the Joes never kill one another, they certainly make headway maneuvering into certain positions and forcing each other into various places and situations. So the Cobra officers probably order their troops to surrender when the scheme du jure can no longer be attained and the Joes have cut off their escape routes, so they feel further fighting will only result in their own men being killed or hurt without accomplishing any objectives for Cobra. Think of it like a chess player resigning when he sees his opponent can force a mate in 3 moves, regardless of lost pieces.
  • In universe, I doubt that they feel like "no one ever dies" or gets hurt. Plus lots of the firefights get solved by Quick Kick running up and "karate-ing" them or Bazooka tripping and blowing something to hell and that's gotta suck to be on the receiving end. Plus, why would you "fight to the death" for a jerk like Cobra Commander? I suppose it's also to help teach kids watching that it's okay to surrender your entrenched positions to achieve a common peace, lol.
• Why does Cobra use their amazing devices to attack G.I.Joe? They could make trillions using them for relatively peaceful purposes. Sure, not as evil as blowing stuff up, but with the trillions you could more efficently blow stuff up.
  • There are probably laws against trading with a terrorist organization. Also, maybe whatever their political manifesto is prohibits this kind of thing.
  • They're terrorists, not businessmen. They spend money to get weapons (or materials for making weapons).
    • Honestly, I assumed they *DID* do this and that's how they afforded all the crap they used to try and kill G.I. Joe.
  • The comics sometimes shows Cobra selling armament and weapons to other nations, usually of the third-word banana republic dictatorship variety. One story arc in the Marvel Comics run included selling Cobra Terror-Dome bases, which were secretly equipped with paranoia-inducing subsonic waves to stir up civil unrest (and thus encourage more sales).
• There's one episode in which Cobra steals a Joe laser guidance device thing, and as it turns out, rather than using the damn thing to, like say, blow up Washington D.C. or something like that, Cobra Commander uses the device to carve an image of himself on the flipping moon? Yeah, CC was a bit of an incompetent nut in the cartoon, but come on! You've got something that'll make your deadly laser even more deadlier by enhancing its aiming capabilities, and rather than holding the world ransom and blowing up a monument or something of importance, you use it to simply deface the moon? No wonder the Joes beat their asses so easily.

G.I. Joe Comics

• In both the original ARAH comics and the Snake Eyes: Declassified redux, Onihashi kills himself after making it clear he knows Zartan did it. Why couldn't Onihashi hold off on the seppuku long enough to tell someone who the assassin was? The clan and remaining elders wouldn't hold Thomas responsible, Snake Eyes wouldn't have that grudge going on, and Thomas wouldn't have had to join Cobra to discover his uncle's killer, thus avoiding his Face Heel Turn and repeated brainwashings. Literally all the Arashikage-related problems could have been solved, save for the Hard Master dying in the first place, if Onihashi hadn't taken his knowledge about Zartan's role to the grave. Is it Honor Before Reason? Lawful Stupid?