Earlier this week Josh Blaylock, President of
Devil's Due Publishing spoke on the current state and what we can expect for the future of the G.I.Joe comic book series. To see what he had to say
Click here.
We thought in reponse to this recent news we would post this editorial sent in by one of our readers. The views expressed in this editorial may not necessarily reflect those views of Toy News International.
by:
Ed Badalucca
Comics have the unfortunate tendency to be marginalized in terms of modern literature because of the misguided concept that the stories are aimed directly at children and have no artistic value. Anyone who values comic books as a form of expression (be it writers or readers) must accept that their views likely will only be shared by others in the field or fellow readers. Unlike other artistic formulas (like painting, poetry, or even prose) there is the public perception that “even though I don’t get it, I appreciate that others do, and that validates the worth of such endeavors.” Comics have not, in their 70+ years of existence, ever gained that type of public acceptance. It’s my opinion that they never will. Hybrid art will always cater to a niche market, and the humbler a publisher is, the more likely their target audience will stick with the product. So what does any of this have to do with G.I.Joe?
Devil’s Due inherited a very unique, but wholly unproven comic book when they landed the license from Hasbro in 2001. G.I.Joe stood alone in the deluge of toy-based comic properties flooding this niche market in the 1980’s. At 155 issues, this serial storyline managed to stay relevant, intriguing, and thought-provoking long after most of the hype surrounding like-books died away.
So when Devil’s Due announced, in the infamous interview earlier this week, that their 40+ issue run would have to be ended for lack of sales, and the book essentially rebooted with a different focus, I had to take a long moment of reflection. Where had they gone wrong? How had a book so well respected, and eagerly anticipated gone from darling series of the Post-9/11 comics industry to a second-rate joke among fans? But when I was done pontificating, the answer was very simple: Devil’s Due never had it right.
The Writers
G.I.Joe was a success in the 1980’s for many, many reasons. No small amount of this success was due to Larry Hama, the man who scripted the comic series from Issue #1 through the denouement in 1994. He approached the book with a knowledge of military combat, a solid idea for the basic conflict, and never wrote for the audience given to him: the kids who would eventually buy the toys. Like any writer who strives to be relevant, he wrote for himself, and the genuine feel of the book is what keeps it interesting even 20 years later.
In total contrast, Josh Blaylock, the first writer of the Devil’s Due version, turned his eyes to his audience. Because his knowledge of the property and the original comic were limited, he hadn’t the confidence to write for himself. Because of this major weakness, his 25-issue run is plagued with clichéd plots, random character use, and a notable lack of character development of any type. No writer can develop characters he does not know, and Blaylock made it clear he did not know what he was doing. And in a niche market like comics, once your audience sees through the initial hype to find a lackluster product, like with most of the 80’s properties then and now, they walked away.
This is a shame because the replacement for Blaylock, Brandon Jerwa, was very knowledgeable about G.I.Joe and, with a clean slate, might have produced a worthy follow-up to the acclaimed Hama run. But alas, Jerwa was saddled not only with Blaylock’s worthless foundation, but editorial directive from Blaylock (whose ownership of the company and writer’s status cause a conflict of interest). And now, because sales did not increase by Jerwa’s polishing of Blaylock’s turd, a talented creator with an emotional connection to the characters is being sidelined for a big name writer who has admitted his dissatisfaction with so-called “80’s properties” being given the respect owed to true comic properties.
In the end, G.I.Joe is still being marginalized inside a medium which is, itself, marginalized because of a stigma that Hama struggled with for 12 years. Blaylock’s manhandling of the new book has resulted in the 80’s nostalgia label on a book that had proven its mettle in the years since its 1994 cancellation, tainting the entire 20+ year run. And now rather than admit his role in destroying the book’s credibility, Blaylock parades himself as a champion of the title, when it has been his direction and interference for the last three years that caused the book’s downfall and necessary revision.
The Characters
In Marvel’s G.I.Joe series, Larry Hama achieved an amazing feat by featuring well over 80% of Hasbro’s 160 G.I.Joe team members, many in featured roles in specific stories. But these characters were introduced slowly, no more than 20 per year, and were used to their abilities, augmenting the main cast whose stories developed consistently over the course of the book. It was in this world of compromise and balance that Snake-Eyes earned a starring role, as the mystery of his character early on was paid off later with explosive connections to many of the other main characters, creating and driving a drama that was now much more personal than good vs. evil. It became a story about past demons and repeated mistakes. The villains were given motivation, and the reader could empathize with their choices to do good or evil.
Devil’s Due seemed to take a psychotic turn on the use of Hasbro’s varied cast. Rather than tell a story based on a few characters, developing them fully, and bringing in minor characters for scenery, both Blaylock and Jerwa reduced most of the Joe team to scenery, focusing only on the leadership characters of Hawk, Flint, and Duke, with Snake-Eyes still getting, though not deserving, a starring spotlight. They both seemed to think Cobra’s dramatic in-fighting was a result of petty greed, and neither tackled the ideological differences and character motivation that made the conflict interesting under Hama’s pen. In the end, the drama in the Devil’s Due series is either telegraphed, with the reader being told the whys rather than the characters actually coming to conclusions in the fiction, or swiped directly from Hama’s run and played with a nostalgic invocation whereby the reader feels the drama of the old book instead of this one.
The Story
G.I.Joe is different things to different people. Ask a thousand fans what G.I.Joe is about, and you will get as many interpretations. That’s great. It’s a big reason why the property has lasted over 40 years, and continues to be consistently relevant. But a comic book cannot be written for the whims of a thousand different points of view. It must be steady, consistent, and tell a good story.
Hama made a choice, and his story was the plight of the everyman. G.I.Joe was a tool of the government, and when they did their job, they were treated as heroes. But when they acted like heroes, they were martyred by the Jugglers, a group of benevolent but politically-minded military leaders. The Joes, over time, learned that their loyalties were to each other and the people of the United States as their sworn protectors, not to the whims of a powerful few.
How ironic that this dynamic was lost on Blaylock who, as both CEO and writer, was representing both the business interests, and artistic interests of his company on the G.I.Joe book. Fans will always tell you their favorite Joe moments were when they found themselves at odds with the military leaders, doing the right thing for their country and to hell with authority. Blaylock holds that very position of authority, and wrote from that perspective. In that moment, he lost the feel of the Marvel comic.
Devil’s Doo-Doo
And again, that’s fine. There are many ways to look at G.I.Joe. But Blaylock never looked at G.I.Joe as a story. As a company head, he looked at sales figures and his own career. So his first arc was a typical Hollywood Blockbuster script with lots of hollow emotion and patterned action sequences. Drama was tacked on like the tail of a birthday donkey. Far too many characters were present (almost 40 by the end of Issue #4) to ensure every fan saw his favorites. To ride on the success of Hama’s book, great lengths were taken to tie the two together. Far too much was done with an 88-page limit for any good story to be told.
Once the hurdle was overcome and the book was a selling, Blaylock floundered. His follow-up arc lacked an actual plot, and the biggest moment was an assassination (of G.I.Joe’s authority figure... perhaps Hawk was symbolizing Blaylock‘s own feelings of persecution) which devolved immediately into a clichéd and drawn out non-fight between Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow... a battle that set no standard for the complex relationship between the two main characters, answered none of the questions it raised, and didn’t end so much as drift off. Blaylock has proven, twice over, his inability to pace a story or resolve it to the reader’s satisfaction.
But to anyone with a mind for literature, it became obvious that Josh Blaylock simply is not a writer. He may like writing, but he has no talent in the field. His next arc, the runaway B.A.T., hammered this point home to many and is the most cited jumping-off point for many of the former readers that I’ve met. A rogue android, somehow impervious to harm, goes berserk for no reason and runs amok in Chicago for three issues. This arc reeked of deus ex machina, the coincidental and unexplainable motions of a plot where the writer’s hand can clearly be seen, like a god in the machine, manipulating the details to make his story work. At this point, Devil’s Due was an embarrassment to the G.I.Joe legacy. But it got worse.
Straying from the 4-issue arc structure that had, at least, forced Blaylock to tell a full story, the next two issues gave any readers still holding on a rehash of Hama’s ingenious “Cobra is everywhere” story by shoe-horning a reunion of Joes into a Cobra-run bar in a Cobra-run town. With shades of Marvel Issue #10, #49/50, and #90, the quasi-arc has no point, furthers no overall theme for the book, and only confuses what exactly Cobra’s plan is... a plot-point still undisclosed as of the latest issue. The next issue, a solo story, is a set-up for the event-laden final arc of Blaylock’s run. But with no further mention of this “event” until it occurs, this issue is a head-scratcher for almost six months. It was blatant attempt to make the book feel more fluid (like Hama’s run), but without any follow-through or actual fluidity, its intent was clear... and incapable of being respected.
Following these scattered issues, the writer returns for another tale of kidnapping. A staple of the Blaylock run became kidnap victims escaping on their own before their rescuers get there, making the rescue plot worthless. It is the only thing that passes for a theme in his run with three separate acts of kidnapping/escape occurring before Issue #25. It also is notable for being the second time a minor character has been recruited into the G.I.Joe mainstream, totally missing the point of the character’s existence. More than anything, the inclusion of Daina of the Oktober Guard in the Joe team solidified that Blaylock was finding inspiration on his company’s message boards instead of his own head. Countless threads had spoken on the subject, and Daina, as the only female Guardsman, was the odds-on favorite among fans to bolster Joes own low lady-count. That she should arise as the one to join the team was far too coincidental.
Blaylock trudged along; again trying to build a world around a series of unconnected stories by revisiting the Snake-Eyes/Storm Shadow relationship in a 2-part story ironically entitled “Closure”. Notwithstanding the fact that this issue offered no actual closure, halfway through it turns into a silent story that claims homage to Hama’s revolutionary tale without earning any of the same praise. Blaylock has leveled blame on Hasbro, who wanted Storm Shadow to remain with Cobra despite his hero status for 15+ years. But he fails to take into account his own choice to tell a story he could not, by legal demand, satisfactorily end. Ignoring the fact that he never properly set the story up, Blaylock throws mud onto an already untidy story that centers on Snake-Eyes but lacks both reason and entertainment value.
With Issue #22, Blaylock launches his final assault on the book with a four part story based on Serpentor. For those that know Marvel, Serpentor was a one-note, second rate joke of a character whose death was the crowning moment of his life. Great pains were taken by Hama over time to see that the character could never be brought back. But in true hack style, Blaylock overlooks all of the drama of the Marvel run to resurrect not only this would-be king, but the antagonist to another key Hama story, the murderous S.A.W.-Viper whose Joe body count exceeds all other Cobra agents. Hyped as the biggest Joe battle in a decade (in other words, since Hama’s run), Blaylock touted this as his swan song and revealed he wanted to go out with a bang.
Instead, true to corporate style, he turned the book over to Brandon Jerwa after one issue, leaving the stink of this anti-climactic arc on the man who would carry the book in his absence. Not only did Blaylock retcon many integral events of Hama’s book, but he managed to retcon Firefly and the rogue B.A.T. from his own worst arc into the conspiracy.
In hindsight, 9 issues of his run had been devoted to the return of a third party foe with not a single issue devoted to establishing the first two factions! When the 25th issue ended, thankfully, the corporate and artistic heads of Devil’s Due were finally split, and the book got a soft reboot at Issue #26 with Brandon Jerwa on board.
Devil Do Good
Jerwa proved, very quickly, to be everything Blaylock was not, and fans who stuck with the series were generally pleased. Although forced to tell issue-specific arcs, Jerwa’s run does not read like a series of unconnected stories. There is one very clear focus, and each issue flows into the next. As of this article, 14 issues of Jerwa’s G.I.Joe have been published with three more promised before the reboot. In that time, the Joes have been fighting a war against Cobra, now lead by Destro in a fantastically awful display of Cobra in-fighting, while fending off the unusually evil Jugglers. The premise is, again, much different than Hama’s take. But while Blaylock never had a story, it’s easy to see what Jerwa’s is. Whether fans agree with it or not, Jerwa is writing his own way while bending to the whim of the corporate heads when necessary. Saddled with far too many characters and tainted by his close ties to the fandom, Jerwa has still managed to tell his story but unfortunately will be unable to see it through. The book will end as of Issue #43, and a new series will begin back at #1.
What the Devil Should Due
Joe Casey, whose name is well known if not revered in this niche market, will continue the 20+ year storyline with his own take on the Joes. It is one that, likely, will not rely so much on the Hama/Blaylock/Jerwa combined epic, but will not contradict it either. But for it to be successful in a way that the Devil’s Due run has not been thus far, there are a few key rules I feel they should follow:
1) Stop Listening to Fans. Let the writer tell his story, his way.
2) Like Hasbro, recognize that there *is* a core cast of Joes, and that these are your main characters.
3) Focus on the fight between G.I.Joe and its enemies, not the internal struggles.
How does this solve the problem? Fans rarely know what they want but tend to like what they see. If the story is quality work, they will read regardless of the involvement of their favorite character. In fact, if the story is that good, they may find new favorites based on how a character handles a situation. A writer can only enjoy his job if he’s writing for himself, and catering to the whims of fans will only weaken the story while sapping the Casey’s desire to write.
Devil’s Due has never been about characterization, but unfortunately for them, it is the hallmark of comics. If you do not develop your characters, you will have no audience. As my exhibit A, I point to the sales figures for the book, dropping nearly 66% since its inception. Readers cling to characters. Without a character appearing consistently every issue, a reader’s not going to buy the book. So the core cast, at least comprised of 6-8 Joes, should be a stable element in every issue.
Likewise, Cobra is synonymous with the brand, and any reader opening a G.I.Joe book will expect to find either Cobra Commander Destro or Zartan (and their respective teams) in the story. Multiple factions are fine, but once G.I.Joe is fighting unrecognizable threats like the Red Shadows for more than a few issues, readers are going to walk away. Cobra cannot be based on the in-fighting of its members. Either they find true allegiance to the cause, or they splinter into their own factions. Cobra, MARS, and the Dreadnoks can all be viable threats to G.I.Joe without being allies, and their leaders are all immediately recognizable to casual fans.
At the end of the day, will any of this bring back fans? Who’s to say? It’s a very personal relationship between a reader and his comics. Especially in this kind of niche market where the relationship between creator and audience is so close, the name Devil’s Due alone could drive readers away. Could Joe Casey’s name be enough to overpower the general distrust in the publisher? Does G.I.Joe really have any staying power in the comics market? Has Blaylock squandered G.I.Joe’s comic credibility in his time with the book? Will the fans come back and bring their friends? Will another publisher ever try to resurrect the book knowing the sales might be very limited if fans don’t come back now?
This summer, I guess we’ll all find out together.
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But to anyone with a mind for literature, it became obvious that Josh Blaylock simply is not a writer. He may like writing, but he has no talent in the field. His next arc, the runaway B.A.T., hammered this point home to many and is the most cited jumping-off point for many of the former readers that I’ve met. A rogue android, somehow impervious to harm, goes berserk for no reason and runs amok in Chicago for three issues. This arc reeked of deus ex machina, the coincidental and unexplainable motions of a plot where the writer’s hand can clearly be seen, like a god in the machine, manipulating the details to make his story work. At this point, Devil’s Due was an embarrassment to the G.I.Joe legacy. But it got worse.
Following these scattered issues, the writer returns for another tale of kidnapping. A staple of the Blaylock run became kidnap victims escaping on their own before their rescuers get there, making the rescue plot worthless. It is the only thing that passes for a theme in his run with three separate acts of kidnapping/escape occurring before Issue #25. It also is notable for being the second time a minor character has been recruited into the G.I.Joe mainstream, totally missing the point of the character’s existence. More than anything, the inclusion of Daina of the Oktober Guard in the Joe team solidified that Blaylock was finding inspiration on his company’s message boards instead of his own head. Countless threads had spoken on the subject, and Daina, as the only female Guardsman, was the odds-on favorite among fans to bolster Joes own low lady-count. That she should arise as the one to join the team was far too coincidental.
With Issue #22, Blaylock launches his final assault on the book with a four part story based on Serpentor. For those that know Marvel, Serpentor was a one-note, second rate joke of a character whose death was the crowning moment of his life. Great pains were taken by Hama over time to see that the character could never be brought back. But in true hack style, Blaylock overlooks all of the drama of the Marvel run to resurrect not only this would-be king, but the antagonist to another key Hama story, the murderous S.A.W.-Viper whose Joe body count exceeds all other Cobra agents. Hyped as the biggest Joe battle in a decade (in other words, since Hama’s run), Blaylock touted this as his swan song and revealed he wanted to go out with a bang.
Likewise, Cobra is synonymous with the brand, and any reader opening a G.I.Joe book will expect to find either Cobra Commander Destro or Zartan (and their respective teams) in the story. Multiple factions are fine, but once G.I.Joe is fighting unrecognizable threats like the Red Shadows for more than a few issues, readers are going to walk away. Cobra cannot be based on the in-fighting of its members. Either they find true allegiance to the cause, or they splinter into their own factions. Cobra, MARS, and the Dreadnoks can all be viable threats to G.I.Joe without being allies, and their leaders are all immediately recognizable to casual fans.
