Cobra: Pyramids of Darkness
NaBloPoMo: Day Five (Delayed to 11/07/09)
I’ve mentioned before about how my brothers and I grew up on Action Force, the UK re-brand of GI Joe, and about my support for COBRA and the Dreadnoks over the good guys of the series – for one thing, Cobra actually had a uniformed military organisation and supporting named specialists, and not just random specialists with very little back-up who went into missions solo (I don’t care how Hollywood it is, but there are very few occassions in history where one guy with a rifle has overwhelmed an entire army).
The problem with Cobra however is their inability to make the best use of their arsenal or formulate plans to the best strategic outline. In fairness, the plans in the comic books tended to be a lotter better formulated and a lot more successful, with even a few Cobra victories, but the cartoons obviously couldn’t go that way. Because GI Joe cartoons were re-dubbed in sections to make Action Force, releases were limited and we never really got regular showings, most of what we got was from VHS releases of cropped together mini-series or random compilation episodes, they still gave a good overview though.
Cobra Commander’s briefings, in my imagination, must have played out like getting a sugared-up kid with ADHD to come up with a story, you start off with a nice simple plan for world domination and the next moment you suddenly have hundreds of variables thrown in. In one of my favourite, and one of our first, videos this plays out to it’s fullest. Some of you might remember the story arc, Pyramids of Darkness. I’d worry about spoiling it, but to be honest it came out in 1985 and if you haven’t seen it by now, then you would have seen any other cartoon about heroes from a toyline and they all end the same way.
The crucial point of the plan is that Cobra will hijack a weapons satellite and, using several giant black cubes, align it to a certain orbit that will allow the weapon to disrupt all electrical operations in the Northern Hemisphere.
How the cubes actually work or what they actually do is never really touched upon, other than they somehow complete the shadowy “pyramid” over the Earth. They may just have been landmarks to ensure placement was correct by always being at certain positions relative to the satellites orientation, all that is really touched on is that they needed a super-secret facility to build them and they had to be shipped around the globe without anyone noticing them. No-one it seems thought to build them closer to the location or to use options such as a gyroscope and existing landmarks on the satellite.
It’s a simple plan, and one that the James Bond movie Goldeneye proves can border on successful when pulled by a villain who doesn’t need ritalin. Cobra Commander though decides to throw in the variables, the first is to sneak aboard a GI Joe space shuttle – despite the fact that the Crimson Twins appear to have their own personal space shuttle. Fair enough though, because the Joe shuttle probably has preset codes and flight plans that will enable it to dock with the space station.
So, Cobra uses a feint to sneak aboard, finding the secret location of the shuttle bases and hiding their troops all around waiting for the launch, so that they can sneak an extra cargo box in unnoticed. Now, I’m no leader of a terrorist army, but if I wanted to sneak something in and knew the location of a top secret base crucial to my plans, I’d probably try using my stealthiest guys to get the cargo in before launch day, rather than risking the scrapping of the mission. Luckily, Joes aren’t the kind of people to allow an attempt to disrupt a space mission to actually stop them launching, even if several weapons fired upon the shuttle.
The Cobra forces back away, and are given protection by several giant robots that emerge from a lake. Now I’m no owner of giant war robots, but if I wanted to destroy my enemies, I’d pretty much see how far I could get letting my robots squish and burn through their forces – who knows, I might not even have needed the space station. But no, for Cobra Commanders briefing it was more like “and then…and then, after we’ve used like our stealthy ways to get cargo on to the totally cool spaceship…um, GIANT ROBOTS WILL SAVE US…yeah!”
So, while the Cobra troops escape to begin moving around cubes, the Joes rocket continues into space. The cargo that Cobra left emerges, small cute creatures called Fatal Fluffies, and small cute creatures called Dreadnoks too. Zartan, stealthily hidden on the space shuttle in a manner that meant he could have actually assassinated all crew while they slept and seized control, is joined by untrained motorcycle enthusists who think firing weapons in a shuttle is a good idea – once again, this isn’t great planning, Zartan on his own, or Storm Shadow for that matter, would have taken the ship over, docked and taken the satellite before Cobra Commander could have decided finished trying to lisp his way through the lunch menu.
The Fatal Fluffies, another deviation from the best laid plans, had the ability to turn from Furby to Minotaur by the blowing of a whistle. Now I’m no genetic scientist with a penchant for creating bio-weapons, but if I created a creature that was instantly cooed over by everyone but could recieve a signal to turn into a bloodlusting brute that obeyed my commands, I’d make sure to market it at Christmas and rule to world by Boxing Day.
We then find out that the satellite has a huge ass mega-laser that can easily target and destroy single buildings. Why they are bothering with blocking out electricals when they can blow up Pentagon with the US’s own weapon, I’m not sure – especially seeing as anyone can pretty much target the thing. If Zartan had just killed everyone else on board, he could have taken over with no risk of rebellion and taken out any opposition with his death ray.
Back on terra firma, Cobra begins moving cubes around the world, because it’s only after getting their crew to space that they decide to put the actual infrastructure in place, giving more time for the good guys to regain control and spreading the terrorist forces even thinner on the ground. Had the cubes been built over time and in places closer to their final destination, there would be less delay and a lower risk threshold for Joes stopping their placement.
Despite all these flaws and these wasted plans, Cobra actually succeeds in activating the pyramid. The Northern Hemisphere gets shadowed by electricity disruption, which theoretically will have crashed planes, stopped life support systems and led to nuclear meltdowns from power plant safeties turning off, the world would never be the same and millions or billions would die in the merest blink of an eye. Cobraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Or not.
All that is really shown is some lights flickering off and cars stop, but it’s implied that some other stuff doesn’t work too as the Joes have to use sailing ships to get around the globe. The good guys make an assault on Cobra HQ and another wasted weapon is shown, an amazing heatray that melts things and causes heatsroke, but is mounted on Cobra HQ amid mountains with precarious boulders. No-one thought to mount it on tanks apparently.
Obviously, the Joes take control of the satellite in space and on the ground they find the conveniently labelled ’self destruct’ button.
In that moment I knew I must collect Cobra toys and not Joes, Cobra had resources and good specialists, what it lacked was a leader. My friends and my brothers all collected the ‘good guys’, but when faced with the choices of characters, I always went for the Cobra (though, vehicle wise I was mostly Joe, because I prefer vehicles made for tactics and not based on pogo sticks).
edit: For your entertainment, I tracked down the episode summaries and Joost has the episodes up (starting with Part One).
TL;DR: Heat Weapons, Electromagnetic Pulses, Giant Robots, Space Lasers. Imagine what I could do with them…
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