Superhero of the day: A real American Hero...My G.I. Joe is better than your G.I. Joe

It is an American phenomenon, this thing we call the action figure.  The first official action figure was the 1960's G.I. Joe.  This G. I. Joe wasn't a tiny fighting man with the lamest code name ever.  This was the full blown, 12 inch tall, Amerivan fighting machine.  This was the dude who stood up to the Nazis.

Standing there with his perfect uniform and that steely look in his eye.  He was a real American Hero.

This was not my G. I. Joe.  My Joe was the watered down version.  The version that didn't talk about Vietnam.  The G. I. Joe of my youth fought monsters from space.  He had a beard and a cyborg sidekick.  He was less a warrior and more of an adventurer.  He fought poachers and polluters.  He smacked folks Down with the power of his Kung Fu Grip.

I liked my G. I. Joe.  He reflected the world I grew up in as a kid.  He wasn't a Cold War coward.  He loved his country in a slightly tree huggery kinda way.

My Joe, like my older brother's Joe was a highly trained soldier/operative.  Whether you grew up on Combat or James Bond, you knew your Joe was better trained than any one else.  He knew how to do everything from hand to hand combat to disarming computer controlled nuclear warheads.  My Joe being superior due to lifelike hair and the Kung fu grip.

The generation after me got ripped off, first off, their Joes were teeny tiny.  The didn't have wardrobe changes,  this means that in real life they smelled horrible, but that's just an aside.  

He real problem with the teeny tiny anti-terrorist Joes is that they all seem to be highly trained in one thing and one thing only.  It was easy to tell what that one thing was by the hokey code name they were given.  Hawk/Duke, Breaker, Rock and Roll, Snake Eyes, Stalker, Roadblock, Scarlett (token girl), Spirit (token Native American).  Thes characters were designed to compartmentalism people/races/sexes/specialties.  It was the great 1980's combo of political correctness combined with stereotyping.

I guess what I'm saying is that the problem with G. I. Joe is the same as the problem with the real world.  We have out grown the age of the generalist.  The virtuoso multi-talented hero has been replaced by the super savant.  The guy who knows absolutely everything about one individual set of skills.  There is nothing wrong with an expert, but there used to room for the old school G. I. Joe, 

the trouble shooter, the guy who could fix anything with a little know how, duct tape, and a paper clip. 

My G. I. Joe belongs in the hero hall of fame with MacGyver and Doctor Who, the new Joes ar still stuck in little boxes labeled wit telltale nicknames.

As a parting thought.

War is bad for living stuff and should be avoided along with other smaller forms of violence,

Hurting people is not cool.

But G. I. Joe still kinda is