G.I. JOE: Silent Interlude 30th Anniversary Edition Preview

G.I. JOE: SILENT INTERLUDE 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION presents the
story that defined a generation—G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO #21,
the famous SILENT INTERLUDE story by Larry Hama and Steve Leialoha.
This wordless issue introduced the world to SNAKE EYE’s mysterious nemesis
STORM SHADOW and his ARASHIKAGE NINJA—and essays by Mark Bellomo
offer a look into the inspiration and creation of this comic book classic.
Plus—an unprecedented glimpse of Larry Hama’s original layouts and a
bonus silent issue by Larry Hama and Joe Benitez!
Includes G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO #21 and G.I. JOE: ORIGINS #19.
www.idwpublishing.com • $19.9 9
G.I. Joe: A ReAl AmeRIcAn HeRo #21: “SIlent InteRlude”
StoRy And BReAkdownS By lARRy HAmA
FInISHeS By Steve leIAloHA
coloRS By GeoRGe RouSSoS
G.I. Joe: A ReAl AmeRIcAn HeRo #21: “SIlent InteRlude”
oRIGInAl BReAkdownS
BReAkdownS By lARRy HAmA
G.I. Joe oRIGInS #19: SnAke eyeS
StoRy And lAyoutS By lARRy HAmA
PencIlS By Joe BenItez
InkS By vIctoR llAmAS
coloRS By J. BRown
IntRoductIon By
mARk Bellomo
ISSue noteS By
mARk Bellomo And lARRy HAmA
collectIon coveR By
ed HAnnIGAn, klAuS JAnSon, And Romulo FAJARdo JR.
oRIGInAl edItS By
denny o’neIl, Andy ScHmIdt, And cARloS GuzmAn
collectIon edItS By cARloS GuzmAn
collectIon deSIGn By cHRIS mowRy
Special thanks to Hasbro’s Ed Lane, Joe Furfaro, Heather Hopkins, and Michael Kelly for their invaluable assistance
ISBN: 978-1-63140-035-3
www.IDWPUBLISHING.com
IDW founded by Ted Adams, Alex Garner, Kris Oprisko, and Robbie Robbins
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Ted Adams, CEO & Publisher
Greg Goldstein, President & COO
Robbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic Artist
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G.I. JOE: SILENT INTERLUDE 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. JUNE 2014. FIRST PRINTING. HASBRO and its logo, G.I. JOE, and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 2014
Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. Any
similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design
Works, LLC. Printed in Korea.
IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.
Originally published by Marvel Comics as G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO #21 and by IDW as G.I. JOE: ORIGINS #19.
IntRoductIon
Before discussing the contents of G.I. Joe: A Real American
Hero #21 (hereafter, the title will be referred to as RAH), we
must frame that epic story upon what was taking place in
the G.I. Joe canon at the time—with a quick nod to Marvel
Comics’ policy in the early 1980’s. You see, following the
events of issue #19 (“Joe Triumphs!”), which resolved a
number of sub-plots (e.g., the death of a number of major
characters; the conclusion of a Cobra plot to ferret out the
location to G.I. Joe Headquarters), and before the threads of
the major plot of RAH were again picked up with issue #22
(“Like Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust…”), there was an
interruption to the omnipresent, overarching narrative of
the war between the G.I. Joe team and Cobra Command.
Issue #20 (“Home is Where the War Is!”) and #21 were
stand-alone issues: the first focused on the Joes’
transportation specialist, Clutch, and was written by
substitute scribe Steven Grant and illustrated by penciller
Geof Isherwood—two contributors unfamiliar with the
characters and the fundamental narrative; the second
featured the introduction of Snake Eyes’ sword brother, the
Cobra Ninja known as Storm Shadow—a character that we
now know so well. Both issues took the reader away from
the title’s greater plot.
This two-issue diversion begs the question: If G.I. Joe was
so popular—one of Marvel’s best-selling books of the
1980’s*—then why have two consecutive issues that
essentially disrupted the major plot of the book for a few
months during the franchise’s heyday? In retrospect,
producing “Silent Interlude” was forgivable (even
warranted), but #20 feels blatantly out of place. An odd
issue to print, since G.I. Joe was by all accounts a
powerhouse with no hints of slowing down way back in
1984.
The answer? Unfortunately, oftentimes the creative teams
on comic book titles would fall behind—an entirely
unacceptable situation for publishers who had only twelve
chances per year to collect revenue from the consumer. So
Marvel had instituted what is commonly referred to as an
“inventory system,” where creators would get paid to
deliver filler issues to their editors; self-contained one-shot
(or two-issue) tales that were outside of established
continuity that could be utilized when a book’s creative
team fell behind—which was inevitable. As explained by
Hama: “Marvel needed to publish 12 monthly issues per
title per year. If the writers or artists missed a deadline, the
publisher would be screwed. [In the past] They usually
would fish out an old issue and publish a re-print—a re-run
of a former issue. Jim Shooter instituted an ‘inventory story’
system. They would hire comic teams to produce selfcontained stories (1 or 2 issues) that could be plunked in
with little or no work to make up the distance. Inventory
stories have fallen out of favor in comic book circles since,
but the practice is still sound.”
However, these inventory issues were incentive for some
writers or writer/artists to bank an extra issue or two (or
three, or even four) a year—and get paid for something that
would never see print. Some writers deliberately sabotaged
these inventory issues by incorporating elements of plot or
character that would become immediately outdated upon
production, affording them the opportunity to create a
bonus issue for which they would receive compensation, yet
ensuring the tale would never see the light of day.**
Cover Artwork for G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO #20.
RAH issue #20 was one of these fillers/inventory issues
which allowed G.I. Joe’s creative team to play catch up. Yet,
as previously mentioned, if editor Denny O’Neil utilized
issue #20 just one or two years after it was created, the
tale’s protagonist, Clutch, would have been featured in a
different outfit (in his tan-and-brown uniform),and found
driving the desert-themed VAMP Mark II instead of his
standard ride, the VAMP Jeep, while the cast of supporting
G.I. Joe team members featured in that issue (Doc, Grunt,
etc.) would be rendered obsolete—cycled out of Hasbro’s
retail toy releases. If O’Neil had waited until 1985-86 to plug
the story into RAH continuity, instead of Doc being used as
the G.I. Joe Medic, the editor had to ensure that the Joes’
new Rescue Trooper, Lifeline, was incorporated into the
book. In place of Hawk barking orders, the Joes’ new honcho
in the field became Duke. In lieu of Flash, we’d be treated to
Sci-Fi, the Joes’ replacement Laser Trooper.
Regardless, “Home is Where the War Is!” afforded Larry
Hama the opportunity to get his creative juices flowing once
again as both a writer and an artist. It is worth mentioning
that during his lengthy tenure at Marvel Comics, when
members of the Marvel Bullpen were starved for ideas re:
comic book covers, many times they approached Larry
Hama, who would quickly render cover sketches for their
books during his lunch hour—sometimes concocting three
or four covers over the course of eating a sandwich. Hama
plotted breakdowns and covers for his own RAH title as well,
which kept his skills as a penciller honed razor sharp. Marvel
Zombies the world over recognize that Hama possessed
artistic talent as well: his earliest work appeared in highprofile magazines such as Esquire and Rolling Stone even
before he broke into the underground comic movement.
Yet ultimately, Hama landed work as the featured penciller
for a series of Iron Fist tales in Marvel Premiere. This led to
editing gigs at both major publishers until he positioned
himself at Marvel as an editor and writer.
Although Larry Hama possesses obvious skill as a writer, his
deftness as an editor and talent as a draftsman are rarely
(if ever) discussed: many pundits consider his pencils on
issue #’s 21 & 26 to be some of the best illustrated comics
in the G.I. Joe canon—citing Hama’s mastery of composition
and sequential storytelling as par excellence: he is almost
savant-like in his understanding of the medium, having been
asked to speak upon this topic as a keynote at international
universities and within the board rooms of the world’s
premiere video game manufacturers, educating raconteurs
in the art of storytelling. Hama’s superior skill as a storyteller
is clearly recognized by those who matter: those who were
exposed to his books during their formative years.
As evidence of his understanding of the medium, we need
look no further than Hama’s compilation of a Xeroxed
primer he constructed based upon his time as an assistant
to the late, great Wally Wood. Assembling nearly two dozen
of Wood’s most iconic comic panels and distributing them
to artists in the Marvel Bullpen, Hama’s circulation of “Wally
Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work!” stands as one of the
most important and oft-mentioned references utilized by
every aspiring graphic storyteller in the genre. Thanks to the
Internet, these “22 Panels” are ubiquitous, found in offices
and cubbies, lounges and libraries: wherever comic books
are read or written.
Simply put, as an editor, as a penciller, and as a writer, Hama
has always recognized how to lay out and break down a
comic book adventure. However, one thing that Hama had
always wanted to try out was an adventure told entirely
without words. Hama had toyed with the idea of writing a
completely silent issue for a while, as he wanted to “see if I
could render a narrative that was a total, complete story—
with a solid beginning, distinct middle, and end… with
conflict and characterization, quick action, and a strong
resolution—without using balloons or captions or sound
effects. I felt that Marvel was going crazy with captions and
word balloons at the time and I wanted to go the other way
with it.”
Hama never seemed concerned about rendering character,
because in his comics—and from his perspective—
characters took care of themselves. According to Hama, he
never wrote one tale within his 155-issue run with a plot set
ahead of time. He simply knew the characters, felt the
characters, and explored them (or allowed them to explore
themselves) within a specific context: Hama never knew by
what means a plot would end. Exactly how they reacted to
a certain situation is how he rendered their character. This
philosophy adds to the organic nature of character;
predetermination doesn’t work. Using Hama’s method, a
writer shouldn’t be thinking, “Hmm… What happens next?”
A writer should consider getting these characters on their
feet; urging them to action and getting them moving. If
you’re predetermining things, you’re forcing the issue.
Writers need to attain meaning by allowing characters to
have a natural reaction to each other. To Hama, writing any
other way is a screed—a ranting piece of fiction wherein
characters are staunchly reinforcing the author’s point of
view rather than reacting uniquely and realistically to each
other or to a particular setting or event.
But I digress.
Although Hama had germinated this fabulous approach to
writing a comic book story—one he’d been wanting to try
out for some time, he seemed to be missing a lone element
to this silent narrative: a place where this adventure could
unfold. Hama’s inspirational setting came from the oddest
of situations.
On a trip to Los Angeles during the spring of 1984, Hama
visited the television production and animation company
responsible for adapting the G.I. Joe license into a cartoon:
Sunbow Entertainment. Wandering through their offices on
a private tour, the curious writer peeked over the shoulder
of a remarkably tall, unobtrusive storyboard artist by the
name of George Foster Goode. Goode is remembered by his
peers within the forums of the online Animation Nation: The
Voice of the Animation Industry as “shyly elusive” and “one
of the most naturally talented artists” in the medium.
Responsible for creating storyboard work at Marvel
Productions and other animations studios in the 1980’s, he
worked on many different projects from Muppet Babies to
Dungeons & Dragons, from The Transformers to Spiral Zone.
And of course, on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.
On this particular day, Goode was rendering a new
background for the G.I. Joe animated program, specifically
the Cobra Temple—the building that had premiered in the
first part of original mini-series (“The Cobra Strikes”) back in
the autumn of 1983, and was Cobra Command’s most
commonly utilized headquarters. Goode was busy enjoying
himself, drafting different versions of the fortification, and
the one witnessed by Hama was elaborate and imaginative,
inspirational. The design of the Cobra Temple that Hama
had observed Goode drafting looked far different from
Sunbow’s final design for the structure.***
Based upon his best recollection, Hama remembered seeing
either a black-and-white draft of Goode’s elaborate citadel,
or perhaps a colored pencil drawing of the castle. One that
was undoubtedly different from the castle featured in the
animated program. However, since Hama wished to exhibit
his own take on the concept, he added the radar dishes and
anti-tank gun emplacement and put it in a “Neuschwanstein
setting.” Upon reflection, Hama admitted that the castle as
he envisioned it was a “weird blend of George’s drawing and
Mad King Ludwig’s fantasy castle… [with an] Egyptian
influence there as well.” So then, what are we to make of
the writer’s allusions? Hama’s reference to Destro’s
fortification being designed with an Egyptian influence
suggests such impressive existing structures as the Babylon
Fortress or the Citadels of Qaitbay and Salah Ed-Din.
However, Hama’s mention of the stronghold possessing a
Neuschwanstein flair calls to mind the famous
Neuschwanstein Castle, a glorious and extravagant 19th
Century Romanesque Revival palace built on a craggy hill in
a small town in southwest Bavaria, Germany. Constructed
as a private refuge for the reclusive (yet extravagant) Mad
King Ludwig II (nicknamed the “Fairy Tale King”), the 63,884
square foot citadel was assembled with Ludwig’s private
fortune—fueled by his devotion to extravagant art and
architecture. The Neuschwanstein Castle was so perfectly
representative of the palaces of fables and legends that it
became the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in
Disneyland.
Hama had finally found his setting for his wordless comic
book: a citadel that would come to be known as the Silent
Castle.****
The Neuschwanstein Castle. Photo by Jeff Wilcox (5/14/2005)
And after locating the fictional place where he could render
this adventure which had been percolating in his
subconscious for a while, upon his return to New York City,
Hama began to work on this narrative in earnest. Sitting at
his future wife’s dining room table on 12th Street in
Manhattan’s West Village—in an apartment within the
heart of the bohemian lifestyle which manifested on New
York City’s West Side and was home to talented artists,
writers, and musicians plying their craft 24-7—Hama began
to draw. At this cultural epicenter, in early 1984, Larry
Hama—writer, actor, penciller, musician, editor, martial
artist, veteran—exploded in a sustained creative burst. He
began drawing the 22 pages to RAH issue #21 on a Friday
morning and finished on Monday morning: in just over three
days, Hama crafted the entire narrative.
Initially, it wasn’t well received. “We got lots of flak from
it,” states Hama. “Kids wrote in and said ‘I got a faulty copy,
all the words are gone,’ or ‘I felt cheated. I went through
this whole thing in five minutes, and I didn’t get my money’s
worth because there were no words.’ We got letters like
that.” But then it fomented and percolated in the minds of
the children who originally read it, and over the next few
years they returned to the issue multiple times. They finally
comprehended the issue’s nuanced storytelling and layered
narrative. With taut characterization and the seeds of the
Snake Eyes vs. Storm Shadow conflict, only upon reflection
did aficionados realize the power of the issue and the
majesty it contained.
The end result speaks for itself: with the able assistance of
Steve Leialoha’s masterful, Eisner Award-winning inks over
Hama’s ingenious pencils (note that G.I. Joe character
Torpedo’s last name is “Leialoha” as an homage…), the issue
was dubbed “Silent Interlude” due to the fact it was 1) an
interlude—a narrative that intervened between the closing
act of RAH #19 and opening act of #22, and 2) it was utterly
devoid of narration and/or speech balloons (Hama never
used thought balloons), and made it to press in the nick of
time; for an entire generation of comic book fans, RAH #21
is revered as one of the single greatest accomplishments in
the history of the medium. Comic book artist and theorist
Scott McCloud (author of Understanding Comics) refers to
“Silent Interlude” as a “watershed moment for cartoonists
of [a] generation. Everyone [in the business] remembers it.”
Interview any professional working in comics today and ask
them to choose their favorite story arc of all time, and
they’ll cite the canon: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
(1986) or Watchmen (1986-87), Maus: A Survivor’s Tale
(1991) or Bone (1991-2004), Kingdom Come (1996) or The
Sandman (1989-1996), Fables (2002-present) or Preacher
(1995-2000), and the list goes on, endlessly populated with
nary a mention of Hama or his work. Perhaps the writer has
never gotten his due because Hama toiled and dedicated his
obvious talents on a “toy property”—a factor which functions
as anathema to both critics and pundits back in the day. Yet
even now, Hama’s only been invited to San Diego once in his
life. But isn’t it all the more impressive that he gave us this
peerless achievement in graphic storytelling from such an
unexpected source?
But if you tweak the above question a bit and ask these
professionals “What is the single best individual issue of any
comic book series you’ve ever read?” you’d be surprised at
one of the most common answers.
It’s the issue you’re currently holding in your hands.
* According to Marvel’s then Editor In Chief, Jim Shooter, on
his thoughtful blog (www.jimshooter.com), “G.I. Joe quickly
became a top tier title and [Marvel’s] number one
subscription title.” In the summer of 1985, internal
correspondence memos from Cadence Industries (who
owned Marvel from 1968-1986) cite that in subscriptions
alone, RAH clearly outsold Marvel’s next-best title (Amazing
Spider-Man): 43,173 people subscribed to RAH; 28,017
subscribed to ASM. Shooter—like almost everyone else
involved with the brand from the top down—had this to say
about the bestselling monthly book: “Bottom line, the comics
were a big success, thanks almost entirely to Larry. The toys
were a big success, thanks in large measure to Larry.”
** These inventory issues have staggering implications to
pop culture. Most comic book collectors couldn’t imagine
visiting Marvel’s vault and uncovering a tremendous stack of
these undiscovered issues (utilizing creative teams from the
seventies or eighties) that had been gathering dust, with the
purpose of allowing rabid comic fans the privilege of viewing
these curious issues for the very first time.
*** To view a lesser-detailed, more straightforward version
of Goode’s interpretation of the Cobra Temple, simply go
to 3:56 in “The Cobra Strikes” and view his early work on
this fanciful building.
**** Hama had a diagram for the Silent Castle in mind when
penciling #21, to the extent that he could picture the threedimensional aspects of the building three decades after its
creation: “There’s the Great Hall with the three vertical slit
windows… the master suites above the great hall—one of
which is Destro’s. The stairs from the dungeon lead up to
the anterooms behind the Great Hall, where the vertical slit
windows are more like doors that lead out onto the parapet
enclosure where Snake Eyes is rescued by Scarlett.”