Episodes 66-95
Season Two comes packaged in the familiar Shout! Factory packaging. A sturdy and nice looking removable cover reveals two slim cases that each include two discs. You’ll also discover a full color booklet with episode summaries, including the writer(s) of the episode and its original air date — great for fans and trivia buffs alike. The episode breakdown looks like this:
-66-70: “Arise, Serpentor, Arise!” – Also known as “The Movie” in later years, this is the classic mini-series in which Dr. Mindbender fuses the DNA of many military geniuses and warriors from history to create the ultimate leader — Serpentor. Oh and Sgt. Slaughter is brought in to whip the Joes into shape.
-71: “Last Hour To Doomsday” – Cobra has built the technology to create tsunamis.
-72: “Computer Complications” – Zarana tricks Mainframe into making the Joes’ own equipment attack them.
-73: “Sink the Montana!” – It’s up to Hawk and the Joes to destroy an old US battleship after Cobra gains control of it.
(Disc 2)
-74: “Let’s Play Soldier” – Leatherneck and some children from Thailand have to work together to defeat a Cobra attack. No worries, as is the case throughout the series, no one really gets hurt.
-75: “Once Upon A Joe” – Cobra damages an orphanage and Shipwreck tells a story to help get them back on their feet. Cobra intends to spoil his efforts, however.
-76: “The Million Dollar Medic” – A woman falls in love with Lifeline; once Cobra gets wind of this, they plan to use her to get to him and the Joes.
-77: “Cobrathon” – Cobra runs a fundraiser, on national TV, to help criminals. Yeah.
-78: “The Rotten Egg” – A neat episode in which Leatherneck is strongly featured. He winds up in a Cobra cadet academy and must stave off some new Cobra graduates.
-79: “Glamour Girls” – Cobra captures some models and it’s up to Lady Jaye to save the day.
-80: “Iceberg Goes South” – You never hear a lot about Iceberg, but he takes center stage in this episode that has him squaring off against Mindbender’s monsters.
(Disc 3)
-81: “The Spy Who Rooked Me” – A spy who Flint doesn’t trust teams up with the Joes to keep Cobra from getting their hands on some dangerous gas.
-82: “Grey Hairs And Growing Pains” – A bizarre episode in which three Joes are turned into 7 year olds.
-83: “My Brother’s Keeper” – Mindbender’s Voltronic Galaxider is broken, so he tricks a young brilliant scientist into fixing it with the false promise that Mindbender will heal his legs afterwards.
-84: “My Favorite Things” – Serpentor starts gathering up artifacts from his previous lives to gain more power. Leatherneck, Wet Suit, and Lifeline are up to the task of stopping him.
-85: “Raise the Flagg!” – Ah, the Flagg. The prize toy of the Joe era. It’s featured in this episode as the Joes and Cobras both try to get their hands on it.
-86: “Ninja Holiday” – The Cobras capture the wrong man (Sgt. Slaughter) in an attempt to find a suitable assassin to take out Serpentor.
-87: “GI Joe And the Golden Fleece” – A golden coil falls from a UFO and it has the Joes and Cobras going after it (reminds me of the classic “Weather Dominator” mini-series from season one in that regard).
-88: “The Most Dangerous Thing In the World” – Cobra hacks into the DoD and promotes Lifeline, Shipwreck, and Dial Tone to full colonels. Obviously they’re not leaders, so Cobra moves in while the Joes try to recover. Oh and Hawk is away at a conference during this fiasco.
(Disc 4)
-89: “Nightmare Assault” – A pretty badass episode in which Dr. Mindbender’s “nightmare device” back fires when he tries to use it on Low-Light, who can control his dreams.
-90: “Second Hand Emotions” – Mindbender is at it again, this time with the ability to control the Joes’ emotions after the Dreadnoks plant tiny receivers in their necks.
-91: “Joe’s Night Out” – A few Joes go to a night club expecting a good time but the darn thing ends up being a Cobra rocket that blasts off into space. Holy cow.
-92: “Not A Ghost of A Chance” – Did Cobra shoot down a stealth plane? That seems to be the case, but Cobra defends themselves on a talk show known as “Twenty Questions.”
-93: “Sins of Our Fathers” – Dial-Tone gets discharged and starts to work on a communications project that he doesn’t know is part of an elaborate Cobra scheme.
-94: “In the Presence of Mine Enemies” – Slip-Stream is featured here. After a dogfight where he and a female enemy are shot down, they crash land on an island and must contend with BATS. Working together, she begins to question her loyalty to Cobra.
-95: “Into Your Tent I Will Silently Creep” – Cobra Commander continues to plan to take back his Cobra empire. In this episode, Cross Country finds a secretive training camp of the Commanders.
Oh, There’s More
Season 2 is a fun season with a lot of great characters. Who can forget the first time the BATs are deployed early on in the “Arise” mini-series? Or the epic battle between Sgt. Slaughter and Nemesis Enforcer? Sure, there are several forgettable episodes in this season as well, but then you have some great ‘one-shots’ like “Nightmare Assault” and “Sink the Montana!” Overall, it’s a fine season that brought me a lot of nostalgia while watching. The extra features are good too. Included on Disc 4, you’ll find:
-Greenshirts: The GI Joe Legacy (11m) – A variety of fans from the street and also folks still working on the GI Joe franchise chime in with their memories of GI Joe growing up. Some clips from Season 2 as well as some old Hasbro toy commercials are shown. You’ll also see some footage from a recent GI Joe Conference. It’s well worth a watch, but you might not care to watch it again.
-Knowing Is Half the Battle PSAs – Some of those very memorable PSAs are found here. These include the PSAs from Wild Bill, Deep Six, Leatherneck, Spirit, Dial Tone, and General Hawk, who reminds us not to try and beat the train.
-Archival Hasbro Toy Commercials – I love these for the memories they instill. The commercials for the Rolling Thunder, GI Joe HQ, Cobra Terrordrome, Cobra Water Moccasin, GI Joe SHARC, Cobra Maggot, GI Joe Persuader, the (Night) Raven, the Phantom X-19 and the Cobra BUGG are here.
All told, including the extras, you get about eight hours of content on these four discs. With that, let’s get to the summary…