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It’s like you have that great responsibility.
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They throw themselves on grenades for their buddies. Because that’s the other idea that runs through all the stories - that people don’t throw themselves on grenades for God and their country and the flag. You didn’t say it was going to be rosy and we’d have a parade, blah, blah, blah.” That makes me feel good. They do at least say to me, “But you didn’t lie to us. Was it also important to you, as a Vietnam vet, to express the truth of war to those who would become the next generation of veterans? Have you ever really read Hans Christian Andersen? The Little Match Girl keeps lighting those matches until she freezes to death. In kids entertainment and kids literature up until the 1960s, stuff like this happened all the time. They didn’t get miraculously resurrected. That’s why I wanted to have real deaths in G.I. They know when they’re being patronized and written down to. Or, if it was important, I would provide notes, like footnotes. I never specifically wrote down to a kid level because I figured if a kid didn’t know what a word meant, he could damn well look it up in a dictionary. Where now it’s like, “Oh, there’s guy films and there’s chick films and there’s specifically kid films.” I think there’s something wrong with that.ĭid that opinion affect how you approached writing comics? In fact, until very recently, movies were made in such a way that the entire family had something to look at. Within that culture, violence wasn’t limited to adults. All these kids would be sitting in the first row watching Zatoichi slicing people up. So people would come, eat sushi and watch samurais. They didn’t have bingo they had samurai movies.

At the Buddhist church in New York, they would show a double feature of samurai movies every other week. When I was a kid, I watched samurai movies. I grew up watching all sorts of stuff that people today would go, “What?” Even the old Warner Bros. It’s dangerous not to show them some of this stuff because then it’s like it doesn’t exist. If you propose that to a children’s book editor today, they’d go, “No way.”īut if you had to come down on one side or the other, do you think it’s important to show children violence? The protagonist kid shoots a pirate in the face. Did you ever read Treasure Island as a kid? That’s considered a children’s classic. This has all changed numerous times back and forth. Do you think it’s good that children see and read less violence, or do you think it’s good that they’re able to use fictional violence as a way to deal with real-world violence inside the safe place of fiction? Your work has always been somewhat dark, at least from what we expect of children’s entertainment. His always honest portrayals were reinforced by his time in the military during the Vietnam War, where, from 1969 to 1971, he was a firearms and explosive ordinances expert for the Army Corps of Engineers.
#Gi joe movie theme series
Joe, Hama also did the unexpected and turned the military-focused series into one that attempted to “unglorify” war as he never shied away from themes of loyalty, loss, morality or deceit. Joe became one of Marvel’s most popular titles, and it’s often credited with creating a whole new generation of comic readers. Joe, which began in 1982 after every other editor at Marvel Comics passed on the “bottom-of-the-barrel” project based on a kid’s toy. But Hama is perhaps best known for his legacy as the writer-creator of G.I. Over the course of his five-decade career, he’s written for a range of titles, including Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, The Avengers, Wonder Woman and Star Wars. Over a Zoom call while Hama finishes his ramen lunch, he speaks with the sort of candor you’d expect from a man who calls himself “an old punk from the Village.” Hama has also earned the right to speak his mind on comics. “It’s just like, ‘Let a superior person fix all your problems.’ This is a major trope of American entertainment.” Joe, is that superheros are “basically a fascist fantasy.” At least, that’s according to Larry Hama, the prolific comic book editor, writer and artist. The difference between superheros, like Spider-Man, and regular heros, like G.I. So take a break from your holiday shopping, grab some cocoa and be a kid again for a few minutes. To help get you into the spirit of the season, this week we’re presenting MEL ’s 2021 Holiday Toy Catalog! But instead of trying to sell you stuff like the department-store catalogs of yore, we’re offering up the little-known backstories to some of the greatest toys ever made.
