DarthOne
☦️
My attempt at a transcript for those who either prefer to read or don't have the time to watch a video.
I also took the liberty of bolding some parts that I found interesting.
Cobra is perhaps the most extreme caricature of the mythologized fascism we see throughout the popular culture of the 70s and 80s.
in the early 1980s Hasbro resurrected the old GI Joe toy line scaled down and modernized for the kids of the day and with that modernization they needed a new villain. something more over the top than the Soviets, preferably not identifiable by any nationality, maybe a little sci-fi to cut into that Star Wars money. something that would look cool on TV and make kids say 'buy methat!'
and so Cobra was born. a faceless Army of English-speaking bad guys.
Cobra is described as a "ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world".
but it commands seemingly infinite funding the manufacturing base of a superpower and Technology half a step ahead of the rest of the world, blended with some vaguely occult elements. Cobra is the maxing out of the post-world War II mythologized Nazi- archetype.
Cobra is led by a man known only as Cobra Commander and while the rank and file Cobra soldiers and officers pioneered mask mandates Cobra
Commander went a step further with a mirrored face shield concealing his identity. when we look into the face of Cobra Commander we don't see a mustached-villain or a raving Madman. we see a distorted reflection of ourselves.
also he whines a lot.
Cobera Commander : "DON'T LEAVE MEEEE!"
There was also a comic series running concurrently published by Marvel and written largely by Larry Hammer. because they were based on the same licensing framework both the comic and animated series had to work in the new toy lines released seasonally. which meant a lot of
silly vehicles and a whole lot of ninjas-it was the 80s after all.
but underneath the crass marketing the comic was free to tell its own story and gave a much more involved and layered narrative.
in this iteration Cobra Commander was a used car salesman, modestly successful, but he went off the deep end after his brother was killed in a wreck. his business failed, his wife left him. he became a loser of the American system.
he was also resourceful and obsessive. so he built up a network to destroy that system. starting with business ventures, such as a pyramid scheme selling household products under the brand name Armco. all the while radicalizing similarly disaffected people. until after a decade or so he had the finances and the Army to destroy the America that had wronged him.
we can best understand Cobra as an authoritarian movement of workers in the petty Bourgeois middle class. like the fascist and communist movements of the past it harnessed the anger of the Common Man and directed it through a political and economic program that promised overtly to fix injustices. but also implied vengeance on the winners of the current system.
it wasn't focused exclusively on defeating America militarily. instead Cobra worked to subvert the state. in addition to its Army of blue shirts Cobra had the crimson guard. not only combat trained but also skilled lawyers and accountants. Cobra doesn't have to defeat their enemies on the battlefield- they can litigate them to death. they fight through shell corporations and political blackmail.
Cobra even has a small American city under its control- Springfield. the typical American town that seems to exist in every state which
allows them to infiltrate throughout America with native-born citizens.
in time Cobra even established its own sovereign territory, Cobra Island. created through an engineered volcanic eruption in international waters. which they then claimed and arranged legal recognition for with a combination of crimson guard lawyering blackmail and already being on-site with the big guns. this then allowed them to make trade deals set up consulates all the stuff that real countries do, while still maintaining their network of operatives throughout the United States.
this version of Cobra borrows heavily from the fascism of the 1930s, both in its style and it's playing off the theme of a corrupt system exploiting the Working Man. but it also projects forward- from the terrorist groups of the 70s and 80s, both Islamic and leftist to create this image of a pseudostate. something that, like Isis, exerts Authority, provides services to its population, controls territory. but the Civil State exists primarily to support the Army, instead of the other way around.
Cobra is a revolutionary movement both in the sense that it seeks to overthrow established governments and that in the process it's
reordering the balance of power between the military and civil functions of government based on a totalitarian reimagining of society.
And because it's revolutionary it achieves part of its goals whether or not it succeeds in seizing power. the American Revolution,
the French Revolution, the Haitian slave revolt, the Bolsheviks, the Nazis, Iran's Islamic Republic on and on; these kinds of radical restructuring movements alter the dynamic of social and political relationships whether or not they're successful.
they represent a coalescing of widely felt disaffection. they turn the rage and alienation that many people are feeding into action and in the process make it impossible to pretend that people aren't feeling it.
revolutions can't grow or people are mostly content. so in a sense every revolutionary is a reactionary.
it's also worth looking at the portrayal of Cobra Commander as a man not just a villain. he's one of these highly intelligent, high functioning
Psychopaths that, had he been born into a wealthy family, probably would have become a CEO or a national level politician. but he was apparently born working class so he built a business of his own. when it failed he built cobra. when one of his men tried to kill him he went underground and built a new business Empire to infiltrate the usurp Cobra and reclaim control.
say what you will about his mental state but the man gets shit done.
Of course he's not alone. there's a whole pantheon of flamboyant characters in the Cobra hierarchy. which also echoes the collection of oddballs that made up the World War II German hierarchy.
in this case we have Destro, sort of the armaments minister. Military Intelligence is headed by the baroness.
Baroness: "you'll know the penalty for withholding information is.... severe"
...I'm not sure what I think about the prospect of that interrogation.
there's a mad dentist who specializes in next-level MK-Ultra mind control stuff. Major blood, a thug who's also a god-awful poet. Serpentor, the twins on and on.
and the biggest players regularly get new uniforms- you need to buy this season's Cobra Commander that way.
throughout the 80s the GI Joe comics and the much goofier animated series gave their own takes on these characters. until the toy line kind
of burned itself out in the early to mid 90s. the first batch of kids had aged out of it and the next generation wanted electronics more than action figures- oversimplifying it.
but GI Joe and by extension Cobra didn't die. unlike many other toy cartoon combos, this one had some deep cultural resonance and not just in terms of nostalgia among people who grew up with it.
over the last quarter-century, GI Joe Comics have been relaunched several times- reimagining Cobra, but retaining the core of style and that appeal toward darker impulses that authoritarian movements feed on. the idea of this mysterious dark cabal working in the shadows continues to resonate. the cultural echo of the second world war fades but it also harmonizes with newer impressions of evil.
Cobra ceases to be a fascist militia and morphs into a shady private military corporation, a corrupt NGO, quasi-spiritual cult with celebrity members. it adapts with the times and it follows us.
if nothing else it reminds us that a viper may shed its skin, but the Venom remains as potent as ever.
now you know and knowing is half the battle
