This product came WELL in advance of when it was scheduled to come and was in the condition that it said it would be

G.I. Joe A Real American Hero Season 1.2 continues the exciting series with some great fan favorites. Among them are the tension packed “The Viper Is Coming” where a mysterious caller baffles the Joe team with Cobra secrets, vague threats and promises to reveal himself as the Joes prepare for the worst, “The Gamesmaster” where a billionaire psychotic engineer kidnaps Flint, Lady Jaye, The Baroness and Cobra Commander with the intention of killing them off for his own amusement and forcing them to work together and the surprisingly heartfelt “The Phantom Brigade” where Cobra uses cursed artifacts to resurrect three spectral warriors who proceed to lay waste to the Joe team at the behest of Cobra. The excellent two parter:”The Synthoid Conspiracy” which contains some great charecterization and rivalry among the Cobra brass as they plant bioengineered replicas of Duke and some Pentagon officials with the intention of bringing down the Joe team internally is an underrated classic,”The Germ” has some great sci-fi flair when an experiment at a secret Cobra base goes awry causing the Joe team to swing into action against a seemingly unstoppable blob and the well-polished “The Spell Of The Siren” a Baroness based episode, where the lady of Cobra uses an ancient conch shell with hypnotizng powers over males allowing the females of G.I Joe center stage. There are a couple missteps, “The Greenhouse Effect” is a hilariously bad episode about Cobra using giant vegetables to conquer the Joes that is saved by some funny dialogue and sight gags and “Haul Down The Heavens” despite its interesting locale goes nowhere as Cobra’s plan to pull down the Aurora Borealis and melt the polar ice caps is just too much. With other good episodes like “Battle For The Train of Gold”, “Twenty Questions”, “Lights, Camera, Cobra!” and the two parter “Captives of Cobra” Season 1.2 is a great purchase for fans of G.I. Joe.

GI Joe was so great for 2 reasons: 1) It had a certain kind of credibility despite how over the top it always was, and 2) The Characters and their intertwining relationships. The stories were often silly, and over the top but always a lot of fun. It was a unique cartoon because despite that it always created an atmosphere of danger for the heroes. There were even times when the bad guys and the good guys had to work together to get through situations at times, and that was cool. Even the bad guys had deep relationships.

This DVD set contains the middle third of the first season, 21 episodes. They all have very creative story lines that while over the top were fun to watch. The first episode Twenty questions is a lot of fun, and involves GI joe Shipwreck trying to prove to some reporters that Cobra does indeed exist and proves a threat. The great thing about these episodes was that the writers were always thinking outside the box. There were episodes where Cobra wasn’t the primary bad guy “The Viper is coming”, “The Gamesmaster”.

The over the top story lines were so great because the writing was still so good, and somehow made the show more credible because of the little details.

I think the relationship between Cobra Commander and Destro is summed up beautifully in the episode “Lights, Camera, Cobra!” at the end of the episode. Cobra Commander says to Destro “You saved me!” And Destro responds “I saved a customer,”. That’s the kind of show it was, it was for the older kids, but it was still fun because the writing was still somehow really good. I find the show to be a lot of fun because it was so unpredictable even for a “kids show”. This show only got better as it went on, so stay tuned for more seasons!