You may remember the G.I. Robot named J.A.K.E. from Weird War Tales in the late 70s and early 80s, but did you know that he had a predecessor? For 3 issues of Star Spangled War Stories (#101-#103), a Corporal named Mac was assigned a partner; a 'robot buddy' named Joe. For some reason, the team of 'Mac & Joe' didn't stick around like many of the other DC war groups. It's too bad, as it held a lot of promise and there weren't many comics with human/robot interaction in the early 60s. I guess the editors at DC felt that combination of dinosaurs, robots and Axis villains was simply too much of a good thing to cram into a single strip. Perhaps Joe has been retconned into the current DCU (I haven't done a panel by panel review of Crisis or Zero Hour to check), but otherwise it seems to me that Joe was the G.I. Robot that Time Forgot.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Comic Book Robot of the Month: G.I. Robot Joe
You may remember the G.I. Robot named J.A.K.E. from Weird War Tales in the late 70s and early 80s, but did you know that he had a predecessor? For 3 issues of Star Spangled War Stories (#101-#103), a Corporal named Mac was assigned a partner; a 'robot buddy' named Joe. For some reason, the team of 'Mac & Joe' didn't stick around like many of the other DC war groups. It's too bad, as it held a lot of promise and there weren't many comics with human/robot interaction in the early 60s. I guess the editors at DC felt that combination of dinosaurs, robots and Axis villains was simply too much of a good thing to cram into a single strip. Perhaps Joe has been retconned into the current DCU (I haven't done a panel by panel review of Crisis or Zero Hour to check), but otherwise it seems to me that Joe was the G.I. Robot that Time Forgot.
You never cease to amaze me with new finds. Stuff I never heard of! And I consider myself an amateur comic book scholar...
ReplyDeleteWho wrote and who was the artist on this short series?
Thanks MOB!
ReplyDeleteAs far I know, these stories were all done by the Andru/Esposito team.