Stalker

G.I. Joe's Jackie Robinson

by Dave McAwesome

This unfortunately named Joe got his moniker before stalking became popularized by our society's hellbent urges to catalog the actions of every talentless Hollywood celebrity.

Stalker is best remembered in the cartoon as the dude in episode 1 who launches the Joe motorcycle (R.A.M.P.) off a, well, off a ramp, jumps off with a quadruple front flip onto a rooftop and then watches $1.2 million worth of taxpayer money explode in a fiery wreck. Hey hotshot, next time try something less subtle. Like using C4 to clean up the latrine.

Snake-Eyes snuck in by hiding on a supply truck. Scarlett, in her less subtle way, flew in on a J.U.M.P. jetpack (without burning the back of her thighs off...I never understood how that was supposed to work). Stalker hit subtlety with a hammer, stuck it in a tin box with yarn and eight kittens, and hooked it up to one of Neil Young's Marshall double stacks. Here's the best part: this was all a training exercise, so all the equipment he destroyed in the fireball that was formerly a R.A.M.P. motorcycle was *also* paid for by taxpayer money. I think this is why The Jugglers mothballed G.I. Joe (at around issue number suck).

I liked Stalker, but he was never really developed in the cartoon or the comic. He certainly appeared in more comics than most characters, but I never felt the reader got to know him past his record as a combat veteran. More likely, he's remembered as the first Joe "of color."