Did G.I. Joe Predict the Rise of MAHA?

The 2025 PAI Holiday Special

via SpoonKiller_actual on Bluesky

The original 1980s Marvel run of G.I. Joe comics by Larry Hama, Herb Trimpe, Bob McLeod, Jim Novak, and Glynis Wein is, essentially, an extended toy commercial in print form. Hasbro, which owned the license, mandated that new figures & vehicles were featured prominently across the comic’s extensive run. Around the same time, neo-Nazi cult leader Lyndon LaRouche was exploiting the HIV/AIDS pandemic for his own financial gain.

Writer Larry Hama did manage to occasionally expose the youth of America to the realities of modern politics. In one issue, an American ambassador scolds the Joes: “That’s just great...that’s just the type of cowboy behavior that these people have come to expect from Americans...and you wonder why they hate us so!” To which one of the Joes responds: “That’s funny. I thought it was because of generations of exploitation by American monopolies and our continued support of one right-wing dictatorship after another...”

Christmas Dinner at the MAHA Estate

For the unfamiliar, G.I. Joe is about a covert special forces unit staffed with a bunch of woke D.E.I. hires who go around the world fighting the international terrorist organization known as COBRA, which is led by the rather eccentric Cobra Commander and his handpicked high command. This rotating roster features such innocent-sounding names like: Major Bludd, Mindbender, Destro, Dr. Venom, Serpentor, and the iconic Baroness, a first crush for many young adolescent boys. This nefarious cast of scoundrels were constantly plotting and scheming to stab one another in the back and seize power for themselves.

Reading the constant stream of headlines about the dysfunctional leadership of our federal public health agencies, the parallels between the absurd antics of COBRA leadership and the unprofessional obscenity of the “Making America Healthy Again” goons couldn’t be more obvious.