When I heard that there was going to be a G.I. Joe show coming to Hasbro’s network, the Hub, I was excited. I was the kid who would go home from school grab a stack of Ritz crackers and watched an hour of Hasbro programming including Transformers and G.I. Joe. I was also collecting the G.I. Joe comic books and had a few of the toys so I am familiar with the whole G.I. Joe story. So, to see this new G.I. Joe story about a small group of “ordinary joes” on the run not only from Cobra but from their own government I was excited.

The opening sequence has a very “A-Team” vibe to is which added to the coolness factor for me. The story starts with some young soldiers picked to accompany an information specialist to a Cobra facility. The thing is, in this series Cobra looks to be a legitimate business, they are a mega conglomerate that is everywhere, they have retail stores and sell to the government and pretty much are a part of everything. Their founder Adam DeCobray, is a reclusive man who is actually a hologram, a disguise for the insidious Cobra Commander. But the world loves DeCobray and so when the spy mission that the joes are on goes awry and the joes blow up the Cobra facility they are labeled as terrorists and must go on the run.

That is basically what happens in the first two episodes and from there the joes continue to run from Cobra and from other well known joes like Flint and Lady Jaye. Along the way they run into series favorites like Zartan, Destro, Tomax and Xamot. The way each character is introduced is a fun spin on what we already know. Sometimes it is obvious right off the bat and sometimes it sneaks up on you. I really liked it when they caught up with my favorite character, Shipwreck.

The series was a good one and I really wished that it would have continued to a second season but luckily there is a resolution to the series and that was satisfying. Continue reading DVD Review: G.I. Joe Renegades the Complete First Season on Blu-ray →