G. I. Joe #7 (January 1983) – “Walls of Death” – Larry Hama/Herb Trimpe/Chic Stone
Last issue, a team of Joes (Stalker, Scarlett, Flash, Breaker, Clutch, and Steeler) was sent to Afghanistan to retrieve a crashed Russian experimental plane and get it to a ship waiting in Karachi. Naturally, the Russians wanted their plane back and sent their equivalent of the Joe team, the Oktober Guard, to get it. After a running fight, the Joes and Oktober Guard were surprised by Cobra, who also want the plane. Cobra Commander gloats over his prize and his convoy moves out with the plane, leaving a couple of soldiers behind to kill the Joes and Russians. But
Clutch wastes them with a remote control for the Vamp’s gun mount and Colonel Brekhov suggests a truce until they get the plane back from Cobra. Some of the Joes are ready to scrub the mission (and Scarlett is apparently quite the Commie-hating conservative), but Stalker decides a temporary truce is the best idea. Thanks to a tracker in the RTV, they follow Cobra into Iran, where they run into a border patrol. They slaughter the Iranians and resume the chase. They find a Cobra stronghold that’s basically a solid concrete bunker with no visible entrances. A weird pattern on the roof suggests an alarm system, but the 
Oktober Guard have that covered. The teams split up to attack the bunker, but Cobra Commander has already detected their presence and is getting ready for them. He electrifies the grid on the roof, shocking Steeler, Breaker, and Schrage, and opens a door to let Stalker, Flash, and Scarlett inside the bunker. Meanwhile, Clutch (who’s outside as back-up) is discovered by a Cobra trooper. The Joes make their way past several traps (including a nest of cobras that Flash fries with his laser rifle) and get to the inner sanctum, where the Oktober Guard is waiting for them (having bypassed the traps by forcing a Cobra soldier to guide them). Before they can start fighting over the plane, Cobra
Commander pops up again with a contingent of Cobras to get the drop on them. Before he can have them killed, one of the Cobras reveals himself to be Clutch in disguise and grabs Cobra Commander as a hostage. That gives the Joes the advantage and they get aboard the RTV and prepare to move out with the plane. Brekhov decides to end the stalemate by shooting Cobra Commander, but he turns out to be a regular Cobra soldier in disguise, with a speaker for the Commander’s voice. All hell breaks loose as the Cobras attack, but the Joes are already set to leave. They take off, leaving the Oktober Guard behind to fight the Cobras and Clutch tells them how he saw the Cobra soldier sneaking up on him in the Vamp’s mirror and took the guy out so he could get inside. When the Joes get to Karachi, Hawk tells them they were just a diversion and the real Russian plane was airlifted out of Afghanistan yesterday (which explains why Hawk told Cobra about the mission last issue).
G. I. Joe #8 (February 1983) – “Code Name: Sea-Strike” – Herb Trimpe
This one starts with Cobra Commander on a spy submarine observing what looks like Cape Canaveral. Meanwhile, the Joes are at the Pit training for Arctic conditions in an artificial snowstorm when Hawk shows up to tell them they’re all going to Florida to protect a satellite that’s about to be launched. The satellite can detect (and destroy) Cobras underwater missile launch bases, which explains why Cobra Commander was so interested in the space shuttle earlier. In fact, Cobra Commander plans to wipe out not just the shuttle carrying the satellite, but the entire launch complex at Cape Canaveral. The Joes arrive in Florida and
take up defensive positions around the launch complex (except Flash and Breaker, who have to actually ride on board the space shuttle). Cobra attacks from the ocean, using machines that look like anemic AT-ATs from Star Wars. The Joes take them all out, but Cobra Commander uses the distraction to launch a missile at the space shuttle. Hawk shoots the missile down and the shuttle takes off just in time. But Cobra Commander’s not done yet; he surfaces in the undersea base and launches his own missile to blow up the shuttle in orbit. As the missile approaches the shuttle and satellite, Flash uses a space suit to go 
outside the shuttle and push the missile off course. The Joes attack the base and take it, but Cobra Commander and Baroness take off in an escape ship after setting a self-destruct. The Joes bail out into life rafts, while the Cobra troops choose to stay behind and get blown up. Cobra Commander tries to run the Joes down but Zap blows up his boat. That’s still not the end of it, as Cobra Commander and Baroness escape in a plane that was apparently hidden inside the boat.