G.I. Joe Special Missions #19 (March 1989) – “Getting There” – Larry Hama/Herb Trimpe/Andy Mushynsky
This one starts on the USS Flagg aircraft carrier with Lift Ticket checking out the Tomahawk helicopter in anticipation of a big mission. Wild Bill, Muskrat, Repeater, and Lifeline are on the mission too, but they don’t find out what it is until after they take off. They have to fly up the Mekong River to pick up Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Chuckles, and Iceberg, who we saw reaching their last viable extraction site last issue. The chopper is stuffed with drums of aviation fuel so they have
enough to make it to the extraction site and back, but that means any spark in the hold could blow them all to hell. They go in low but end up being spotted by radar and fired on by hostiles who think they’re attacking a hydro-electric dam. (I’m assuming they’re over Vietnam, but it could be Cambodia or even Laos.) The machine gun fire punctures a fuel drum, so they toss it out and Lift Ticket gets close to the dam to stop the enemy from firing. Their navigation panel has been knocked out so they figure the mission is over, until Lifeline spots a smuggler’s boat on the river. He trades his watch for the smuggler’s compass and they get back on course, but they’re worried about running out of fuel since they had to dump one of the extra drums. They run into a couple of HIND helicopters and try to bluff their way past, but end up in a running firefight. Each side takes damage, 
but the Joes can’t seem to get a decisive hit (although Repeater swears his rifle has “special ammo” that can take down a HIND if he can get a clear shot). The Joes fly into a cave and ambush one Russian chopper, but get riddled by the other one when they emerge. Lift Ticket and Muskrat are wounded and half their fuel canisters are punctured, but Repeater’s special ammo does put the other HIND out of commission. Lift Ticket figures they can salvage the fuel from the downed HIND and complete their mission and he’s right, although Repeater has to scare off the Russian pilots first. They make it to the extraction site and Iceberg gives them a hard time about taking so
long to get there … until he finds out what kind of shit they had to go through. This is a pretty cool issue, showing the other side of an extraction inside enemy territory. We usually just get the story of the grunts waiting for the chopper, but here we see all the crap the evac guys go through just to get there in the first place. The helicopter duel was pretty good and I like how they kept coming up with ways to continue their mission, even when it seemed like it was over.
G.I. Joe #84 (March 1989) – “Converging Destinies” – Larry Hama/Marshall Rogers/Randy Emberlin
This one starts with Billy and Storm Shadow in San Francisco training and discussing philosophy. They’re interrupted when the woman claiming to be Billy’s mom shows up holding a gun on Jinx. Billy recognizes his mom and stops her from shooting Jinx (and also stops Storm Shadow from killing her), but he’s pretty stunned to see her since his father (aka Cobra Commander) told him his mom had died in a car crash. On Cobra Island, Cobra Commander (not Billy’s father, but Fred VII who took his place) wants to get rid of Zartan, so he and Dr. Mindbender lead a team of Vipers to Zartan’s shack to arrange an “accident”. The shack keeps
changing configuration due to Zartan’s illusion technology and the inside is like an Escher painting. The Cobras are so disoriented that a couple of ninjas easily grab Fred Commander and take him to see Zartan, who is not only aware of the plans to kill him but also of Fred’s true identity. In San Francisco, Billy’s mom tells the others how Cobra Commander turned strange when his older brother died in a car crash after returning from Vietnam. Another family was killed in the crash and Cobra Commander blamed the surviving member of that family (who wasn’t even in the car) for his brother’s death, shifting the blame like he did for his own failures as a businessman. The 
whole thing sounds familiar to Storm Shadow and he says he knows exactly who was in that other car. On Cobra Island, Zartan tells Fred how he first met the real Cobra Commander just after the Vietnam War ended. Cobra Commander wanted Zartan to kill Snake Eyes and offered him a shitload of money, but Zartan accepted the job more for the challenge of killing a ninja than for the money. He camped outside the gate of Professor Onihashi for six months, sword-maker to the Arashikage Clan, convincing Onihashi that he wanted to be his apprentice. Onihashi could see the evil in Zartan’s soul, but took on the challenge of reforging him, hammering out the impurities in his character like that of a sword. And it apparently worked, with Zartan enjoying the creation of a perfect sword so much that he wanted to stay and become Onihashi’s true apprentice. But Cobra Commander still wanted
Snake Eyes dead and threatened to expose Zartan, so Zartan went ahead with the assassination. But as we already know, he killed Hard Master instead of Snake Eyes and was forced to flee after Onihashi killed himself in shame over Zartan’s actions. Zartan figures Storm Shadow still wants him dead, so he plans to take the initiative and attack first, since he believes he knows where to find Storm Shadow. In San Francisco, Billy agrees to live with his mom and make up for lost time, but Storm Shadow says he’ll always be welcome in their home. This is a great issue that gives us some background 
on Cobra Commander, Snake Eyes, and Zartan and how their lives have intertwined. Storm Shadow points out that Cobra Commander’s inability to deal with his own guilt over his brother’s death has caused a lot of pain for a lot of people since then and he’s right; the car accident didn’t just screw up Snake Eyes’s life, but led to all kinds of trouble for the Arashikages and even Zartan, who might have been a different person if not for Cobra Commander. This story is expanded on in the Snake Eyes Declassified miniseries, but this gives the basics of it. This story also sets up next issue, which is one of those “silent issues” with no dialogue.