G.I. Joe Special Missions #25 (September 1989) – “Forced Play” – Larry Hama/Herb Trimpe/Danny Bulanadi
This one starts at a warehouse in Brooklyn where cops and Feds have some terrorists hemmed in. The terrorists are from Lower Darklonia and are trying to free their country from the oppressive yoke of Upper Darklonia by blowing stuff up in the United States. Yeah, I’m not really sure how that works either. Anyway, some Joes show up to help and Duke immediately gets some static from the head Fed on the scene. One of the terrorists uses himself as a
human bomb to open up the barricades so three others can get away with most of the explosives on motorbikes. Duke decides to chase them and leave the last couple of terrorists in the warehouse to the Feds. They catch up to the terrorists on the expressway and Lifeline manages to take one guy out before he can detonate any explosives. The other two get away, but the Joes already have a covert surveillance team in place (Alpine, Lightfoot, and Jinx) watching other Darklonian Liberation Front members. They follow the guy to the Darklonian Embassy and find out he’s the cultural attaché, which means they can’t do anything to him. Some of the Joes wonder why a Darklonian official would be involved with secessionists, but 
Duke figures out that Darklon is getting the terrorists to cause in the States so the Joes will take care of them for him. Duke doesn’t like being manipulated, but when the top Fed tells him there’s going to be a bombing at the Natural History Museum, he can’t just ignore it. The surveillance team tracks the diplomat (Peetman) to a townhouse where the other terrorists are holed up. The Feds let the bombers head to the museum since they want to catch them in the act (and avoid any diplomatic problems), but the terrorists notice the Feds tailing them. They drive right through the museum and drop bombs, with the Joes following behind to pick them all up. Lifeline and Dusty dump the bombs in a lake in Central Park while the other Joes box the terrorists in and capture them when their jeep flips over. (Apparently, they were driving a Suzuki Samurai which was known to be prone to rollovers back then.) Duke realizes the Feds made a deal with Peetman to take out all
the Draklonian terrorists and give the Feds a very public victory. Taking the terrorists alive wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal, but the Joes have bigger problems … Peetman is planning to blow up a school to make sure the Darklonian Liberation Front looks bad. The Joe surveillance team stops him but the briefcase bomb has so many anti-tamper devices they can’t disarm it in the hour they have left before it goes off. They haul Peetman and the bomb back to the Feds’ office, where they handcuff Peetman to the briefcase. They jam the door and Alpine suggests to the top Fed that he may want to toss Peetman nd the bomb out the window. This is a pretty good issue, highlighting Larry Hama’s usual contempt for bureaucrats and politicians, although it seems like a lot of the story was just a way to show off the new Tiger Force vehicles and camo.
G.I. Joe #90 (September 1989) – “Recurring Themes” – Larry Hama/M.D. Bright/Randy Emberlin
This one starts in Broca Beach with a summit meeting of the various Cobra factions discussing the organization’s future. The Dreadnoks want in too, but only Zarana is allowed to attend. Destro has all the power now and has decided that since everyone else is acting petty and childish, he’ll punish them by making them work together and keep an eye on each other. Zarana and Baroness will be in charge of funding, covert ops, and intel, Cobra Commander and Voltar will run operations and manufacturing, while Dr. Mindbender and Darklon will work under Destro
in sales and marketing. Nobody’s happy about it, but they don’t have much choice. In San Francisco, a prospective tenant is checking out Storm Shadow’s old apartment, which still shows damage from the fight in issue 85. Thanks to a news report and a quick face change, we soon realize the “tenant” is Zartan. In Broca Beach, Zarana shows Baroness the two Joes that were captured last issue (Clutch and Rock n’Roll) and reveals that she wants to use Dr. Venom’s old brain-scanning machine to implant stuff into the Joes’ heads instead of taking info out. At Joe headquarters, a Cobra lawyer shows up to free Zanzibar, using the usual legal bullshit to get him released. In San 
Francisco, Zartan imitates General Hollingsworth to get info on Jinx, but gives himself away quickly since he doesn’t know any of the security procedures. Zartan gets away but is confronted by the Blind Master, who’s pissed off at him for killing the Hard Master. In Broca Beach, Destro reveals to Mindbender that his armaments company is one of the subcontractors who build the BATs, and that he added some special components that let him gather info and even override the BATs’ programming. Destro knows that Mindbender put Serpentor’s body on ice after the Battle of Cobra Island and threatens to tell Cobra Commander if Mindbender gets out of line. Meanwhile, Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, Scarlett, and Jinx (along with Timber, the wolf) are up in the mountains waiting for news. When they hear Zartan has been sniffing
around, Scarlett suggests they go after him, but Storm Shadow doesn’t like the idea of being the aggressor. Timber sniffs something out and is wounded by a red ninja, so Storm Shadow decides to go out and face the red ninja leader one-on-one. This is a pretty good issue, although it’s mostly downtime, giving us Cobra’s new status quo and confirming (as we all thought) that Zartan is still alive. It’ll be interesting to see what happens between him and Blind Master, as well as between Storm Shadow and the red ninjas; we know Storm Shadow has given up on getting revenge for Hard Master’s death, but I’m not sure he’ll be able to convince Zartan and his minions of that.