Top Ten Episodes of G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero - Number 02

Lasers in the Night

Written by Marv Wolfman

A lot of legendary cartoon and comic book writers have worked on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, and it doesn't get much more "legendary" than Mighty Marv Wolfman. Comic book aficionados will recognize Wolfman's name immediately. He has written countless books for both Marvel and DC, notably Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Lasers in the Night is one of the most tightly packed episodes of the whole series. The episode focuses on Quick Kick, the Joe's resident martial arts expert. At a public exhibition, he meets Amber, a young, beautiful, idealistic college student. They start up a serious relationship. Amber frequently pressures Quick Kick to let her join G.I. Joe, but he tries to convince her it's not as glamorous as she thinks it is.

Meanwhile, while Quick Kick and Amber go to ballets and baseball games, Cobra Commander is planning a secret attack. He sends troops to a Joe base, looking for the guidance coordinates system for their giant laser. Cobra burns down the base but they don't find the coordinates. Unfortunately, Lady Jaye is injured in the attack.

Back at Joe headquarters, Duke is concerned because Gung Ho hasn't reported in during his current mission and is presumed captured or missing. Their meeting is interrupted, however, by Amber. She sneaked into the base in an attempt to show how capable she is of being a Joe. Duke brushes her off and tries to go back to the more important matters.

During all of the mischief at the Joe base, a Cobra spy was able to steal their defense codes, allowing Cobra to disable the Joes and steal the guidance coordinates codes. Amber, worried that the Joes think she is the spy, tries to break into the Cobra base and stop them herself. She is immediately captured and thrown into Cobra's dungeon where she meets Gung Ho and...Lady Jaye! As it turns out, the Baroness knocked out Lady Jaye and took her place at the Joe base, allowing her to steal their codes.

Quick Kick singlehandedly breaks into the Cobra base to rescue her, but ends up being rescued himself after Amber breaks herself, Gung Ho, and Lady Jaye out of the dungeon. Then it is revealed what Cobra Commander's evil plot was. He wanted to steal the laser guidance system codes so that he could carve the image of his face into the moon. But the Joes stop him and Amber decides that she needs to finish college before she goes in for any more excitement.

There's a simplicity to the structure of this episode. It is deftly paced, every scene furthers the plot and increases the suspense, building up to the dramatic and exciting conclusion. The fact that Cobra Commander's secret plan is merely, as Destro angrily calls it, "cosmic grafitti" is just hilarious. The whole episode has a straightforward but somewhat lighthearted dramatic tone, what with it's focus on Quick Kick and Amber's relationship. Since there's no sense of slapstick comedy set up throughout the whole episode, the punchline of Cobra Commander's stupid plan is much more powerful.

The main star of this episode, of course, is Quick Kick. This is his big solo episode, and the writers waste no time developing his character and giving him room to breathe. Wolfman gave Quick Kick a great character quirk, which is that he is a huge movie buff, and frequently quotes and name drops classic film actors. It's fun and we get to see him do silly impersonations of Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, and even Steve Martin.

And although much of the episode is played out like a romantic dramedy, there's still plenty of spy action, laser shoot outs, and kung fu fighting. Lasers in the Night is an episode where everything from the writing, animation, voice acting, and direction just comes together perfectly. There's not a single flaw in it.