For JoeCon 2016, Jim Sorenson co-wrote a script reading titled "Island Revolution!", co-written with Jesse Wittenrich from a story by Jesse Wittenrich and Pete Sinclair, featuring Air Raid, the attendee freebee that year, as he infiltrates Cobra Island in a fourth-wall breaking story, and finds Dr. Biggles-Jones and her newly enslaved servant: the Dinobot Grimlock! The script was performed by Gregg Berger (Grimlock's voice actor, who also voices several of the Joes and Cobra members he voiced in the original G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero) and three convention attendees who won a contest: Erik Neal, Malachai Reiser, and CeCe Nigra.
The title of the story, along with Grimlock's appearance, was inspired by the then recent announcement of IDW Publishing's "Hasbroverse" crossover, Revolution, set in the world of their Transformers comic continuity, which featured them along with the characters of G.I. Joe, ROM, M.A.S.K., Micronauts, and Action Man. The use of Biggles-Jones in this story, in particular, is because of her role in one of the earlier crossovers in the franchise, in the pages of the Marvel G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and Transformers: Generation 2 comics, along with serving as an advertisment for her toy in the G.I. Joe featuring Ninja Force and the Transformers set of figures sold by both the Transformers and G.I. Joe Collectors' Club.
Now, onto the annotations. We'll break it down by pages of the script:
Page 1: Cobra Island was attacked by the forces of S.K.A.R. in "Not My Time to Go!", the "G.I. Joe vs Cobra" comic published in the May 2016 issue of the G.I. Joe Collectors' Club magazine. Cobra Island was the island headquarters of Cobra in both the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon and comic. It didn't have an origin in the cartoon, but in the Marvel comic, it was artificially created by Cobra by tricking G.I. Joe into bombing a fault line, raising a chunk of ocean floor to the surface. With Cobra's lawyers successfully getting the island recognized as sovereign territory by the United Nations, the Joes were unable to invade the island. S.K.A.R. was a terrorist organization that served as the main antagonist of G.I. Joe Extreme. Air Raid was an all-new character created for JoeCon 2016's Sky Patrol theme. Voiced by convention attendee Erik Neal, his real name is Benjamin R. Thomas, and is a flight test officer. He shares his name with the Generation 1 Aerialbot, of course. Gregg Berger, meanwhile, reprises his role as Rip Cord, AKA Wallace A. Weems, the Joe's HALO Jumper. The Sky Sweeper is a G.I. Joe jet. Air Raid and Rip Cord are noted to be flying the "old one from 2003" (the original Sky Sweeper toy, released in the G.I. Joe vs Cobra toyline) rather than the one "sold out in the club store" (the JoeCon 2016 Sky Sweeper, which was quickly sold out after the Convention began). The old one came with a smaller "spy plane" accessory.
In issue #45 of the Marvel G.I. Joe comic, Rip Cord ejected himself over Cobra Island to rescue his girlfriend, Candy, turning on Ace's helmet to allow him to parachute out of his Skystriker. The original Sky Sweeper was released at the time of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, hence the comment about "cut corners." The original Sky Sweeper toy was redecoed in 2009 for the G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra toyline as the Crimson Hydra, and again as the Cobra Hydra for JoeCon 2016. Hence, it's mentioned that Cobra stole the blueprints for its design.
Page 2: Rip Cord refers to events from the JoeCon 2016 comic, G.I. Joe vs Cobra issue #9, "Project Downfall". Air Raid was test piloting the Sky Patrol Skystriker when he was shot down by a Cobra Hydra. The Sky Patrol's new Sky Sweeper, meanwhile, was trashed when Skydive used it to take out some Cobra Hydras, destroying one of the wings in the process. Skydive, AKA Lynton N. Felix, was part of the 1990 G.I. Joe subline, Sky Patrol, and was the leader of the titular group. Cobra members Flying Scorpion and Sky Creeper used long-range gravimetric radar to get pass the Sky Patrol vehicles' stealth system.
Dr. Sidney Biggles-Jones was an original character for the Marvel G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comic created by Larry Hama and Andrew Wildman, introduced in issue #135. She was a scientist abducted by Cobra who developed rail gun technology who seemingly agreed to work for them, but was secretly working for some organization in the United States government. She was briefly abducted by Megatron in the storyline for her rail gun technology in the storyline that set up the Transformers: Generation 2 comic Marvel did, until being rescued by the Autobots. Her voice is performed by convention attendee CeCe Nigra. Gregg Berger reprises his role as Cobra saboteur Firefly, real name unknown.
Page 3: Biggles-Jones is reminded of the lyrics to American singer Jerry Lee Lewis' 1957 song, "Great Balls of Fire", by Firefly's remark. After parachuting out of the Sky Sweeper, the bored Rip Cord begins singing lyrics to the song "Rap Viper", from Canadian alternative hip hop artist Wordburglar's 2013 G.I. Joe-themed concept album Welcome to Cobra Island. Snow Serpents are Cobra's Arctic specialists, a variant of the Eels who are trained for cold weather environments. Headman was a drug dealer from the G.I. Joe 1992 subline, Drug Elimination Force, who lead the Headhunters. The Buzz Boar was a 1987 Cobra vehicle, designed to burrow underground. We get a hint at where Cobra Island is located, mentioning "temporal-mechanical experiments," and who Biggles-Jones is controlling...
Page 4: After Air Raid's comment about a "flock of seagulls," he paraphrases lyrics from the A Flock of Seagulls's 1982 single "I Ran (So Far Away)". Air Raid's comment about "snake-themed architecture" doesn't seem like a reference to anything in particular, just jokes about Cobra.
Page 5: Sky Patrol, like many of the late 80's/early 90's G.I. Joe themes, were fairly forgettable and not often referenced. The joke about them not being able to get actual chrome paint and settling for "metallic silver" instead is probably a joke about toy production, but I don't know enough about the toys to say for certain. Similarly, the joke about them being the same under the paint is in reference to how the G.I. Joe toys from the Collectors' Club reuse parts from other figures. Air Raid's personality is fairly cliched, as Dr. Biggles-Jones points out. It's also fairly likely he's entirely made from other figures' parts. I dunno if "migrating mechanical birds" is a reference to anything specific, but it hints at Dr. Biggles-Jone's other project, since birds are dinosaurs. Cobra Island was shown to have mountains and trees on it, despite having once been part of the ocean floor. Odd.
Page 6: I've already talked about Dr. Biggles-Jones' rail gun technology. The fact that she doesn't want to kill Air Raid obviously shows that she's only pretending to be loyal to Cobra. The "giant swirling energy vortex" that Biggles-Jones calls a "time/space anomaly" hints once more at the island's true identity.
Page 7: And so, Air Raid is de-aged to adolescence, and is now voiced by young convention attendee Malachai Reiser. As such, he's afraid of cooties and laughs at immature things. The Cobra Youth were young children in Cobra families who were trained to become full members of Cobra seen in the Marvel comic, obviously inspired by the idea of the Hitler Youth.
Page 8: Dr. Biggles-Jones almost says Imaginext, toys created by Fisher-Price/Mattel for children three years and older. She quickly corrects herself to say Playskool Jr., Hasbro's equivalent brand. It's almost certain you know Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky from the first three live-action Transformers films; he was in the media a lot in the mid-2010s.
Page 9: Among Dr. Biggles-Jones' robotic experiments is a "killer rabbit with sharp pointy teeth", referring to the Rabbit of Caerbannog from 1975 British comedy film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Bio Vipers were Cobra's genetically engineered, liquid-like foot soldiers in the continuity of the 2010 cartoon, G.I. Joe: Renegades; the Rip Cord of this continuity appeared to die early on, only to have been revealed to survive, with Cobra experimenting on him and turning him into a human-Bio Viper hybrid. After the series ended in 2011, it kept replaying for some time on Saturday mornings on the Hub. More on that in a second. The Bio Vipers haven't appeared outside of Renegades. Firefly gets distracted thanks to talk about explosive materials. Thermite, plasticizer, and C4 are all real things.
Page 10: I shouldn't have to tell you who Cobra Commander is. The Brainwave Scanner was a Cobra torture device from the Marvel comic, created by Dr. Venom. I wasn't sure at first what Dr. Biggles-Jones was saying about the frequency, but I think now that she's telling Firefly off for making up stuff. Tele-Viper Williams is one of many Tele-Vipers, Cobra's Radio Telecommunications Operators. Another hint with "cyber-saurian" there. When Dr. Biggles-Jones says "Cobra hub," Air Raid quickly "corrects" her by saying "Cobra Discovery Family," referencing Discovery and Hasbro's short-lived television channel The Hub, which was replaced by Discovery Family in 2014.
Page 11: And so, we learn about Dr. Biggles-Jones other "project": controlling the Dinobot, Grimlock! The Dreadnoks are a gang of mercenary bikers that work for Cobra. Strangely, the only reference I can find to the Dreadnoks riding Dinosaurs is the retailer incentive cover to issue #4 of IDW Publishing's G.I. Joe: Special Missions. "Big Grim" is a fairly common nickname for Grimlock, but it originates from a "tattoo" Grimlock had on his right shoulder in issue #10 of Marvel's Transformers: Generation 2 comic. Several crossover G.I. Joe and the Transformers sets have been created for San Diego Comic-Con in the 2010s, usually with vehicles redecoed as Transformers, including at SDCC 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2016. Another reference to IDW Publishing's then-upcoming Revolution crossover from Dr. Biggles-Jones there.
Page 12: Dr. Biggles-Jones gives Grimlock's fire-breath the grandiose name of "Goldfire Exhalation"; the Transformers Animated Grimlock toy was intended to be redecoed in gold and black as Goldfire Grimlock, but it ended up being cancelled. The M.A.S.S. Device was a teleportation device that served as the central MacGuffin of the original G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon mini-series, "The M.A.S.S. Device". Destro, AKA Laird James McCullen Destro XXIV, is the founder of arms dealers M.A.R.S. Industries and sometimes ally to Cobra, and was the creator of the M.A.S.S. Device in the cartoon. "Bash brains" is a phrase Grimlock first used in 1986's The Transformers: The Movie. Grimlock having a "stuck transformation" issue is likely in reference to his 1990 Action Master toy.
Page 13: Firefly's quip about a "space-faring tiger" references the science fiction/fantasy comics anthology magazine, Heavy Metal, though I feel he's probably quipping about its 1981 film adaptation.
Page 14: Grimlock's declaration that he dares to be stupid refers to the 1986 song by comedy/parody singer "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Dare to Be Stupid", which saw use in 1986's The Transformers: The Movie. And so, Grimlock reveals that Cobra Island was the time/space anomaly known as Dinobot Island, seen in the Sunbow The Transformers two-parter,"Dinobot Island", its strange properties the source of Air Raid's de-aged state. Grimlock heads off by going into the ocean in a Godzilla homage, as Air Raid helpfully points out. The first Godzilla film to actually use that as an ending was 1971's Godzilla vs. Hedorah.
Page 15: Dr. Biggles-Jones paraphrases Starscream's line after throwing Megatron out of Astrotrain in The Transformers: The Movie. The Thunderhawk was the vehicle of M.A.S.K. leader Matt Trakker, from the Kenner toyline and DiC cartoon, M.A.S.K., which featured human drivers piloting transforming vehicles and wearing special helmets with the heroic M.A.S.K. fighting the evil forces of V.E.N.O.M. Similar to G.I. Joe in terms of play pattern, it was acquired by Hasbro when they bought Kenner. It was a third-generation Chevrolet Camaro that could turning into a flying vehicle, but it's a 2016 model now! Skymate (voiced here by Erik Neal, with a stereotypical Australian accent) was another JoeCon 2016 toy, based on the 1991 toy from the Air Commandos subline. The codename of Daniel T. Toner, Skymate was an Australian glider commando, who was on loan to G.I. Joe from Australia's Special Air Service. He's disguised himself as Cobra Trooper Sorenson; Cobra troopers are the low-level Cobra grunts, while Sorenson is derived from the fact that his JoeCon 2016 head was modeled after Jim Sorenson, who co-wrote this script! Skymate notes he was on-loan from the Action Force this time; Action Force was the United Kingdom's rebranded version of G.I. Joe, where the characters were re-imagined as being an international force. In 2008, a toy of Matt Trakker, named "Specialist Trakker", was released in the G.I. Joe toyline, which noted that he had joined forces with G.I. Joe, and that V.E.N.O.M. was a unit of Cobra.
Page 16: Inhumanoids was another Hasbro franchise of the 1980s with a Sunbow cartoon, which had ties to G.I. Joe and Transformers over the years. Inhumanoids was absent from Revolution, and as it would turn out, Hasbro's ownership of both the Inhumanoids name and characters has, for whatever reason, been lost. Mark Weber was, at the time, Hasbro's Brand Manager for G.I. Joe. Rom comes in via narration to tie things off; ROM was an action figure created by Scott Dankman, Richard C. Levy, and Bryan L. McCoy for Parker Brothers, acquired by Hasbro when they bought them out in 1991. Before his appearances in IDW Publishing's comics, he was best remember for the ROM: Spaceknight series published by Marvel from 1979 to 1986. And so, we end on a good old fashioned shout of "Yo, Joe!"