Commentary on the Call to Duty
I decided to revamp this from my commentary on the overall series to talk specifically on the Call to Duty.
The genesis came from one from a crossover called 'Snakes in Megatokyo' and I was lying in bed one night trying to fall asleep and with all crossovers I always a postulate a "what-if" so I was imagining in my mind what if Sylia was an officer in the US Army and a member of GI Joe; from there I started formulating what her backstory was to explain her existence in the GI Joe universe. So I kind of came up with the Sylia/Hawk relationship to add some weight but without trying to go into too much detail but not go in the other direction and say "they're just friends, just deal with in," because I wanted to leave some room for if I were decide at that time to make it a series to go in greater depth on their relationship such as Jungle Trap Mk II.
I wrote the Call to Duty more leisurely affair because, I wanted to establish each Knight Saber beginning with Sylia. But something Buzz Dixon would later point out in the Blu-Ray commentary of GI Joe the Movie but it was something I was puzzling out a decade earlier was how did one become a member of GI Joe because as Buzz pointed out, the characters were just there already established where as in the "Asu e Touchdown" video in Hurricane Live you get a glimpse as to how Sylia recruited each of her Knight Sabers. And so I developed my own answers to that question and I went from there; which I had to give a great deal of exposition especially where Cobra was concerned because it was Sylia being a teacher as oppose to explaining to my audience who already knew what Cobra was. At the time I was writing this I was trying to keep this within the cartoon universe but going for more realism so I was pouring over whatever resources available, right up to Army field manuals that were available on online to the public and Tom Clancy's reference books. At that same time I was also inspired to do an homage to the Dirty Dozen because some of Reisman's method's I could picture Sylia actually doing, even though in the modern military such methods would be frowned upon, see Heartbreak Ridge. But I was trying to keep her character.
In retrospect I knew I made some mistakes such as having jump training at Fort Campbell, instead of Fort Benning where the jump school is located because I was trying to explain some of Priss' backstory but also something of her character where she is thoroughly unmilitary, maybe something slightly akin to Hawkeye in M*A*S*H* but she's still a soldier. I thinking: "yeah she would fall out for roll call in a bathrobe practically hungover and generally thumb her nose at authority figures she didn't respect but when it really counted she could be relied on in a combat situation."
Linna's character I will admit is the most difficult to write because I never particularly cared for ninjas because I think they're pretty much cliché; especially when you're trying to do the proper research and a lot of what we associate with ninjas is 20th century pop culture rather than actual historical fact of the 15th century. I writing her character I try to keep her weapons to what is traditionally Japanese so I write her or Snake-Eyes for that matter I will never have them use Nunchakus, because they are a Chinese weapon and not associated with the traditional ninja of the 15th century the closest thing would be the chain and sickle or the kusarigama. With Linna I wanted to keep her as close to her original interpretation as possible while writing her backstory where her parents were murdered, her training and time in black-ops. The best way I could describe as mental conditioning where in a combat situation the conditioning kicks in but she is aware of it and it scares the hell out of her but she kind learns to live with it.
Nene, I wrote her as the rookie archetype. Much like as she was in original OAV series, unlike the rest of the Knight Sabers, Nene came from a very stable background she not physically on par with the rest of Knight Sabers; with Priss probably the strongest physically, her intelligence nearly on par with Sylia's in certain respects. So that's how I wrote in the Call to Duty, which also where I came up with the idea of Beach Head being a, for lack of a better term, bully. Buzz in the Movie commentary stated that Beach Head was modelled after Moore from the DI and Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, this real hard nose instructor who views any kind of weakness with great distain as some will remember in Arise Serpentor Arise how he viewed Lifeline's pacifism with near contempt. But it's that characterization where I have a little fun that especially when I have interaction between Priss and Beach Head where they are polar opposites but also I wanted this friction between him and Sylia as well because Sylia can be pragmatic and willing to overlook Priss' unprofessionalism because of her combat skills as oppose to Beach Head's view of what a soldier should be. The closest parallel I can come to is Frank Burns from M*A*S*H* the only problem is with that comparison is, Frank was a doctor, albeit a mediocre one, who was drafted as a Major and he let that go to his head especially when the situation that he was put in charge whenever either Blake or Potter had to leave the camp and he would instill his view of army discipline that even a regular army soldier would balk at, let alone draftees. A better parallel would be Patton because Patton had this idea that a soldier was to be in proper uniform at all times including leggings, shined boots and ties even though when up on the front lines trying to live to the next day was a bit higher up than making sure you had a neck tie; this view was so rigid that he was offended by Bill Mauldin's characters Willie and Joe due to the scruffiness of the characters and blamed Mauldin for disrespecting the army and "trying to incite a mutiny;" of course Eisenhower told Patton to leave Mauldin alone because he felt that Mauldin's cartoons gave the soldiers an outlet for their frustrations. Those kind of parallels is how I view Beach Head, the only difference is that Priss can punch him out.
As Cobra, I didn't want to introduce them proper right out of the gate, more like have them waiting in the wings. At the time I didn't really think too hard because I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with the Commander. But I didn't want him to be the man-child that he was in the cartoon where he would throw a tantrum when his plans go to shit, I made mention of that earlier but I would chalk it up to being a feint because I wanted to portray the Commander much quieter and more patience; such as I portrayed him in the Jungle Trap Mk II where he would take short term loss in order to achieve a goal in the long term, because I look at him in the cartoon as a short term planner where he wants all his goals achieved then and there rather than thinking strategically and that is the same problem I see with Serpentor but I'm getting ahead of myself. Because when I was writing the Call to Duty, I didn't even consider using Serpentor if I were make this series, that wasn't until I started watching Arise Serpentor Arise. The whole concept of eco-terrorism at the climax of the story was that GI Joe was a counterterrorism unit, even though they go after Cobra it would it would seem natural that they would go after other terrorist organizations also at the time I was reading and/or watching about a series of arson attacks on car dealerships being committed by the Earth Liberation Front on the news that what inspired me to use eco-terrorism as the villain as oppose to Cobra.