I had G.I. Joe dolls as a kid, being a Kennedy baby, and the odd thing with that toy was that it wasn't created with an adversary. It was just white G.I. Joe and his associated military toys. Maybe it was a function of the times, and the network news coverage of Vietnam on the old RCA console in my parent's living room, but when I got together with friends to play G.I Joe, it generally devolved to them being blown up by some unseen adversary, or, we would load up G.I. Joe in his Jeep and crash him off the sand dunes at the beach, or on a dirt clod hill ... then supply the moans for his broken body. Without an enemy for G.I. Joe to face, in the minds of at least the kids I played with, he was always the causality, ultimately, not the victor. Because G.I. Joe was meant to be an "Action Toy", and really the only action available to him ... except for maybe occasional R&R with Barbie (who, fittingly, began as a souvenir from brothels herself) when I played dolls with the girl who lived next door ... was to blow G. I. Joe up, or otherwise torment him ... for as a kid in the sixties the images of real G.I. Joe were ones of him fighting in the jungles of Vietnam under assault.
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