Creation Story
The G.I. Joe machine ran on three production lines at once, and they did not stay in step. Hasbro made the figures, Sunbow made the cartoon, and Larry Hama wrote a war comic at Marvel that was under no obligation to introduce anybody in the order the other two did. Flint reached a television set first.
He was made for the cartoon, in 1984, and the sequence is why his file reads the way it does. Neither the comic nor the toy line invented him, so his details arrive already fixed by a television script: Dashiell R. Faireborn, from Wichita, Kansas, chief warrant officer, listed for infantry, helicopter piloting and tactical planning. His 1985 figure printed the rank as E-6, staff sergeant, which is an error on the card rather than a second version of the character.
The other thing that carries over from the cartoon is Lady Jaye, or more precisely the friction with her. The two resisted the attraction for years before admitting to it, and in the Devil’s Due run of 2001 to 2008 they marry once G.I. Joe disbands. A relationship the franchise kept coming back to for two decades began in a weekday serial made to sell plastic.
Animated Debut: G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra
The Revenge of Cobra was the second G.I. Joe miniseries from Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions, and it ran across five weekdays, September 10 to 14, 1984. Ron Friedman wrote it, as he had written the first miniseries the year before.
Flint began in this broadcast. Bill Ratner voiced him here and across the Sunbow run that followed; the comic and figure came later.
The broadcast gives Flint five air dates in September 1984, ten months before the comic most first-appearance lists name.
First Comics Appearance: G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #37
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #37 is cover-dated July 1985. Larry Hama wrote it, Frank Springer pencilled it and Andy Mushynsky inked it. The story is “Twin Brothers!” Tomax and Xamot own the title and most of the collector attention.
That issue carries four first appearances. Flint and Footloose join the team in it. So do Tomax and Xamot, the identical Cobra twins, who set the plot going by using a travelling circus as cover to ambush and capture the two new Joes. Lady Jaye is already on the roster by this point, driving HISS tanks in a testing zone and cutting Flint’s bragging off at the knees.