Creation Story
Most G.I. Joe characters can be dated twice, and the two dates rarely agree. Hasbro designed the figure, Larry Hama wrote the file card, and the comic caught up whenever the schedule allowed. The toy date and the comic date are two different facts.
The file card supplies the character. Marvin F. Hinton, born in Biloxi, Mississippi, heavy machine gunner, carrying an M2 Browning as a personal weapon. He wanted to be a gourmet chef before he enlisted. Hama was largely responsible for the file cards for roughly the first ten years of the line, drawing on his own service.
First Appearance: G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #22
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #22 carries an April 1984 cover date and went on sale January 10, 1984. Larry Hama wrote it, Mike Vosburg pencilled it, and Jon D’Agostino inked it, for Marvel. The story is called “Like Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust…”, a line lifted from the funeral song in Act IV of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.
The funeral is the plot. General Flagg is being buried at Arlington, and two soldiers are standing guard over the service: Duke and Roadblock, neither of whom the reader has met. A Cobra Rattler comes in over the cemetery. The pair shoot it down before it can hurt anyone, and then introduce themselves to the team as the new top sergeant and the new heavy machine gunner. It is an efficient piece of writing: two debuts, one interrupted funeral, and no introductions until the shooting stops.
For collectors that makes #22 a double key rather than a Roadblock book: it holds the first appearances of Duke and Roadblock in one issue. It also sits directly after issue #21, Silent Interlude, the wordless Snake Eyes story from March 1984 that the run is remembered for.