They might've signed the Geneva Convention, but I don't think their heart was in it.

I haven't supported any Kickstarter projects recently: partly because I think any action figure related ones are currently on-hold or DOA thanks to the unpredictablity of tariffs. (Kickstarted figures are never what I'd call a bargain, and unsurprisingly China hasn't volunteered to eat the cost of the tariffs. EDIT: The Prisoner action figure Kickstarter just launched; I just need to decide how in I am!) I think I've got probably a new Trekker from Ron Randall and another installment of Karl Kesel's Impossible Jones arrived recently; Shannon Wheeler's Too Much Coffee Man Saves the Universe (and Other Mistakes) is still coming, but I also have Larry Hama's Mounties vs. Werewolves backed as well. Which I mention as we grab an issue of his from the pile! From 1989, G.I. Joe Special Missions #19, "Getting There" Written by Larry Hama, pencils by Herb Trimpe, inks by Andy Mushynsky.

Joes Lift-Ticket, Wild Bill, Muskrat, Repeater, and Lifeline are given a tough one: pick up a group of Joes "deep inside bad guy territory!" Before having to eat the orders, Wild Bill notes they have to cross two different hostile airspaces to get there, and their Russian counterparts in the Oktober Guard were also in the neighborhood. Bill has to eat the orders rather than burn them, since they were on strict "spark security" because the copter was filled with drums of fuel! They do catch some flak, which Lift-Ticket tries to put a positive spin on: it was only anti-aircraft fire, not surface-to-air missiles. Bill has to wonder, is that better somehow? (Larry also defines "86" there, in case you were confused as to its usual usage!)

Lift-Ticket gets them out of that with a desperate--and lucky--dive between gun emplacements and under high-voltage lines. With their instruments shot up, they may have to scrub the mission, but Lifeline trades his watch to a passing smuggling ship to get a new compass. Still, they had lost and burned through more fuel than planned, and next they run across a Soviet Hind chopper patrol. The patrol doesn't immediately engage, since they initially thought it was the Oktober Guard's copter...except, they knew the Guard's pilot, Daina, was hot; those two pilots, "one had a jaw like Stalin and the other one had a moustache!" Good eyes, there. Despite being armed for ground targets, the Hind pilots make a good show of it, but are brought down without casualties, since the Joes weren't mad at them. While they had lost even more fuel there, the Joes are able to salvage what they need from a downed Hind and its self-sealing gas tanks.

Finally arriving at the pick-up--they can probably see Chuckles's shirt a mile away--Alpine gives them a bit of hassle, since they had been trudging through Asia for three months, and "all you guys do is take a ride and enjoy the scenery!" He immediately apologizes when he sees two of them had been wounded just getting there; but the Joes by and large had solid team spirit, nobody gets mad.