GI Joe had some very odd seasons- in the first season, it was mostly a short serial involving the Weather Dominator and it focused on the initial Joe figurines. General Hawk led the team with the first figures, but this initial series focused mostly on Duke, Scarlett, and Snake Eyes.They fought the evil forces of Cobra, attempting to regain the broken pieces of Cobra's "Weather Dominator" device- a satellite that could control and terrorize the planet. It was fairly straightforward and was, itself, designed to act as a commercial to sell the toy-line.
The second season included the second series of Joes, though they still had many episodes that involved or focused on some of the classic Joes, including an "Elseworld" episode where the classic characters Grunt, Clutch, and Steeler would stay behind in order to fight the forces of Cobra in that other world where their duplicates had been killed in action. Joes featured in this series were largely Flint, Lady Jaye, Quick Kick, Alpine, Wild Blll, Mutt & Junkyard, and many more-- including my favorite episode that heavily featured Barbecue, the Joe fire rescue specialist.
I am currently on the third series, which focuses on the creation and rise of Serpentor as Cobra's new leader, replacing Cobra Commander. This would also heavily introduce Sgt. Slaughter as one of the lead trainers for GI Joe, and introduced many new recruits to the team: Lifeline, Leatherneck, Sci-Fi, Beach-head, and Wet-Suit. One of the primary running side-plots was the impending star crossed lover story between Zartan's sister Zaranna and GI Joe computer specialist Main-Frame.
All of this led to GI Joe: The Movie- intended for theatrical release, the animated feature film included celebrity voices such as Don Johnson as Duke's younger brother, Falcon. This film would introduce the far more fantasy-centric villains from "Cobra-La", an ancient snake cult that would ally with Cobra to fight our erstwhile heroes.
It was that film that sort of jumped the shark by stretching beyond the high concept ideas of a specialized Military Unit fighting an organized criminal terrorist organization. While occasional episodes introduced time travel, other realms, spirits, supernatural, and and other sci-fi elements to the series- it was all still wrapped around the idea of Cobra and the Joes.
The film marked the end of the "Real American Hero" cartoon series, but a new series developed by DIC would attempt to continue the series in 1989 with a five part series, and then continuing for another 44 episodes in 1990.
