And now you know… the rest of this famous G.I. Joe sentence in Italian. Why this is relevant you ask? Well, I recently came across some Marvel G.I. Joe comics from Italy and I had to snatch them up for my collection.
The first one I have is #2 (coincidently the one that in the US version has my birthday on it), The Panic at the North Pole. The issue contains not just this story, but also Hot Potato. The cover shows the English title in the bottom right, but also the Italian version in the left bottom corner. The top left shows Hawk, the volume (anno 1), the issue number and the price in Itialian Lire. FYI, although we have the Euro in most of Europe as currency, the exchange rate for ITL is still usable, 2000 ITL would be around $1.22…
The editorial page shows Scarlett, but strangely enough, her crossbow has been removed from the drawing. The issue was released in December of 1988, so more than 6 years after the original US release.
The header of the splash page is still showing Stan Lee presenting G.I. Joe.
On the inside of the back cover, a commercial is printed for the G.I. Joe cartoon that was aired on the Odeon TV network as of 9/26 at 5PM… Did I mention this issue was released in December… Great timing don’t you think?
The second issue I got was issue #3.
Here we see that the volume has gone up 1 (anno 2) and Hawk’s pants are now solid green. No more English titles, all is Italian here.
In the middle of the book, a full page is dedicated to some letters from fans. Little Alessandro and Sergio were probably very proud to see their letters printed in this issue. Not just letters though, the next page is showing some gorgeous fan art.
The next issue I found was issue #6. Here they dropped the volume all together and they’re not showing a title as well. To be fair, the English cover didn’t show a title too.
Issue #3 and #6, both have an extra story in the book, though not like issue #2 that had Hot Potato, these 2 have a story called “I’ll Cinese”. Not sure why they felt the need to add some other story to the G.I. Joe issues, but the art is quite good.
No commercials for the cartoon in issues #3 and #6 too. They have a commercial for other comic books. The NAM in issue #3 and something called Balbao in issue #6., I don’t think this is about Rocky, but it does feature a black haired man.
That’s it for this time. I’ll be back with another update soon. Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!
