Raptor
Powers/Abilities: Falconry, allowing him to train predatory birds to attack Joes.
Why they shouldn't appear: Aside from the fact that he looks like he's on his way to an Angry Birds fan convention? His back story reveals that he used to be a tax accountant before joining Cobra, which means that his character arc from white collar finance officer to crazy, feathered birdman is worthy of its own film or not at all.
Big Boa
Powers/Abilities: Cobra’s chief physical trainer and keen boxer.
Why they shouldn't appear: He was originally planned to be an arch-nemesis for Sly Stallone’s Rocky Balboa, who was set to join GI Joe as part of a Hasbro deal that eventually fell through.
This left Big Boa with no one to fight and only a pair of boxing gloves to use against his enemies, all of whom have sensibly decided that big guns are more effective.
Hardball
Powers/Abilities: A former baseball star who is, as a result, extremely accurate with grenades.
Why they shouldn't appear: In a team full of crack-shot soldiers, weapons experts and tech whizzes, no one wants to be stuck partnered with the guy whose greatest qualification for the job is that he can throw really well. And we bet that his insistence on wearing that baseball cap and shirt at all times isn’t helping him to make any friends either.
Golobulus
Powers/Abilities: The half-serpent leader of the secret, mutant race of Cobra-La.
Why they shouldn't appear: Golobulus’ introduction in the animated GI Joe: The Movie completely rewrote Cobra history and reimagined the world’s largest terrorist organisation as a front for mystical snake-monster people.
It wasn’t an acceptable plot twist in that film and no amount of rasping Joseph Gordon-Levitt will make it an acceptable plot twist in these ones.
Darklon
Powers/Abilities: Hires out large private armies to the highest bidder.
Why they shouldn't appear: As the filecard for his action figure states, Darklon uses 'telephone solicitors' to advertise his legions of soldiers by offering 'reasonable hourly rates and cash rebates'.
No mercenary villain should ever sound like an accident compensation helpline.
Gristle
Powers/Abilities: Drug dealer.
Why they shouldn't appear: Because, in the world of GI Joe, even common street thugs have to sound vaguely militarian, Gristle was given the official title of ‘Urban Drug Commander’, which basically means that he sold made-up drug ‘spark’ to the most clean-cut cartoon junkies you’ll ever see.
Frankly, while GI Joe is busy trying to maintain world peace, it can probably leave this guy to be dealt with by the local neighbourhood watch.
Crazylegs
Powers/Abilities: Airborne ranger, paratrooper; basically jumps out of helicopters a lot.
Why they shouldn't appear: Not quite living up to his zany codename, Crazylegs is a classical music nut and often hums Bach during combat when he should be concentrating on not getting himself and his team killed.
His action figure filecard also reveals that 'he could have been the greatest organist in the world if his fingers hadn’t been too short'. Fingers that short shouldn’t be trusted with guns either.
Eco-Warriors
Powers/Abilities: Forces of Cobra and GI Joe who fight each other to harm/save the environment.
Why they shouldn't appear: Created solely to sell a toy range whose biggest selling point was that they changed colour when splashed with water, these fluorescent soldiers were basically the Global Hypercolour t-shirts of the action figure world.
Also, no one wants to see soldiers trying to prevent littering while there are terrorists and killers running amok.
Dial Tone
Powers/Abilities: Telecommunications officer.
Why they shouldn't appear: In this age of mobile phones and the internet, there doesn’t seem to be much call in the infantry for the guy whose main job is to carry a massive radio on his back.
We don’t need to see Duke and co. Skyping with HQ while this guy is in a corner listening to static saying "Breaker washboard zero two sixty biscuit, come in?"
The Fridge
Powers/Abilities: Physical trainer and actual NFL star William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry.
Why they shouldn't appear: Another bizarre real-life crossover for the Joes that raises more questions than it solves, chief of which is: 'Would it really be helpful to know how to tackle someone by the waist in the middle of a warzone?'
Also, The Fridge’s equipment of choice is a steel American football on the end of a chain. No kind of fight exists in which that is a practical weapon.
Crystal Ball
Powers/Abilities: Hypnotist and mind reader
Why they shouldn't appear: He may be handy in an interrogation, but do we really want to introduce telepathy into a world that already contains destructive nanomites and mind-control serum? And as for hypnotism, we can’t imagine any script calling for Cobra Commander to suddenly quit smoking or for a captured Joe to be humiliated by making him think he is Elvis.
Gnawgahyde
Powers/Abilities: A belligerent hunter, member of biker gang The Dreadnoks.
Why they shouldn't appear: Of all the obnoxious members of The Dreadnoks, Gnawgahyde is the most ludicrous, not least because of his name. He bathes in animal fat and keeps a pet warthog called Clyde. There’s no time for any kind of warthog-wrangling in a GI Joe movie – pet or otherwise.
Shipwreck
Powers/Abilities: Bumbling sailor.
Why they shouldn't appear: Providing much of the comic relief in the original cartoon series, Shipwreck speaks in nautical phrases and keeps a parrot called Polly.
He was later revamped as a Navy SEAL, which is much more badass, but doesn’t change the fact that there is nothing more irritating that a man who speaks in nautical phrases and keeps a parrot called Polly.
Lobotomaxx
Powers/Abilities: Alien bounty hunter. Seriously.
Why they shouldn't appear: He was introduced during a horribly misinformed period of GI Joe which saw a special team known as the Star Brigade fly into space and protect the universe. Lobotomaxx was a member of the Lunartix Empire (we see what you did there, Hasbro) and represents every reason why the Joes should focus on Earth-based threats. There’s simply no need to go galactic.
Dee-Jay
Powers/Abilities: Talented disc jockey turned radio telephone operator.
Why they shouldn't appear: From the filecard: 'If it is loaded with transistors, is portable and transmits or receives radio waves, Dee-Jay can make it work, fix it and coax strange sounds out of it with an infectious beat.'
Efficient anti-terrorism, right there.
Captain Grid-Iron
Powers/Abilities: Football jock who specialises in hand-to-hand combat.
Why they shouldn't appear: The most notable aspect of this character is that, thanks to countless John Wayne impressions and generally just ‘trying too hard’, none of the other Joes like him. They won’t even let him play in the annual GI Joe Fish Fry Football Game, which, judging by his attire and football-shaped grenades, is actually the only reason he joined the army in the first place.
Hit & Run
Powers/Abilities: Really good at running.
Why they shouldn't appear: After a drunk driver killed his parents when he was just three years old, you’d think that the Joes wouldn’t be so cruel as to give Brent Scott the codename ‘Hit & Run’, but maybe it was a character-strengthening tactic. Either way, any soldier that likes to run as much as this guy would be at the top of our Most Likely To Desert In The Face Of Combat list.
Clutch
Powers/Abilities: Expert driver, contemptible sexist.
Why they shouldn't appear: Clutch fancies himself quite the ladies man and, at one point in the comics, suggests that two female Joe members actually mud wrestle, making him a dubious role model at best. Put Clutch in a film and we’d all be left questioning the moral code of the GI Joes after he spends an entire tactical meeting asking team leader Scarlett about her cup size and boasting about the size of his ‘weapon’.
Lifeline
Powers/Abilities: Medical officer.
Why they shouldn't appear: The best moments in any GI Joe movie should include guns and explosions and fighting and guns. Lifeline, however, is an avowed pacifist, making him the least exciting person in any given battle. We’re not saying that injured Joes shouldn’t receive medical attention, we’re just saying that it should happen off-camera while we’re busy shouting "Die Cobra scum!" at the screen.
Headman
Powers/Abilities: Drug kingpin dressed like a 70s pimp .
Why they shouldn't appear: In a cartoon about soldiers and killers in which no one ever shed any blood, Headman is so incompetent that he somehow became the only character that actually died. After trying to kill both the Joes and Cobras with a drug overdose, his plan backfired and he ended up self-destructing his own base, killing himself in the process (while everyone else managed to escape). How he ran an entire criminal empire is beyond comprehension.
Airtight
Powers/Abilities: Chemical weapons expert, relentless practical joker.
Why they shouldn't appear: Known to resort to sneezing powder, whoopee cushions and even 'plastic barf' in order to get low-level laughs, Airtight is the last person you want on your GI Joe team. Imagine Heavy Duty wading headfirst into war with Cobra soldiers only to find Airtight sniggering behind him as a big BANG flag shoots out of his M230-A2 automatic cannon chain gun. Remember, Airtight – it’s all fun and games until someone gets riddled with bullets.
Hannibal
Powers/Abilities: A clone of the 2,000-year-old elephant-riding, Alp-crossing military leader.
Why they shouldn't appear: We’re not saying that Dr. Mindbender’s recreation of the Carthaginian commander isn’t an impressive achievement, but his reasoning that Hannibal’s millennia-old strategies might somehow come in handy in the modern-day fight against GI Joe is somewhat questionable. Also, for some reason, Hannibal’s clone looks rather emo, leading us to believe that he’d rather stay in his room and write hate poetry than help Cobra with tactical deployment.
S.A.W.-Vipers
Powers/Abilities: Heavy machine gunners.
Why they shouldn't appear: These heavy artillery soldiers have massive, specially-modified guns, fixed with an 'infrared night-vision, auto-ranging, optical sighting system' and yet, GI Joe being what it is, they never actually shoot and kill anyone with them. Even the filecard quotes one as saying "You won't even know I've shot at you until you hear the sonic boom from the bullet whipping past your ear!". That’s right, past your ear.
Chuckles
Powers/Abilities: Undercover agent.
Why they shouldn't appear: Nothing quite says ‘stealthy, covert espionage’ like a loud Hawaiian shirt, does it? Couple that with a codename that feels more suited to a special guest at a children’s birthday party, and you get the impression that this soldier doesn’t quite take his work all too seriously. Imagine how many times he blew extensive military operations because he lost track of time while knocking back beers and play-wrestling with the other Joes.
Ice Cream Soldier
Powers/Abilities: Flamethrower commando.
Why they shouldn't appear: Where do we begin? Apparently the codename is intentionally stupid, designed to make his opponents underestimate him - which makes zero sense because no Cobra operative is going to see his giant flamethrower and think 'oh, it probably just shoots frozen dairy'.
And by that logic, why aren’t all Joes named in a similar way? Why isn’t Snake Eyes known as Monkey Nuts, or karate expert Quick Kick called Slow Slap? To be honest, it throws the whole naming convention into question.
