ACTION FORCE: REDUX

Action Force: Redux is an all-new weekly web-comic and monthly printed title. The web-comic launched here, on Thursday the 24th of February 2022, being both Blood For The Baron‘s 19th anniversary and GI Joe‘s 40th.

Action Force were original 1982 UK toys which had assorted re-coloured GI Joe and Cobra toys dotted amongst their ranks. Then in 1985 the Palitoy design team were suddenly laid off, meaning the Action Force range abruptly switched to 100% GI Joe toys (albeit with new stickers) as well as rebranded vehicles from the previous years’ range.

The ongoing comic Battle Action Force (which was itself a weekly anthology mix of World War 2 stories and Action Force promotional content) managed to rise above all this craziness and retcon a coherent story. World Enemy Number One saw Baron Ironblood betray his entire army of Red Shadows, only to reinvent himself as Cobra Commander.

However, even though the toys were no longer on the shelves, the Red Shadows refused to die. Time and again fan-favourites like the Black Major, Red Laser, Red Vulture, Z Force and the SAS returned to battle both Cobra and the new Joe-based Action Force. It’s a fascinating story which didn’t end there.

Action Force: Redux is set in and around the events of World Enemy Number One, written to both flesh-out the fall of the Red Shadows and to explore the unanswered questions for the original characters who were suddenly conscripted into the new order…