G. I. Joe in 3-D #2
G.I. Joe in 3-D #2 — titled 'The Final Frontier' — is a notable artifact of the Copper Age's brief but enthusiastic 3-D comics boom, placing the G.I. Joe property in an unusual interstellar setting at a time when the Marvel series kept the franchise resolutely earthbound. The story's central conceit — a forced truce between Cobra Commander and Hawk to mount a joint mission into orbit — offered readers a narrative inversion rarely attempted in licensed Joe comics of the era, leaning into the Defiant space shuttle playset that Hasbro had just released. As the second installment of Blackthorne's six-issue run (plus an annual), it helped establish the visual grammar of the series: black-and-white art converted to anaglyph 3-D, packaged with glasses, and sold through non-traditional retail channels like 7-Elevens and gift shops that the dominant Marvel run never reached.
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Blackthorne Publishing was founded in 1985 by Steve Schanes and Ann Fera, veterans of the defunct Pacific Comics, and built its business model around licensed 3-D comics sold to mass-market retailers outside the direct comics market. By 1987 — the precise year this issue appeared — the company had cancelled its color line to concentrate fully on its 3-D books and black-and-white licensed titles, making the G.I. Joe 3-D series a direct expression of that strategic pivot. Writer John Stephenson, who would later serve as Blackthorne's editor-in-chief, scripted the issue, with pencils by E.R. Cruz, inks by Adrian Moro, lettering by David Cody Weiss, and the 3-D conversion handled by The Flying Fritsches; the cover was produced by Cruz and Jay Oliver. The series carried the dual indicia of the G.I. Joe in 3-D title and the broader Blackthorne 3-D Series numbering, where this issue is also catalogued as Blackthorne 3-D Series #26.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'The Final Frontier'; cover-dated Winter 1987, published December 1987 by Blackthorne Publishing.
- Written by John Stephenson; pencils by E.R. Cruz; inks by Adrian Moro; letters by David Cody Weiss; 3-D conversion by The Flying Fritsches; cover by E.R. Cruz and Jay Oliver.
- The issue carries dual numbering: G.I. Joe in 3-D #2 and Blackthorne 3-D Series #26.
- Central plot: an unknown party hijacks a Cobra satellite and turns it against both Cobra and U.S. targets, forcing Cobra Commander and Hawk to form a temporary alliance and launch the Joe spacecraft Defiant into orbit to neutralize the threat.
- Featured characters include Hawk, Cobra Commander, Dial-Tone, Mainframe, Chuckles, Payload, Hardtop, and Slip-Stream — the last three being space-program specialists whose inclusion logically anchors the orbital mission to established Joe lore.
- Format: 32 pages, black-and-white art rendered in anaglyph (red/blue) 3-D; the issue originally shipped with 3-D glasses included.
- Part of a six-issue series (plus one annual) that ran from July 1987 through early 1989 — the entirety of Blackthorne's most commercially active period before distributor failures and the Moonwalker debacle ended the company.
- The Blackthorne G.I. Joe line was explicitly aimed at a younger and more casual audience than the concurrent Marvel series, and was distributed through non-comics retail venues such as Spencer Gifts and 7-Eleven stores.