In early 2011 Lanny Lathem, then Director of Creative Services at Fun Publications, mentioned he had the idea to work in a single page Adventure Team comic to the G.I. Joe Collector's Club Magazine. His inspiration had been DC's recent Wednesday Comic's event, a run of one page serialized adventures featuring both high profile, and more obscure characters, served up by a wide range of comic creators.
We agreed that The Adventure Team was largely untrodden ground for storytelling, and discovered that, In addition to both being to being major Batman fans, we shared an appreciation for the Challengers of the Unknown, Jack Kirby’s lesser-known foursome of adventurers. I immediately set about convincing Lanny a) he should let me write the feature and b) one page was not enough. Eventually, I won on both counts.
After we looked at several artists whose styles did not seem suited for a retro 1970's adventure tale Brian Savage suggested Rod Whigham, whom I'd shared a show table with the year the Regular Joes book was published. I'd had a great time talking with Rod and had enjoyed his work on The Shadow Strikes and Doc Savage titles in the 1980’s. We knew when we saw the pencils for A Day in the Life, our first installment, he'd nailed it.
With the help of Lanny, Rod, Jake Isenberg (Inker), Jesse Wittenrich (Colorist and Letter) we ultimately produced sixty episodes that I am very proud of.
As a kid the G.I. Joe Adventure Team figures, vehicles and sets were the best toys I could have imagined. As adults we are expected, at some point anyway, to put away our toys. I am forever grateful to Lanny, Brian and the rest of my collaborators for letting me take them out and play with them all over again.
- Tod Pleasant, November 2019
Volume II: Down below
Volume III: the Adventures Of
Volume IV: ShaTtered Glass
Volume V: The last round
A few notes about the Archives:
I have divided the episodes up into more-or-less logical volumes. Other than the serialized stories the episodes don't take place in any particular order.
The files are big and at a very high resolution. They may load very slowly, but It is important you are able to fully appreciate the artwork. Please do not download and republish these pages.
All images Copywrite © Fun Publications & Tod Pleasant 2019