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There was a time when the most successful comic book coming from Marvel wasn't Avengers or X-Men, and it didn't even star Marvel characters; it was Hasbro toy tie-in G.I. Joe. In the early '80s, Marvel Comics and editor/writer/veteran Larry Hama essentially did a drastic reboot of the mid-century G.I. Joe based on Hama's own experiences as Vietnam veteran, a comics lover, someone proficient in several forms of martial arts, and someone with a killer sense of humor. Basing it on his Army buddies and everyone else in live, Hama's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero landed on comic shelves like an invading force and took over the minds of many kids - myself included, and it turns out, actor/writer Danny McBride as well.

"When I was a kid, some people were Star Wars people and some people were G.I. Joe people; I was always G.I. Joe. I loved G.I. Joe," McBride says in an interview with GQ's Caroline Reilly. "That world influenced me so much–when you’re a kid, G.I. Joe is about camaraderie, the idea of being with a bunch of people working for the greater good and even just the idea of finding your specialization."

"All the Joes don’t do the same shit. Some guys deal in computers, some guy fucking skis, some guy swims," says McBride, whose parents worked at Marin Corps Base Quantico as civilian support. "Everybody needs to find their place within the group and you need to come with the thing that no one else can do but you can do."

McBride did much the same, breaking into the film industry as a second-unit director before finding his niche as an actor. And while a young McBride broke into G.I. Joe with the toys, it was fellow actor/writer Larry Hama's G.I. Joe comics that thrilled him and taught him more than those PSAs at the end of th ecartoon.

"And when I was a kid, I liked G.I. Joe because they were toys, but the more I read about Larry Hama who wrote it—he was a Vietnam vet, and he created all of this lore for all these characters," says McBride. "Some of them were even inspired by guys he served with. It’s so intricate. There’s even stuff about PTSD—Snake Eyes is in a helicopter accident and gets burnt up and can’t speak and he’s the fucking most badass of all the G.I. Joes."

Larry Hama, shown here in the '80s, is also a badass.

"When I was a kid, I think most of the time I would spend countless hours setting up bases and scenarios of what was about to happen and I think the actual playing would be next to nothing," says the person who now tells stories in movies & TV. "And now as I’ve gotten older and revisited it, it’s like, there is some deep shit that’s going on with this stuff that Larry concocted. It really influenced what I thought life would be like when you grew up, that you would find people that are all committed to doing the same thing you’re doing. And maybe I’ve found that making movies and TV shows; you get onto a project and you’re surrounded by a bunch of people that are trying to do the same thing and everybody has their fucking department and everybody has their fucking thing that they're good at. So maybe I have manifested my own way into a G.I. Joe type existence, through making movies and TV shows."

McBride has grown from G.I. Joy toy fan to G.I. Joe comic fan to actor/writer/producer who may or may not be working on a G.I. Joe movie for Paramount, but one thing remains the same: Larry Hama is still writing G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics, with the series currently being published by Image Comics and Robert Kirkman's Skybound. 

Interested? Here's where to find your closest local comic store, courtesy of Sweet.