Men of Action

**GI Joe Headquarters,**

**PIT III, Utah**

**May, 1994**

Skymate was lounging in a chair in the briefing room when
the door opened and Hawk walked in followed by three other people. Skymate
stood and saluted

“At ease, Skymate.” Hawk waved to the other three. “This is
Skymate, formerly of the Australian SAS regiment. He was due to join Action
Force, but we managed to sign him for a temporary detachment to get our Air
Commando team stood up.”

The two men and one woman nodded politely.

“Skymate, allow me to introduce Super Trooper,” Hawk went
on, gesturing to a muscular dark hair man who looked like he should be playing
front row for a Rugby team to the Australian.

“Super Trooper’s the product of a secret advanced commando
training programme the Joes had running. We combined training from the SEALs,
Delta and ISA to train a squad of commandos who were capable of operating
independently on all kinds of clandestine and covert operations. Unfortunately,
the course was so tough it had a 97% failure rate before the final week. Of the
three final candidates, one died in a training flight with a Skystriker and the
other failed. The captain here is the sole graduate.”

Skymate looked him over; he certainly seemed like he’d know
how to handle himself in a fight.

Hawk turned his attention to the other two, as did Skymate.
The man had close-cropped black hair, a scar up his right cheek and was leaner
than Super Trooper, but looked like he worked out. The woman was equally trim,
with a blonde mullet hairstyle.

“Meet Agent Natalie Poole of British Intelligence and her
partner, code-name Action Man.”

Skymate frowned as he stared at them. “Hang about, I know
you! You’re that bloke off the extreme sports documentary on ESPN! You won the
Paris-Dakar Rally two years ago and I heard you won some martial arts contest
in China too!”

Action Man nodded. “That’s right. I also skydive, snowboard,
do biathlon and rock-climbing and scuba dive. I also ran the Marathon Des
Sables.”

“And you’re a British Intelligence agent?” Skymate asked
incredulously.

“Yes. Think about it; I’m airborne and frogman qualified, a
crack shot, I can drive vehicles in off-road environments and can move about in
many hostile environments and I’m trained in hand-to-hand combat.”

Skymate mulled that over. “Huh, good point.” He looked at
Natalie. “Aren’t you his girlfriend and trainer or something?”

She nodded, “That’s my public role, sparring partner and
frequent trainer and support team leader. I’m actually his partner on
operations.”

Skymate looked at Hawk, “So what do you need little old me
for?”

Hawk looked at Natalie. She pulled out a photograph.

“This is Wolfgang Greenholtz, an East German biochemist. He
was working on a biological weapon for the East Germans to be used in the event
of a Third World War against the West German government. Cutting edge stuff,
design to infect specific people only,” Natalie explained.

“Okay, sounds nasty.” Skymate looked at the photo.
Greenholtz was a grey haired, thin man with the look of a scientist who didn’t
get out much.

“Here’s the scary bit,” Natalie went on. “When the Berlin
Wall fell, he fled East Germany. MI6 had him on their radar as a person of
interest thanks to an agent in the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, so we
tried to find him. We finally located him last month, in South-east Asia.”

Action Man pulled out another photo and handed it to
Skymate. “Greenholtz has holed up in this fortress,” he explained. “Sitting on
a plateau surrounded by triple-canopy tropical rainforest with around two hundred
mercenaries protecting him.”

“The only open ground for miles is a hundred yard square
devoid of any cover smack-dab in front of the main gate. The plateau cliff is
impassable. We tried. Recon over-flights by a variety of small planes were
tracked by a radar unit located in the east tower. A night time fly-by was
tracked by a spotlight,” Natalie explained. “Visual recon confirms the presence
of a ZPU anti-aircraft gun. A helicopter assault is out of the question without
attack copter support. Which is impossible in the country he’s hiding out in,
which we believe is tacitly supporting him.”

“Parachute insertion is also out,” Action Man took up the
thread. “The only possible landing zone is the open ground in front of the
fort. Which invites becoming a target for the mounted machine-guns on the
walls. A ground assault would similarly be inadvisable unless undertaken by a
main battle tank.”

“Why don’t you just toss a couple of cruise missiles at the
place?” Skymate asked. “Your subs have got Tridents, right? Take off the
nuclear warhead and frag the place.”

Natalie shook her head. “Too risky. There’s a possibility
biological agents could be released into the eco-system in that kind of
attack.”

“So how do you plan to get in?” Skymate asked.

“That’s why we’ve come to you,” Action Man replied. “There
are very few people who know how to use hang-gliders in military operations.
You’re the best one we can find.”

Skymate smiled, “Thanks for buttering me up. I presume the
idea is to hang-glide into the central courtyard of the fort? That’s certainly
possible. Minimal radar profile in the gliders means you’d be barely visible to
their radar. Do it at night, increases the risk, but also makes it harder to
spot you visually. Especially with black gliders and gear. Silent, so you
wouldn’t be heard coming.”

He fell silent as he mulled it over. “You want me to teach
you?”

“Not exactly. We want you to lead the insertion and then
back us three up in the assault.” Action Man considered his next comment. “I’ll
be honest, we spoke to Space Force, they’ve got this jetpack squad they’ve been
developing, but they think it’s impossible, so we’re counting on you to do this
with the gliders.”

Skymate glanced at Super Trooper; he didn’t look convinced.
He looked at Hawk who seemed completely uninterested.

“Okay, it’s going to take a few weeks to train you to fly
the gliders, though. At least two just for the basics of launching, flying and
landing.”

“The basics are all we need,” Natalie said.

“What’s the plan for extraction?” Skymate asked.

“We’ve got two options there,” Action Man replied. “Either
extraction via helicopter once we’ve taken out the ZPU or we blow the wall out
and abseil down the cliff.”

Skymate snorted. “Whilst hoping the mercs this guy’s got
don’t cut the ropes? I’d suggest helicopter extraction. What are you using to
launch?”

“A Hercules.”

“A Herc? Oh, well that makes it harder. See most
hang-gliders have a wingspan of over fifteen feet. That’s going to be real hard
to fit in a Hercules,” Skymate looked pensive.

“Are you saying it won’t be possible?” Natalie asked.

Skymate grunted, “Using the jet-packs might be easier.
Although, I do know of some guys working on something else that might be
useable. Actually, I can think of a couple ideas. I know some guys working on
jumpsuits with wings between the torso and arms and between the legs, which
allow you to glide after jumping from an aircraft. I don’t think they’re
workable at the moment. The other idea is called a wing-pack. It’s basically a
backpack with three-foot wide wings attached. The guys I know have at least two
working examples.”

“Would we be able to get use of them?” Natalie asked.

“Not bloody likely,” Skymate said. “Unless you want to go to
the bother of retrieving them.” He shook his head, “No, our best bet is to see
if we can create our own.”

“What will you need?” Hawk asked.

“Lightweight material for the wings, harnesses to attach
them to the jumpsuits and standard HALO gear. We’ll have to parachute the last
few feet.”

“I’ll get started on getting the gear together,” Hawk said,
before leaving.

**Two weeks later**

**Over Utah**

The C-130 flew through the air in a lazy turn. Slipstream
was flying with Wild Bill in the co-pilot’s seat for this final daytime
exercise. The blue sky and sunshine made it an excellent day to go flying.

In the rear of the Hercules, the four commandos were
standing ready to jump. Drop Zone from the Sky Patrol team was acting as the
jumpmaster. The four team-members wore matte black jumpsuits, boots, helmets
and gloves. Similarly coloured body-armour, shin, knee and elbow pads were worn
over the jumpsuits. Strapped to their backs were the lightweight carbon-fibre
composite wing-packs. They were seven feet wide, hanging from just below the
neck to just below the buttocks. Attached to the wing-packs were the team’s
low-altitude opening parachutes. The wing-packs were attached to the team’s
webbing gear with quick-release catches to allow them to be removed easily.

Skymate was the only one of the four not carrying a Heckler &
Koch MP5K submachine gun. Instead, he had a bow strapped to his chest, along
with four arrows in a quiver attached to the bow. He also carried a black
boomerang on his right hip and a Browning Hi-power pistol on his right thigh.
The other three had their MP5Ks strapped to their chests. Whilst Action Man and
Natalie both carried the Hi-power in holsters on their right hip, Super Trooper
carried a Colt M1911 pistol instead.

Drop Zone suddenly turned his head toward the cockpit, his
hand to the headset he wore, then he turned back to the commandos and raised a
single finger, bellowing “One minute!”

The red light came on next to the lowered rear ramp. The
commandos moved forward. Then the red light flicked off and the green light
came on. The team walked off the ramp.

The commandos had dropped out of the plane over two miles
from their target, a square marked out in the desert sands, which represented
the compound. Their glide ratio meant that for every foot they descended, they
travelled sixty-five feet horizontally.

Action Man glanced left and right. Natalie was on his left,
Super Trooper to his right. Skymate had the lead.

The four of them powered through the sky at speeds of over a
hundred miles an hour, slowly losing altitude as they glided silently across
the desert.

Finally, they deployed their parachutes as they reached the
point where they need to and drifted in to land inside the target.

The four commandos pulled off their oxygen masks and
wing-packs.

“Looks like we’re nearly ready,” Super Trooper commented.

“Looks like.” Skymate nodded as he bundled up his parachute.
“We’ll see how the night jumps go.”

**Two days later**

**Somewhere in South-east Asia**

The Hercules had penetrated hostile airspace two hours
earlier, flying high over the rainforest. They were now approaching the jump
point.

The same crew were aboard the C-130 as the ramp whined down
and the red light came on at one minute to jump.

The team moved forward toward the ramp.

After the night jumps, the team had made a few modifications
to their gear. Super Trooper was now carrying four frag grenades in his web
gear, whilst Action Man and Natalie both carried two frags and two flash-bangs.
The latter pair had also made a minor change to both their wing-packs and their
jumpsuits. Whilst Skymate and Super Trooper wore no markings on their clothing
or gear, the two British agents wore a small circular patch on their upper
arms; it displayed a logo they had painted on the upper right side of their
wing-packs. The logo was a stylised A and M joined together, the A coloured
orange, the M black, with the A on a black background and the M on grey.

Skymate rolled his eyes behind his goggles as he remembered
how they’d insisted on adding the logo.

The green light came on and the thought went from Skymate’s
mind as he walked forward and stepped off the ramp.

Blackness surrounded them; it was an overcast night, no moon
or stars to make them visible as they flew across the sky.

The carbon fibre wing pack was radar transparent. Their own
bodies would not reflect enough radar energy back to give a return that would
show up.

Action Man’s heart pounded in his chest as he flew across
the night sky, feeling more exhilarated than even a normal skydive made him
feel. This was like being a superhero and he loved it. Unheard by anyone else,
he let out a scream of delight.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Their altitude dropped as they sped across the rainforest,
their target invisible.

As they finally began to get closer, the plateau and the
fortress atop it loomed out of the night.

Skymate popped his chute, the others following suit.

They drifted down, silently crossing the fort’s walls,
passing over the guards unseen.

The four commandos landed in the courtyard of the fortress,
quickly dropping their wing-packs and pulling off their oxygen masks and
unstrapping their weapons.

Skymate pulled out and arrow and quickly nocked it, took aim
and let fly, hitting the sentry in one of the guard towers.  In seconds, he pulled out another, pivoted
around and fired, dropping the next guard. The sentries in the four towers were
dead before they knew what had hit them.

The commandos moved toward the ZPU in the centre of the
courtyard, Skymate pulled out his boomerang and threw it, hitting one of the
soldiers standing with his back to the commandos, as his partner turned,
Skymate shot him with an arrow.

Super Trooper pulled a small C4 demolitions pack from his
web gear, not large enough to completely destroy the anti-air gun, but big
enough to render the controls unusable. As he set the charge, Natalie looked at
Skymate who was picking up his boomerang and the arrow.

“I thought boomerangs came back,” she said.

Skymate gave her an exasperated look. “Not when they hit
someone in the bloody head they don’t,” he replied.

“Charge set,” Super Trooper said. “Let’s move.”

The commandos charged across the courtyard to the nearest
building, which had a number of radio antennae next to it.

Skymate opened the door and walked in, one soldier sat at
the radios. He started to turn, but the Australian threw his boomerang, hitting
him in the face. The soldier fell off his chair. Natalie set another
demolitions charge on the radios.

“What’s that thing made of any way?” Action Man asked,
looking interested.

“Wood,” Skymate replied. “Hurts to get hit by it, believe
me. Hit someone right and you can knock the bugger right out.”

“Next stop, the armoury,” Super Trooper said.

They moved out of the radio room, crossing the courtyard
unseen by the guards roaming the parapets above.

The armoury was locked and unguarded. Here Super Trooper set
a C4 charge with a tripwire on the doorway, so that anyone opening the door
would get a rude surprise.

Finally, the commandos moved toward the largest building in
the fortress, a four-storey block at the rear of the courtyard.

No sentries were on the door. The door opened at Skymate’s
twist of the door handle.

“Which way?” he whispered as he looked around. There was a
staircase leading up to the next floor on the left, whilst a doorway and steps
led down off to the right.

“Basement,” Action Man said. “He’s likely to be in the lab
and that’s likely to be down there.”

“At this time of night?” asked Skymate, glancing at his
wristwatch. It was nearing midnight, local time.

“Sure, he’s an obsessive scientist, bound to work late.

The quartet headed down the stairs, finding themselves in a
small reception area in the basement.

A security guard was dozing at the desk. Action Man pulled
out his combat knife moved over and quickly and silently killed the guard.

Skymate slung his bow across his back and drew his sidearm.
The other three had their submachine guns up and ready.

The door to the lab was sealed by a cipher-lock. A 10-digit
keypad sat beneath the knob that opened the door.

Natalie and Action Man exchanged looks as Skymate nervously
watched the stairs, his pistol aimed squarely at the doorway.

After a few seconds, Action Man punched a four digit number
into the pad. There was a click and he twisted the knob, opening the door.

“How did you know the code?” whispered Super Trooper.

“I didn’t, I guessed it, based on the date of birth of
Greenholtz’s wife. 7-2-44. February 7th, 1944,” Action Man replied.

The commandos moved into the laboratory. The place was
crowded with scientific equipment, much of it beyond the soldiers’ ability to
understand.

Greenholtz was coming around a desk with a piece of
equipment on it as Super Trooper rounded a large refrigerator.

Greenholtz froze at the sight of the commando with his MP5K
raised and aimed at him.

“Oh, no, you’re from those clowns in the green outfits
aren’t you?” Greenholtz asked as Skymate and Natalie split up and moved to
flank him.

“What clowns in green outfits?” Super Trooper asked, keeping
the gun trained on the scientist.

“The group who split off from Cobra, the Coil or whatever
they’re called. I turned Cobra down two years ago, I’m certainly not interested
in working for some idiot who ran off and formed his own group from them,”
Greenholtz replied.

“Don’t know who they are, mate,” Skymate said as he
approached Greenholtz from the left.

The scientist flinched at his voice, turning to see him.

“Natalie, you got him covered?” asked Super Trooper as
Action Man moved up next to him.

“He’s covered,” she replied from the right side. Again he
flinched and turned toward her.

Super Trooper lowered his gun and took a C4 charge from his
webbing gear.

“Right, where shall I start?” he asked.

Unable to help himself, Greenholtz flinched and his eyes
darted to a large fridge with a clear door on the front and numerous shelves
with a variety of containers inside.

“That looks like the place,” the American said, moving to
the fridge

“Who are you people?!” the scientist demanded.

“Take a guess,” Action Man answered. Greenholtz looked from
him to Skymate and then to Super Trooper who had placed a C4 charge in the
fridge and was now looking at a table with racks of test tubes, centrifuges and
other equipment on it.

“You and the woman are British,” Greenholtz observed. “The one
with pistol is obviously Australian with that accent and your friend with the
bombs is American. That must mean Action Force. They may have thwarted the Red
Shadows but my employer will not be so easy to defeat.”

“Maybe, but we’re not from AF,” Action Man answered. “I’m
with British Intelligence, as is Natalie. The other two are Joes.”

“Joes?” Greenholtz frowned. “Oh, the American group who have
been chasing Cobra all these years?” He snorted. “You still won’t stop my
employer.”

“Who is your employer, any way?” Natalie asked. “I find it
hard to believe the Socialist Republic here are behind your work.”

“No, you are correct, mein fraulein. My hosts are not my
employers, despite their allowing my presence and building this place. The lab
equipment and the mercenaries have been provided by others. My hosts only
supplied the weapons for the soldiers.” Greenholtz turned his attention back to
Action Man. “By the way, how is Templeton Storm?”

Action Man and Natalie both frowned.

“You are the ones who destroyed his storm generators are you
not?” Greenholtz asked.

“You work for his backer as well, do you?” Action Man asked.
“Good, you can catch up when we throw your ass in jail.”

Keeping his eyes on Greenholtz, Action Man spoke to Natalie,
“Find any documents, computer discs and tapes you can, grab it all. We need to
see what he’s been up to and if it leads any where.”

Natalie lowered her MP5K and nodded. She moved off as Action
Man and Skymate kept their guns on Greenholtz.

Somewhere above them, alarms began to sound. Greenholtz
looked up at the noise. The commandos didn’t.

“They must have found the dead sentries,” Skymate commented.

“Oi, Trooper! Are the charges on the Zed-Pee-You and the
radios on the same detonators as these?” Action Man called out.

“No,” Super Trooper replied. “Natalie has the detonator for
those.”

“Nat, love, blow ‘em!”

There was an audible click before two explosions sounded in
the distance. A third followed shortly after.

“They must have found the tripwire,” Super Trooper commented
calmly as he finished setting the last of his charges next to an expensive
electron microscope.

“Skymate, check the door,” Action Man ordered.

The Australian hurried off.

“You won’t get out of here, you know,” Greenholtz said. “My
employer hired the best mercenaries around. Former VDV Spetsnaz.”

Action Man grinned. “I eat VDV for breakfast and right now,
I’m hungry.”

Natalie reappeared, a bag slung across her shoulder.

Automatic gunfire sounded outside the lab causing Greenholtz
to flinch. There were several pistol shots in return.

“I grabbed every piece of paperwork I could find that had
notes on it,” Natalie said. “Plus a load of floppy discs, CD-ROMs and a bunch
of tapes he’d recorded stuff on.”

“Good.” Action Man was still fixed on Greenholtz. “Hey,
Trooper, time to go, you ready?”

Super Trooper reappeared next to Greenholtz. “Ready to rock,
man.”

Before the scientist could react, Super Trooper grabbed his
right arm and forced it up behind his back, snapping handcuffs onto his wrist.
He then grabbed the German’s left arm and followed suit. Greenholtz groaned
loudly, clearly in pain as his arms were cuffed behind him.

“Skymate, how we doing?” Action Man called as he finally
lowered his weapon as Super Trooper grabbed Greenholtz’s collar.

“About eight mercs out here,” Skymate hollered back. “There
were ten. They’ve got AKs and a bad attitude.”

Action Man steered Greenholtz forward, Super Trooper close
behind them.

“Natalie, call in the chopper, would you?” Action Man said
as he led Greenholtz to the lab door.

She nodded, even though her partner couldn’t see her and
pulled out her radio.

At the door to the lab, Action Man halted. Skymate was
leaning against the left side of the doorframe.

“Attention!” Action Man shouted in Russian. “We have
Greenholtz, do not fire unless you wish to kill him!”

There was a hushed conversation Action Man couldn’t hear. He
shoved Greenholtz forward, out the door. Following close behind, Action Man
kept his gun at Greenholtz’s neck, as he looked around. The mercenaries had
their guns aimed at him and the others as they followed the scientist out of
the lab.

The commandos and their prisoner made their way up the
stairs to the buildings lobby, where more mercenaries were standing, weapons
aimed at the commandos.

“ETA on the chopper?” Action Man asked Natalie as they
crossed the lobby.

“Five minutes.”

“Gonna be a long five minutes,” Super Trooper commented.

The mercenaries kept their guns trained on the commandos as
they moved out the door into the courtyard, Greenholtz still leading the way.

“Trooper, on my signal, blow the charges,” Action Man
ordered.

“What signal?” Super Trooper asked.

“You’ll know.”

Action Man led Greenholtz across the courtyard to where a
Russian UAZ jeep sat. Natalie pulled the rear door open, allowing Action Man to
shove Greenholtz in before Skymate climbed in the other side. Super Trooper
looked around the courtyard as Action Man took the driver’s seat.

One hundred and fifty mercenaries surrounded the jeep. The
ZPU anti-aircraft gun was still smoking from the demolitions charge. The
armoury and radio room were both on fire.

“Nice place you got here,” Super Trooper said before sliding
into the jeep’s last seat.

“Mark,” Action Man said.

Super Trooper hit the detonator, destroying most of the
underground lab.

Predictably, several of the mercenaries turned at the
explosions.

Equally predictably, some didn’t. Action Man already had the
engine running and he took off the brake and sped out of the compound.

The jeep raced toward the gate and then skidded to a halt.

The gates were metal.

They were also locked.

Action Man cursed. The mercenaries opened fire. The jeep was
hit by several rounds, but Natalie and Super Trooper began to return fire from
their windows.

“Now what, genius?” Natalie asked as she fired off another
burst.

“This!” Action Man answered, pulling his two frag grenades
from his web gear, before pulling the pins and hurling them out the driver’s
window at the gates.

Both grenades detonated as they hit the gates, right next to
the metal lock.

“Keep firing!” Action Man hollered as he gunned the engine
and smashed the jeep into the gates, shoving them apart with the UAZ.

The UAZ roared out of the fortress as bullets pinged off the
gates and some struck the jeep.

Skymate had kept his cool through the momentary crisis with
his gun still jammed in Greenholtz’s side.

Action Man’s radio crackled.

“*Alpha Team, this is Tomahawk 2-2, approaching LZ. Pop flares and advise temperature of LZ*.”

“2-2 this is Alpha, LZ is hot, repeat, LZ is hot. Request
strafing run across the front of the fortress gates, east-west axis. Will pop
flares once we’re clear of firing line. We’re mobile in a UAZ away from the
fort,” Action Man answered.

“*Solid copy, Alpha, stand by.”*

The heavy thunder of the twin rotors beat the air as the
heavy-lift helicopter flew over the jeep, before its 20mm rotary machine gun
roared, spraying rounds across the front of the fortress. The Tomahawk’s gun
roared a second time, as it flew parallel to the walls, hosing the mercenaries
too stupid to run for cover.

Action Man brought the jeep to a halt at the edge of the
clearing. The Tomahawk looped around as he pulled a flare from his webbing and
lit it, holding it in his right hand.

The Tomahawk touched down next to the UAZ.

Skymate and Super Trooper hurried over to the helicopter as
Natalie dragged Greenholtz from the jeep.

Action Man and Natalie manhandled Greenholtz into the
helicopter and Major Altitude, who was flying as co-pilot,saw Natalie’s
signal and spoke to Lift-Ticket.

“Clear to take-off.”

“Roger, lifting.”

The twin-rotor helicopter lifted off and turned to head back
across the fortress on its way back to the border.

“Hey, you guys carrying any bombs?” Super Trooper asked on
the interphone, after grabbing a headset.

“Yes, standard load,” Major Altitude replied.

“Do us a favour and drop them on that fortress, eh?” Action
Man cut in as he put a headset on as well.

“Roger that,” Lift-Ticket replied. “It’ll help us get across
the border if we’re not hauling that weight.”

Major Altitude hit the ‘pickle’ switch that released the
bombs as the Tomahawk crossed over the fortress. The bombs struck the main
building as well as the ZPU and the still-burning radio room, destroying them.

The Tomahawk flew on.

**PIT III, Utah**

**The next day**

Action Man and Natalie shook hands with Hawk.

“Thanks for the help, General,” Action Man said. “You’ve got
a couple of good guys there.”

Hawk nodded. “Thanks for the intel you shared about The
Coil, we’ve developed some of our own after a recent operation. We’ll share it
with British Intelligence and Action Force once we’ve collated it. Thanks for
the information on Greenholtz and his employer as well.”

“No problem,” Natalie replied.

In another part of the PIT, Super Trooper was trying not to
laugh as Skymate was being harangued by Cloudburst.

“I seriously can’t believe you went on an op and left me
out!” Cloudburst complained.

“I’m sorry,” Skymate replied.

“I mean, come on! We spent all this time training with the
hang-gliders, we finally get a mission to use them and I get left behind!”

“Mate, seriously, I didn’t get a lot of choice in it. They
picked me to help them out and I spent my time worrying about it working. It’s
not really my fault you were on leave until we were getting ready to deploy.”

Cloudburst sulked in silence.

“God, you’re like a little kid,” Skymate commented. “Next
time, YOU go and I’ll stay here.”

Super Trooper finally cracked up.

## Notes

The idea for this story came about because I was
getting near to completing my ARAH GI Joe collection, and was thinking about
the few other figures I’d like to get, two of whom are Skymate and the con
exclusive Natalie Poole figure, and how if I got them, they’d be in my GI Joe
Commando Ops team, with Super Trooper and Action Man. I started kicking around
ideas for a story of those four characters and this was the result. I had
previously dismissed the idea of using Action Man in the combined verse, having
written an AM fan-fic trilogy before I started the Combined Verse. I dunno why,
but I felt that I didn’t want him in AF and I didn’t want another team,
separate to AF, running around Europe. I therefore opted instead to make AM a
kind of extreme sports James Bond, or if you prefer, a British version of xXx.
The villain is based on the AM villain ‘Professor Gangrene’, with a shout-out
to AM villain Tempest thrown in. The reference to The Coil trying to get the
bio-weapon was a way of tying it to the story arc of The Coil. The logo Natalie
and Action Man have on their wing-packs and suits is, of course, the logo from
the Action Man toy-line from the ‘90s that this version of him is based on.
Skymate carrying a longbow and a boomerang is a nod toward his figure’s
accessories. The death of one of the Super Trooper candidates in a Skystriker
flight is a reference to the Marvel UK ‘Action Force Monthly’ story starring
Super Trooper. The reference by Greenholtz to Templeton Storm is a nod to the
AM villain known as Tempest.