Commercial Break Monday Says: Embrace The Dark Side
Welp, time for another Commercial Break Monday, in which I attempt to wring a few strands of meaning from a print advert that’s been in a Marvel Comic at some stage. Today’s ad comes once again from the good folks at www.vgmuseum.com and features the endless War On Terror, back when it was a lot more fictional than it is now.
If you click on the link, you’ll notice immediately that this is an advert designed to take advantage of the comic format – crisp, clean comic art and a reasonably innovative design. Two simple variations on a theme, emphasising the choice the player gets to make between good and evil… wait hold on rewind.
The player gets to make a choice?
Between good and evil?
What the Christ?
Of course, Elite got there first, as I’ve mentioned. But the choice here is more stark and actually presented as the main selling point in the game. And this comic was not published in Japan. This advert is designed to be read left to right.
Evil gets first pick.
Parker Brothers know their market – like hundreds of game designers since, they know the appeal of being the bad guy. So we get the hooded, menacing Cobra, offering the reader THE WORLD ITSELF with a snake wrapped around it, like Satan offering Eve the apple. He’s pointing half at it, half at the reader, as though his finger is moving between the two – “THIS could be YOURS! Eh? Ehhhh?” Under the hood, his eyes have an expression belonging on a used-car salesman.
Now look to the right. I mean, Jesus Christ, what an uninspiring goon. He looks like he’s trying to pass a stool, and he’s been doing it for so long that he’s become bored of his own constipation. Even a ruptured anal fissure has long since lost its thrill for him. Who is he, anyway? GI Joe himself? I’m pretty sure by the 80’s it had become less a man and more an organisation, but that still doesn’t tell me who this buffoon is. My research tells me it’s someone called General Hawk, most likely, but… god, what a tedious little man. He’s unable to hold my interest and I’m 29, god knows what a hyperactive kid would think of him. Even his own ad copy has been spiked with seductive references to NEW DEPTHS of VILENESS and EVIL. Hisssss. Oh I’m sorry that just slipped out.
No doubt loads of american kids, their commie impulses just waiting to be legitimised by grunge music, bought this game just to get a taste of said seductive evil. Only when they got home did they realise that the only way to be the bad guy is to play in two player mode. (I was shocked too. Surely just a mistake in the research? GI Joe: Cobra Strike owners, please write and tell me of you intense disappointment.) So what happens in households with just one child in the family?
I’ll tell you – a growing boy is forced to battle his own father by means of a giant snake spitting white venom.
Oh, Oedipus!
