When it comes to ruthless terrorist organizations determined to rule the world, they don’t make them better than Cobra. With diabolical plots and wickedly advanced weaponry, they’ve managed to come a snake’s tail away from achieving their goal, if not for the heroic efforts of the G.I. Joe team.
However, like their blue-laser-shooting soldiers, Cobra has often missed their mark, coming up with plots so ridiculous it would take a man with a name like Mindbender to have thought them up. From the secret files of G.I. Joe, here are Cobra's five best world-domination plans as well as the silliest.
10 BEST: Pyramid of Darkness
One of Cobra’s more inspired bids for world domination involved enveloping most of the planet in an electrical dampening field. Through the activation of their “pyramid of darkness,” Cobra was able to effectively nullify most of the developed world’s capability to use any technology and machinery.
It seems far-fetched, but not completely outside the realm of possibility- if a solar storm such as the one that hit earth in 1859 did so today, modern civilization would grind to a halt. Unfortunately for Cobra, the timely intervention of the G.I. Joe team ended their plan decisively.
9 SILLY: Ghost Army
If you’re a paramilitary organization with aspirations of world domination and your strategy includes summoning ghosts to fight your battles for you, you know your group has probably seen better days. In "The Phantom Brigade," Cobra Commander did just that, using an old gypsy to conjure up a Roman centurion, a Mongolian warrior and an American World War I pilot to fight for Cobra.
Rationalizing that dead soldiers needed no rest and were unafraid of death, the ghosts did pretty well against the Joes until a surge of patriotism and some well-placed burials put an end to one of Cobra’s most bizarre schemes ever.
8 BEST: Oil Drain
It’s clear that Cobra understands exactly how the world works because one of their most ingenious plots involved taking control of the entire planet’s energy resources, particularly oil tankers. In “Cobra Stops the World” Cobra Commander made excellent use of Destro’s new cloaking device to hide the tankers from any detection equipment the G.I. Joes had until a fortuitous intervention by Duke and Ace revealed Cobra’s hidden base.
Once found, the Joes made short work of the cloaking device and freed the tankers, but it was an intelligent and well-played effort on Cobra’s part.
7 SILLY: Jurassic Plot
Taking the zoological class of his organization a tad too seriously or perhaps channeling Michael Crichton’s unconscious imagination, Cobra Commander came up with a pretty ridiculous plot of using dinosaurs to take over the world in the episode "Primordial Plot."
Sending Wild Weasel on a quest to get some dino-DNA from a fossil, even Destro questioned the sanity of expending so much effort and resources to clone animals that the G.I. Joe’s lasers and advanced weaponry could easily make extinct again. To say nothing of the unwritten rule of cloning animals; they’ll eventually run amok and turn on their creators!
6 BEST: Serpentor
Years before Dolly the sheep made international headlines or the Scarlet Spider showed up to ruin the ‘90s for Spider-Man, Cobra tried their hand at cloning with Serpentor.
Fed up with Cobra Commander’s ineptitude, Dr. Mindbender spearheaded a campaign to clone a new leader from history’s greatest conquerors. Although the end result didn’t go quite as planned, Serpentor did manage to conquer Washington DC for a time and came close to world domination on several occasions. In retrospect, Mindbender might have been better off trying to develop a super-solider serum for an army of meta-human warriors.
5 SILLY: Cobrathon
On the surface, developing a computer virus to wipe out international law enforcement agencies’ records seems lofty and shrewdly innovative. However, Cobra’s method of funding the research needed to develop such a technology left a lot to be desired. Upon closer inspection, a telethon seems like a particularly ridiculous idea, considering that the organization can simply get its funding through nefarious means like theft, racketeering or simple intimidation.
With a set-up rivaling Jerry Lewis, the Cobrathon sported a sleek and sexy Baroness, inane ways to eliminate G.I. Joe captors and a shtick-spouting, cummerbund-wearing Destro- definitely not Cobra’s finest hour.
4 BEST: The Weather Dominator
In some ways, the writers of the G.I. Joe Sunbow series were somewhat able to predict the future, at least in terms of popular science fiction trends like cloning.
In one instance, writers envisioned the effects of weather gone mad on the population of the planet, albeit from a weaponized invention rather than climate change brought on by human greed and neglect. In The Revenge of Cobra, Destro’s Weather Dominator allowed Cobra the power to wreak havoc on the Earth and brought G.I. Joe to its knees in its own nation’s capital. Pushed to the wire right till the last minute, the Joes were lucky Cobra managed to bungle this one in the eleventh hour.
3 SILLY: Spore-d
G.I. Joe: The Movie was divisive amongst fans of the series, as the introduction of Cobra-La as the progenitor of the series’ terrorist organization was not warmly received. Adding to the displeasure was the questionable nature of the villains’ plan: to mutate the entire human race into mindless beasts and take over the planet. Provided they succeeded and humanity transformed, how would Golobulus and his denizens have contended with 7 billion ravenous monsters in their quest to reclaim the earth?
Already a smaller society in number, it seems this plan wasn’t thought all the way through, as they all could have conceivably been torn apart by a planet full of violent, mindless abominations.
2 BEST: Synthoids
In warfare, having undercover sleeper agents working on the opposing force would advance your cause considerably. This tactic was not lost on Cobra, who made use of Zartan and the Baroness' unique talent for espionage for years before developing the ultimate spies: synthoids. Artificial biological entities, Cobra used synthoids to replace most of G.I. Joe's top brass, as well as in a plot to get Shipwreck to divulge some scientific secrets.
Almost completely indiscernible from their real-life counterparts, synthoids would be extremely effective in replacing key military and political figures and advancing Cobra's agenda, were it not for the Joes' efficacy in identifying and stopping them.
1 SILLY: Man on the Moon
If you're a terrorist organization with aspirations for world domination, what would you do if you got your hands on a revolutionary high-powered laser cannon? Use it carve your leader's face into the surface of the moon, of course!
In a truly baffling case of buffoonery, Cobra Commander expended time, manpower and resources to achieve this, to the extreme consternation of Destro, who publicly berated the Commander for undertaking such a ridiculous endeavor. His rationale? Seeing his face on the moon every night would remind the world of Cobra's supremacy. How that translates to victory in world domination is anyone's guess...