G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is a 1989–1992 half-hour American animated television series based on the toyline from Hasbro and the comic book series from Marvel Comics. The series was produced by DIC Enterprises. Background The series debuted in 1989, with a five-part mini-series titled Operation: Dragonfire, where we see Cobra Commander being returned to human form. The regular series began in 1990, lasting for two seasons and 44 episodes. The series continued the original G.I. Joe animated series produced by Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions that ran in syndication from 1985 to 1986. In order to cut production costs for the original animated series, Hasbro dropped Sunbow and contracted DiC to continue the series. Story editor Buzz Dixon explained in an interview: "Hasbro had been funding G.I. Joe out of their own pocket; they got a ridiculous deal from DiC to take over the series and they pretty much let them." The DiC series is a continuation of the Sunbow show, though it chose to focus primarily on new characters of the period. Hawk was retained as G.I. Joe commander, and at times shared his duties with Sgt. Slaughter as head of the G.I. Joe team. Captain Grid-Iron was given field commander duties in Season 1, with Duke regaining his old position and appearing more often in Season 2. Storm Shadow was also now a member of G.I. Joe, as action figures of the character had been sold as a Joe rather than a Cobra since 1988, keeping in line with the story of the comics, where he had abandoned Cobra in 1986–87. The first season centered almost exclusively on the 1990 Joes; meanwhile, Cobra, having a less extensive cast, was augmented by select characters from 1989 and the yet-to-be-released 1991 figures. This new ensemble had a much wider variety of Cobra forces, with viewers being introduced to the Night Creepers and many different forms of Vipers. One of the more noticeable changes to Cobra is that Destro has returned now wearing a gold mask (instead of silver) and wears a uniform with a shoulder gauntlet. Arthur Burghardt did not return to reprise the Destro voice role, thus Destro's voice was one of several acted by Maurice LaMarche. The first season of the DiC series was mainly standalone episodes that focused on establishing new team members and plots. After the "Operation Dragonfire" miniseries, the DiC show lowered the