Beginning September 15, 1986, the five-part "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!" kicked off the second season of Sunbow Productions's G.I. Joe. Multi-episode arcs of cartoons were fairly rare at the time, with DuckTales' own five-episode debut not airing for nearly a year to the day from G.I. Joe's miniseries.
The plot (by writers Buzz Dixon and Ron Friedman) revolves around Dr. Mindbender directing Cobra to obtain the DNA of famous conquerors of history so he can splice them together into one super-leader to replace Cobra Commander. The Joes try to thwart this plot, but are ineffective. Mindbender succeeds in creating the ultimate dictator, Serpentor, an impressive emperor type that was, as expected, a way to sell more toys.
My personal story: I was 6 when this aired, and it absolutely blew my mind. I can trace my love of history and archaeology to the first three episodes of this miniseries, where Cobra raids archaeological sites to steal the DNA of real-life historic monsters with names like "Ivan the Terrible" and "Dracula." I remember heading to Mary Meuser Memorial Library in my hometown of Easton, PA, looking up Genghis Khan, and being floored that the encyclopedia would have a picture of him. These episodes stayed in my head more than any other G.I. Joe episode.
But as we get older — and I get more and more steeped in ancient history — I figured it was time to re-examine "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!" I'm happy to say that it still holds up really, really well. The plot and dialogue are excellent and the voice acting is superb. They even got the real-life Sgt. Slaughter to voice his animated counterpart! But does the history that it cites stand up to the face of modern scholarship? Let's go ruler by ruler and see how well G.I. Joe did with real-world facts.
Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV Vasilyevich) (1530-1584)
Ivan the Terrible was the first Tsar of Russia, a hero to many even to this day, who led through a combination of loyalty, fear, and respect. The Joes link up with Russia's Oktober Guard to fight off a pack of Snow Serpents in a swirling blizzard in what is clearly spoken of as Siberia.
Unlike how Sunbow depicted it, Ivan the Terrible's tomb is not in the woods surrounded by ridges of Siberian snow. It's in Moscow, in the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel … in the middle of the Kremlin. It's surrounded by buildings, and while the episode looks to show distant rooftops, in reality it's a pretty nice, well-tended urban area. When the episode shows G.I. Joe tanks charging up to the cathedral in the snow, in reality they'd be tearing through the beautiful park that sits to the north. There is no drawbridge or ice moat, it's not up on a platform, it's just a nice church.
The episode:
The reality:
As the second episode of the arc starts and the Joes start to realize Cobra's plans to burgle ancient tombs, Beachhead remarks that anything in these tombs must have been taken from them years ago. That's not the case with two of the tombs in the real world, and Ivan's is one. He's still there to this day. His tomb in Moscow is a simple stone box, rather than the ornate, isolated, bejeweled production that apparently exists in some sort of Disney-esque ice cave in the episode. When the Snow Serpent opens the tomb to obtain the DNA, the first Tsar's body lies completely uncorrupted, which is weird since he died nearly 300 years before in 1584. This might be a nod to the embalmed body of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, displayed to this day in Red Square, Moscow.
The episode:
The reality:
Montezuma (Moctezuma II) (1466-1520)
Montezuma was the leader of the Aztec empire in Mexico from 1503 to 1520. He expanded the empire to its largest size, but he and the empire were both struck down by the arrival of Spanish colonizer Hernán Cortés. In the episode, the Dreadnoks sneak into a jungle pyramid that G.I. Joe is guarding. While the battle happens outside, Zartan and Monkeywrench break into the lower levels of the pyramid and succeed in stealing the DNA from the corpse of Montezuma.
Montezuma's tomb was not in the jungles of the Yucatan, as the episode shows. According to history, the Aztec ruler was cremated and the ashes buried in Tenochtitlan, which is modern day Mexico City. To date, no grave or tomb has been identified as his, and although his palace has been successfully excavated, his remains certainly aren't in the jungle. I suspect that Sunbow just wanted a jungle episode.
One of the elements of the Montezuma scene that stuck out to 6-year-old me was the Joes identifying a large pool of water at the top of the pyramid as the "Aztec pool of death".
As cool a phrase as that is, there is no "Aztec pool of death." It wasn't a thing. It was made up for the episode.
Also, Aztec temples didn't have doors like we know them. Aztec houses didn't either; they wanted the air to blow through their spaces to keep things cool. So while it gives some good comedy for Zartan and Monkeywrench to open a European-style door and find a mess of spiders, it's not historically accurate.
The Dreadnoks and the Joes fight their way to Montezuma's corpse, sitting on a throne within the pyramid. This is another historical inaccuracy: Aztecs were either cremated (Montezuma certainly was) or buried in a fetal position in the ground. They were not propped up on chair for all eternity — but it does look cool.
Xanuth Toth-Amon (???-???)
The supposed Egyptian general Xanoth Toth-Amon is not a real historical person, but he could possibly be linked to Thoth-Amon, a sorcerer in the Conan the Barbarian stories "The God in the Bowl" and "The Phoenix on the Sword." Conan and Thoth-Amon do not meet in these stories, but later writers resurrected him as Conan's chief enemy in novels and comic books. Again, Sunbow probably just wanted to show off desert combat in Egypt, so they invented an Egyptian military leader. Zarana sends the Joes running across the desert chasing their tails as part of a ruse while she navigates numerous Indiana Jones-style traps within the tomb. As part of her escape, she blows up a dam and floods the desert.
If there was a Xanuth Toth-Amon, he might well have been buried in the Valley of the Kings as Dr. Mindbender claims. There were many non-royals interred there, including priests and court attendants. And the Hatshepsut Temple from the Valley of the Kings is more or less accurately represented in the background of one shot.
The episode:
The reality:
Booby trapped Egyptian tombs were real, but not common. There were occasionally blocks installed to prevent entry, but nothing that would trigger, like, blow darts or the collapsing ceiling like in the episode.
Deterrents were more mystical in nature, with curses written on tombs to ward off intruders. However, in 2001, controversial Egyptologist Zahi Hawass was excavating the Bahariya Oasis tomb and encountered a booby trap of 8 inches of standing hematite powder, a sharp metallic dust that leads to death after inhalation.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
Like Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon is the other real-life leader whose tomb is still kept up and in good condition, i.e. unlooted. Sorry Beachhead — you're wrong, buddy. In the episode, the Joes are chased away from the tomb by the grumpy Mayor of Paris, so Tomax and Xamot break in easily and wrench the lid of Napoleon's memorial.
The episode:
The reality:
The episode really does a good job of showing off Les Invalides in Paris where Napoleon's body is entombed. You can go there the next time you're in Paris. It's less than a half hour of walking from the Eiffel Tower. However, it's unlikely that Sci-Fi could have aimed lasers at Cobra from the top of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, as it's over 3 km away with buildings blocking the view.
The episode:
The reality:
As they're storming the tomb, the twins joke "Napoleon won't take long…He was always a little short!" Not true. Napoleon was listed on his death certificate as being the equivalent of about 5'7", while the average Frenchman was only between 5'2" and 5'6".
However, the myth of him being short is thought to arise for two reasons. For one: During his life he surrounded himself with French guards who were taller than he was, because it's nice to be protected by guys who are bigger than you even if they make you look short in comparison. For the other: During his campaigns, the British consistently depicted him as a petulant toddler in cartoons by James Gillray and Isaac Cruikshank. Check out Alice Loxton's great book Uproar! for the whole story of how cartoons shaped perceptions in the Napoleonic Era.
Vlad Tepes (1431-1476)
The Transylvanian Vlad Tepes was a voivode, or prince, of Wallachia, located in present-day Romania. As the "son of the Dragon (Dracul)," he was called "Dracula" and became an inspiration for Bram Stoker's famous vampire novel. His rule was characterized by brutal executions of hundreds of thousands of foreign (Ottoman) and domestic enemies through the tortuous method of impalement on stakes. Once G.I. Joe finds out that Castle Dracula is a Cobra target for DNA harvesting, Mainframe and Beachhead take off to Transylvania to stop them. They're distracted by the ghost of a woman drifting through the halls, who turns out to be the Baroness in disguise. She's joined by a giant drill that tears through the castle, bringing down the walls on the Joes after the Baroness secures the DNA.
The location of the Vlad Tepes sequence is very accurate to real life. Castle Dracula, actually named Castle Bran, really is as isolated as it's shown. The art department obviously had reference material to draw from.
The episode:
The reality:
Vlad Tepes lived here! It's a real place associated with a real ruler. The castle also boasts a dungeon, which is shown in the episode when Beachhead gets his arm trapped in a pillory.
Vlad Tepes isn't buried at Dracula's Castle though. Most Slavic lore places his burial at Snagov Monastery in Romania, where monks supposedly took his body after being killed by Ottomans. There is nothing in the historical record to support this and the tomb purported to be his was found to be filled with animal bones. There was no above-ground tomb either. The supposed grave was built into the floor so Vlad would be punished by priests stepping on his body for all eternity.
The latest research puts his burial in the church Santa Maria La Nova in Naples, where his body was taken by his purported daughter. The tomb contains the icon of the Order of the Dragon, to which Tepes's father belonged, and is flanked by sphinxes representing Thebes, linked to the name Tepes. The tomb inscription, mostly untranslated, includes the words "Blad (Vlad)" and "Balkans".
The real tomb, possibly:
Sun-Tzu (544 BCE-496 BCE, traditional)
Chinese military strategist Sun-Tzu is the only DNA that Cobra isn't able to get their hands on. Mindbender doesn't get away in his Trubble Bubble without Sgt. Slaughter kicking his ass.
Here's where we start getting into the territory of "burial location unknown." No one knows where the author of The Art of War is buried, and it's not even certain that he was a real person at all. Sun-Tzu could have been another name for Sun Bin, another war strategist, or Sun Bin was his pupil. Or the advice in The Art of War was collected by a single unknown author with a pseudonym, or it was collected by Sun-Tzu's students.
As such, no bones or tomb have ever been identified, although the ancient book Yueh Chueh Shu claims he was buried "10 miles outside the city gate of Wu Hsieh" which is currently identified as the modern city of Suzhou in China's Jiangsu province. When Hawk says he'll rendezvous with Sgt. Slaughter at Sun-Tzu's burial mound by the mouth of the Yangzhe River, he's spot on: Suzhou is just southwest of the Yangzhe's mouth
It appears in the episode that Sun-Tzu was cremated and interred in an urn, buried in the mound of earth. This is, of course, possible as we have nothing to counter that in the historic record. However, cremation wasn't widespread in China in the Zhou Dynasty when Sun-Tzu died, and it was only practiced by certain peoples in certain areas. It's unlikely that he ended up in the urn in real life.
Alexander the Great (356 BCE-323 BCE)
This infamous Macedonian general created one of the largest empires in history, expanding the kingdom of Greece all the way to India. In the third episode of "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!," his tomb is within a submerged temple of Grecian design. It's a great opportunity to break out all the seafaring Joes like Wet Suit and Shipwreck, who are pulled away from the tomb to rescue sailors on a torpedoed oil tanker. Destro and a squad of Cobra Eels swim away with the DNA.
The location of Alexander's tomb is one of history's great mysteries. Historically he was buried in Egypt, initially in Memphis but was moved to Alexandria in the late 4th/early 3rd centuries BCE. Tales assert its location was already unknown by 400 CE, having been pillaged for souvenirs over the centuries. Possible locations include the Nabi Daniel Mosque in Alexandria, Vergina in Greece (buried with his father, Philip II), and St. Mark's Basilica in Venice that supposedly contains a piece of his casket. In G.I. Joe the tomb is underwater, probably off the coast of Alexandria, although a 19th century map shows the most likely location to be over a third of a mile from the shore.
Genghis Khan (1162-1227)
Genghis Khan united and led the Mongol hordes in the 12th and 13th centuries, conquering from the Pacific Ocean to the Adriatic Sea. Like many others, his tomb is undiscovered, but definitely in Mongolia.
In the episode, Slip Stream says they are in Central Asia, so that's accurate. But Mongolian custom of the time was to bury the dead 20 meters underground, marked on the surface with a flat rock. G.I. Joe's exquisite above-ground pagoda-style tomb isn't what it would have looked like. Call it fanciful artistic license to make the scene look good.
Many believe the Khan is buried near the sacred mountain of Burkhan Khaldun in the Khentii Mountains, however records tell of an army of horsemen that rode over his grave, which would indicate he was likely buried in a valley or a plain where horses could travel. The episode does show his burial on a plain, so I'll say that it's partially accurate.
Accurately, Genghis Khan was buried in a coffin, as shown in the episode.
There are several rulers mentioned throughout "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!" whose DNA recoveries aren't shown in the episodes. These are the targets that Cobra took without a fight, outsmarting G.I. Joe before they could mobilize.
Julius Caesar (100? BCE-44 BCE): Julius Caesar was a big get, as the greatest leader of Rome. Hawk points out, correctly, that Caesar's DNA was taken from ashes instead of a skeleton. In 44 BCE, Caesar was cremated in the Roman Forum in a spot where the Temple of Caesar (Tempio del Divo Giuli) was later erected. While his ashes are long, long gone, people leave flowers at the site of that altar, on the remains of that temple.
Geronimo (Goyahkla, aka "One Who Yawns") (1829-1909): The great Apache military leader Geronimo led campaigns against Mexican and American forces during a prolonged campaign called the Apache Wars. He is buried in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, which is still an active Army Base. One of the complaints about this miniseries is that it appears that G.I. Joe is the only military force in the world, and that the governments of the individual countries that Cobra raids don't send any fighting forces to assist. Here, for instance, Cobra invades an Army Fort and didn't face much opposition. They could have gone an easier route though: rumors persist of Geronimo's skull being taken by the Yale fraternity Skull and Bones.
Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916): The mystic Rasputin is best known only by his last name. As a religious attendant to Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family, he exerted undue influence on the politics prior to the Tsar's execution. Cobra supposedly gets his DNA too. There probably wasn't much left of Rasputin to pull DNA from though. After being shot and thrown into the Little Nevka River, the body was buried but then disinterred and cremated in the boilers of the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute (earlier stories said he was burned on a pyre on the side of the road or in the woods). His ashes were then scattered, so Cobra probably wouldn't have been able to pull DNA.
Hannibal (247 BCE-183-181 BCE): The great general from Carthage, known for bringing war elephants over the Alps to fight Rome in the Second Punic War. Hawk mentions that a relic of Hannibal was stolen from a museum in Libya. The name is close to the place associated with Hannibal's burial, but he wasn't interred in Libya. Hannibal was reportedly buried in Libyssa, which is in Turkiye, but his tomb had vanished by the first century AD. Currently a monument stands in Libyssa where it was believed to be. Maybe Cobra got DNA off his old stuff?
Erik the Red (c. 950-c. 1003): Cobra probably had a tough time getting Erik's DNA. The Viking explorer of Greenland fell off a horse and either died as a result of that fall, or used that fall as an excuse to stop exploring North America and died at a later date. But where? Nobody knows. Presumably he was buried in Greenland, but that doesn't narrow it down much.
Attila the Hun (406-453): Attila was the scourge of Medieval Europe, leading his armies east as far as Constantinople and west as far as France. The location of Attila the Hun's grave is a mystery, although most scientists agree it's somewhere within the 20,000 square miles of the Great Hungarian Plain. Hawk doesn't say any specifics about Cobra's operation to take the conqueror's DNA, only mentioning they managed to recover it. Sounds like they had some inside information on where that tomb was.
Historical liberties aside, the most important thing about "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!" is that it was — and remains — really, really good. Now you know how to separate truth from fiction in this action-packed epic, and — say it with me — knowing is half the battle.
