Battle on the Roof of the World

Spirit and Storm Shadow, trapped in a flooding cave on the Island of No Return, call a truce, breathe from the air under the stone fragment and escape; one of them thanks the other for his life and the Joes get the fragment. Cobra and the Joes then race to the Arctic for the laser core, the last piece of the Weather Dominator, while Zartan and his Dreadnoks follow both sides across the glacier. In Cobra's base Roadblock and Honda Lou slip in, are captured and meet Duke and Snake Eyes, who are already prisoners. On the ice Joes, Cobra and Dreadnoks collide under an unstable crater wall, and Zartan ends with the laser core, which he offers to the highest bidder.

Voice talents, as credited on this episode's closing titles. The Sunbow credit crawl lists the company of voice actors and does not assign roles, so no role attributions are given here.

Jackson Beck Mike Bell Gregg Berger Arthur Burghardt Dave Hall Zack Hoffman Kene Holliday Buster Jones Sally Julian Chris Latta Mary McDonald Lewis Morgan Lofting Bill Morey Rob Paulsen Bill Ratner Neil Ross Will Ryan B.J. Ward Frank Welker Michael Yama Keone Young

"Exactly as I had hoped. Cobra and G.I. Joe are intent on outwitting each other. They will never even notice us." -- Zartan

"There is too little air to waste it on... pointless combat."

"You have saved my unworthy life. The Weather Dominator shall be yours."

"We are on our side first and foremost, and we stand to gain the most if Cobra and G.I. Joe each possess one fragment of the Weather Dominator." -- Zartan

"Why are great men always surrounded by lesser beings?!" -- Cobra Commander

"I ask myself the same question, fool."

"It ain't Toyland, babe. In fact, it's the last place I'd want to be caught dead in."

"You'll never have to send out for ice again."

"Why can't we just come in by chopper? Me runny nose is froze!" -- A Dreadnok

"A prize which I offer to the highest bidder."

Transcribed from the episode's closed-caption subtitle track and converted from capitals to sentence case. Speakers are named only where the track or the picture makes them clear.

Battle on the Roof of the World finds its best material at the bottom of a flooding cave. Two sworn enemies are forced to be decent to each other there, and the script has the sense to let them go back to being enemies afterwards.

Spirit and Storm Shadow share a stone fragment and a rising pool of green liquid, and they begin by agreeing not to fight, on the grounds that there is too little air to waste on pointless combat. Storm Shadow is the one who admits defeat ("I have concentrated on our predicament. It is hopeless."). The way out is a piece of physical reasoning: the water forces the air out, so the air must escape somewhere, and the pocket trapped under the fragment will let them breathe while they look for a blowhole. A cartoon that could have solved the problem with a punch solves it with a conversation. When they surface, one of them tells the other, "You have saved my unworthy life," and signs the Weather Dominator piece over as payment. The debt is then settled a second time on the glacier, where the two meet over rifles and part on "We are even now" and "When next we meet, we meet as enemies." The favour never curdles into friendship, and we like that; a children's serial seldom makes the choice. [1]

Accounts, and who gets to settle them, run through the rest of the hour, and Zartan understands that better than anyone else on screen. His Dreadnoks ask whether they are not supposed to be on Cobra's side. He gives them the clearest policy statement of the hour: they are on their own side first and foremost, and they stand to gain the most if Cobra and the Joes each hold one fragment. So when Spirit looks certain to lose to the Cobra climbers, Zartan steps in to even the score, which suits a man who wants both sides holding a fragment. By the end he has the laser core and the offer is out, a prize for the highest bidder, "the one with the greatest bank account." [2] The plan works as a payoff because he announced it halfway through, in front of witnesses, long before he cashed it in.

Cobra Commander gets the funniest minute of the episode. He storms at a dead screen and demands that the officer in charge of communications maintenance be disciplined. Then he empties the room so he can plan in private, and asks the empty air why great men are always surrounded by lesser beings. A voice behind him answers, "I ask myself the same question, fool," and by the next shot Roadblock has him in a headlock.

That scene belongs to the one thread that goes nowhere. Roadblock and Honda Lou wander into Cobra's base, find its commander alone and furious, press the right button, and are caught. They are marched to the Arena of Sport to meet Duke and Snake Eyes, and the reunion lasts until Cobra Commander calls it sickening, sentimental drivel and starts the end game program. Honda Lou's worry about her trucks is a pleasant human note in a story about weather machines, but nothing the four of them do touches a fragment. It is a subplot parked in the middle of the hour to keep the principals busy while the glacier is set up.

The glacier is worth the wait. Joes, Cobra and Dreadnoks converge on a crater while the Arctic sun loosens the ice cliffs above them. The avalanche hangs over everyone equally and works as a ticking clock; at one point a Joe is warned off a shot because of it. The story ends on a shout at Flint to look out for the crater wall, and then the next-episode preview begins.

As the fourth of five parts it behaves like a middle chapter: the Joes win the cave and lose the glacier, Cobra wins nothing, and Zartan walks away with the goods. We would still rewatch the cave first!

1 ^ After the theme, the episode opens on a recap of the previous episode that ends on the announcement of "the fourth episode of G.I. Joe, The Revenge of Cobra" (1:21 to 1:24). The episode proper starts at 1:28 with "Only one chance!"

2 ^ The caption track carries no speaker label on this speech (20:26 to 20:47). It is attributed to Zartan here because the same strategy is laid out in his labelled lines at 3:21 and 9:17, and nobody else in the episode is in a position to make the offer.

1. This is the fourth night of the five-part miniseries "The Revenge of Cobra", which fans date to the week of September 10 to 14, 1984. The recap at the top announces "the fourth episode" by name, and the closing voiceover promises the Amusement Park of Terror and Storm Shadow infiltrating Joe headquarters in the final part. Fan sites also note that the later VHS release trimmed these recaps and previews so the five parts could play as one movie.
2. Roadblock tells Honda Lou that the Cobra base "ain't Toyland, babe". Joe fans point out that it is a double gag, on the toy line itself and on the old operetta "Babes in Toyland".
3. The truce between Spirit and Storm Shadow ends with Storm Shadow saying Spirit has "saved my unworthy life", and later the two agree they are "even now" and will meet as enemies. Fans on the G.I. Joe wiki read this as Storm Shadow's code of honor and link it to [Countdown for Zartan](/cartoons/1985/episodes/countdown-for-zartan/), where the two meet again.
4. Honda Lou, the blonde cowboy-hatted trucker, is still tagging along with Roadblock here after we meet her tied up in a trailer in [The Palace of Doom](/cartoons/1985/episodes/the-palace-of-doom/). Her worry about how she will "get my trucks back" is a nice bit of character, and those two are the only episodes of the season where she appears.
5. Cobra Commander cuts in when Destro talks about "my" Ion Correlator and "my" Hydromaster: "Surely you mean 'we'." He reminds Destro that unless all three pieces are reassembled before the Joes do it, "all of us will be finished." Destro's tally also name-drops the Palace of Doom, where the Hydromaster was recovered.
6. Zartan finally shows his hand. Asked why the Dreadnoks would let the Joes win a round, he says "We are on our side first and foremost", and that Cobra and the Joes should each hold one fragment of the Weather Dominator. The Dreadnok left behind can only say "Cor, blimey, I don't understand."
7. When Roadblock tosses Cobra troopers around the base, he sings a snatch of the show's own theme, "Oh, he'll fight for freedom wherever there is trouble". The same song is sung in full at the end of [Cold Slither](/cartoons/1985/episodes/cold-slither/), when the Joes take the stage.
8. Fans have spotted several animation slips. Lady Jaye's face is badly drawn near the start, Doc's hands turn white in one close-up, and the patch on Flint's beret is yellow during the glacier battle. The G.I. Joe wiki also notes that a Crimson Guardsman turns up here.