GI Joe: Operation Poison Dart

"You mean you go to your doctor for a flu shot, tetanus shot--even the booster shots little kids get--and you get souped up with COBRA mind potion number one?"

There are a lot of GI Joe gamebooks by Find Your Fate, but this one came highly recommended, so I decided to snatch it up. It didn't disappoint, either.  Obviously it's written for kids around ten years old, but I was surprised by how readable it was for an adult.

Operation Poison Dart puts you in control of a new Joe called Headset, an expert in mind control and hypnotism whose gadget is a special strobe light that instantly hypnotizes people. There are several points throughout the book where you get to use this ability to trick people into doing your bidding, and Headset does prove himself useful during the rare scene when he's been deprived of his precious gizmo.

Your mission is surprisingly topical: stop Dr Mindbender and COBRA from using a bogus vaccine to control people. I can hear the Google fact check police at my door already! 

Several Joes, including big bad Roadblock and wise-cracking Dusty, join you on your mission to stop Dr Fauci's diabolical plan, and also hopefully stop an already-brainwashed American general from launching an unauthorized missile strike. 

I've seen a few excerpts from some of the GI Joe gamebooks, and while they aren't always great, the Joes usually have decent banter during the exposition scenes. I remember a couple exchanges in the first volume, Star Raider, gave me a good chuckle. I don't know how the other Joe books hold up, but Poison Dart's plot clips along at double-time, and there's rarely a dull moment. I've read through it several times and still haven't found every path yet.

The artwork is quite good as well, and has a very comic book feel to it. I like the opening shot of Dr Mindbender, and the Joes fighting a losing battle against a tank in Death Valley.

Some gamebook recommendations turn out to be duds for me, but if you want to start reading the GI Joe "Find Your Fate" series, you could do worse than to start with Operation Poison Dart. Lots of forking paths and some fun military action, too.