Has anyone ever heard the reasoning for the differences in Serpentor's origin between the comics and the TV show? It seemed that the comics had a much narrower number of DNA donors. I do know about why Storm Shadow and Sgt. Slaughter got swapped... just wondering about the rest of it.

Because they were two separate media. Two different groups of creators working from different ends.

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You're saying they chose the diff origins specifically and solely to indicate creative differences in two diff creative teams? Or is it that the diff origins *is the result* of diff creative teams but not necessarily the *reason* for the diff? You're saying the effect is the cause, bro.

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I think he is saying they were given a starting point and they both fleshed it out from that point themselves... I suspect that the fact they didn't have to have bodies on the animated series explained the multitude of extra dna donors compared to the comics. In the comics they had one tank per donor so they kept it much lower.

I noticed they left out Washington, Lee, Grant, Jackson, Eisenhower and Patton and various other military minds that were on par with the ones they used. I assume they stayed away from Americans, so that he wouldn't feel any affinity towards G.I.Joe. LOL
I wonder if there was a conscious decision to stay away from more modern leaders... Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin all come to mind.

I grew up on the TV show, but have since read the comic, and hold the comic to be canon and the better stories, but one thing the show did better was Serpentor's introduction. It was very grandiose; he makes that awesome speech and proceeds to kick Sgt. Slaughter's butt. In the comic it seemed like he was just another character, like Scrap Iron or Croc Master, and sort of a "Oh, by the way, this is your new leader."

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No surprise that he got less love in the comic since Larry Hama was never on board with the idea to begin with.

I'm the reverse. I preferred him in the comic.

He wasn't really introduced as being the Cobra 'leader' per se. He was just a super soldier that was made for Cobra. Cobra Commander was worried that he'd take over (to the point of trying to have him sniped upon arrival to Cobra Island), and it was perhaps Mindbender's plan for him to take over, but he wasn't really introduced as such at first. In fact the first thing I remember him doing on Cobra Island (after putting his arm around Cobra Commander to avoid being sniped) was digging trenches / filling sand bags with the regular troops.

He gave his rousing speech, after his creation, and then helped defend Springfield while Cobra evacuated. He proved his leadership abilities, and combat skill, before he was ever 'Cobra Emperor', and didn't take power until Cobra Commander was 'dead'.
By that time, he had won over many within the organization and proved he could lead.

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Exactly. I didn't get to see any of the cartoon on tv, because I didn't get Channel 11 out of NYC. If I was over at a friend's house I saw parts of an episode.

I didn't discover the cartoon Serpentor until I saw the movie and then the 5-part miniseries. I was a Marvel comic guy first, so that's the origin I am more familiar with.

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I don't care much for Serpentor as presented either way at all. My Cobra claims him to be as he was presented in the comic, but really he's just some guy, a puppet for Cobra Commander.

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Most fans, myself included, hold the Hama comics to be the official canon of G.I. Joe, but some characters just worked better in the animation, either because of their personalities, origins, or because Larry wanted as little to do with them as possible. I'm inclined to think this was the case with Serpentor.

Larry tried to keep the comic as grounded in reality as the concept permitted, and the sort of genetic engineering that was required to bring Serpentor to life was a bit of a stretch.

I have no idea who came up with the "idea" for Serpentor, or his basic backstory, but my guess would be that, since there was no particular correlation between the animated series and the comic book, apart from them both presenting adventures of the G.I. Joe team vs. Cobra, that both were given the basic outline of Serpentor, told to make him a major player, and went with it from there.

Ultimately, I do think the story worked better in the cartoon. But I think both the animation and the comic book handled it well enough within their respective universes. Let's face it, the animated series was always a somewhat wilder and less realistic environment. That didn't mean it wasn't fun to watch!

I prefer the more charismatic, less of a douche-bag version from the comics, however he wasn't as bad in the movie, as most of the rest of the tv series.

I liked that the comics introduced things like conflicts in his mind from the numerous different personalities injected within him.

And also that one comic where he recounts the invention of pizza.

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I love both versions. Serpentor is the GI Joe line's ultimate "deal with it." I'd love to have sat in on that pitch meeting....

"Hi, this is our new character. He's made from mummies and Dracula, he dresses like the villian in a movie starring Mexican wrestlers, and if you piss him off, he'll break like ten laws of physics and throw a living snake through your chest. Yes I've been up for the last 36 hours, why?"

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Jay beat me to the creation of pizza. For some reason that is what I always connect Serpentor with.

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That invention of pizza story is a G.I. Joe classic, no question!