When you read Tripwire’s file card, the first thing you might think to yourself is “Tormod?”
According to Tripwire’s handy file card, that wonderful little info-dump located right on the back of his vintage card, Tripwire’s real name was the rather unusual “Tormod S. Skoog.”
Being an American that lives in America, I don’t run into many people named “Tormod” on a day to day basis. And I can count on zero hands the amount of Skoogs I’ve come across. It struck me as unusual when I was a kid, but then this was a line where one dude’s name was “Skip A. Stone” so I chalked it up to Larry Hama getting all nuts with things. As it turns out, Tormod is a proud Norwegian and/or Scottish Gaelic name. Skoog is a Swedish surname. So it wasn’t just a case of Hama tossing some Scrabble tiles on a table and assigning Tripwire a random Alphabet Soup.
Go figure.
Tripwire was an 83 Joe, the year where the color and designs were able to breathe a little bit and deviate from all of that green used in the first wave. Torpedo stood out by being…green. Well, so much for that. But if you think about it, in a wave with dude in powder blue open vest and pants, Tripwire’s green actually stood out quite a bit.
Tripwire stands out also, in a different way. As the team’s explosives expert, he could disarm bombs, plant bombs, and…drop nearly every damn thing he got his hands on. Tripwire was clumsy. Tripwire is the guy that drops dishes, cups, vases, falls into televisions, spills the coffee and gets his feet tangled in the drapes. If Archie Andrews joined the military, he’d be Tripwire.
That’s the kind of thing that might make people around him a little nervous. How the hell is this fumbling goof going to know which wire to cut if he probably cuts himself shaving? Well, that’s the thing. Tripwire was clumsy, nervous and a wreck around everything except for bombs and things that go splodey. Then he’s as cool as a cucumber in a penguin’s mouth.
I didn’t have the original Tripwire figure. Tripwire was one of a few where the first chance I had to buy him was when they rereleased him in his Tiger Force colors. I didn’t mind; I was just glad to get a chance at having the character at all. Of the 6 carded Joes in 1983, I had four. I remember seeing Torpedo at least once but passed in favor of someone else, but I don’t think I saw the original Tripwire at all. I would have bought him if I had, because he came with mines and I loved the Joes that blew crap up.
Tripwire made a handful of appearances in the Joe comic, but he was only a mainline character once or twice. His most notable appearance was when he was going to sacrifice himself by throwing himself on a live explosive—a noble move–before Roadblock knocked him off and tossed the thing clear. You don’t get guts like that just anywhere.
His fate was similar in the cartoon. He showed up a few times, mainly to search for mines, but that was it. He was never going to be a star.
By the time I had Tripwire, I had plenty of vehicles for him to plant his mines in front of. Vehicles and people. The bad guys never saw it in time. While I would have loved to get the original version, I didn’t mind the Tiger Force deco, and he had plenty of adventures, mainly blowing people up.
And spilling his coffee.
Poor Tormod.
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Source: Fwoosh
