I know this epitomizes American jingoism for many, but it was oddly contemptuous of the US and the military.
I always assumed that Cobra, the enemies of GI Joe, were simply an allegory for Soviets and 'The Red Menace' Since they were depicted as these massive hordes with nation state levels of military hardware like numerous varieties of ships, aircraft, tanks, bases, guns and even spacecraft, and the fact that they were labeled as 'terrorists' was simply done as a practical way to deflect criticism that the show glorified the US military. Which sounds strange now but was a controversial aspect of the cartoon since the very contentious Vietnam War had ended barely a decade prior.
But 'Cobra Commander' the leader of Cobra, is actually the wealthiest capitalist in the world. He's secretly the CEO of 'Extensive Enterprises' the largest corporation in the GI Joe universe. He's so wealthy that Extensive Enterprises resides on it's own sovereign city state on an island in the Pacific.
The island is has it's own currency and economy and is completely self sufficient. It's very developed with a city featuring a high rises including two World Trade Center like twin office buildings
that can slide apart to reveal a NASA style space shuttle with launch pad hidden beneath This isn't obscure lore in the show either. The very first episode shows GI Joe attempting to infiltrate the 'Extensive Enterprises' city state.
There's also the 'Fox News' episode where Cobra buys a television network and starts a propaganda war against GI Joe, successfully turning public opinion against them. 'Cobra TV' featured pretty salient parodies of TVs with pro fascist messaging. Like the "Smurfs" parody that taught children to beat up any other children that refused to conform to societal norms, or the PSA that taught people to distrust their neighbors
because they're secretly werewolves. It was actually good satire of Reganite conservative proto-fascism.
There's another episode where GI Joe infiltrates a Cobra base and finds that Cobra Commander's minons are actually treated much better than the Joes. Their barracks features swimming pools, basketball courts and a free 24 hour cafeteria. Cobra Commander having not subscribed to the 'rugged individualism' that the Joes lived under.
The closest something things we have to GI Joe I think would be "The Boys" but that is a gory adult show. And "The Boys"
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