Recipe-wise, this first appearance Gung Ho is pretty similar to his original toy. I did not swap out any parts. I kept the complete 50th figure as a base. The biggest difference is the coloring of his uniform. The light blue of the original is replaced with green and gray. It makes me wonder if this was originally supposed to be Gung Ho's color scheme and it got changed during the design process. Some panels in the issue show him with hair, I opted not to include it on my custom. I wanted to avoid too many similarities with Leatherneck.

Marvel issue #11 was one of my first and only (along with #5, 12, 26, Special Missions 17 and 28) GI Joe comics that I had as a kid. For that reason, I read it over and over and it was one of the first comics that I wanted to rebuy when I started building my comics collection last year. I was lucky enough to find it during a trip to the West Coast.

Rereading it as an adult, I noticed things that I was oblivious to when I was a kid.
1. Several 1983 Joes made their debut in this issue.
2. These new Joes looked a lot different than their toys. The artist must have been working from concept sketches or prototype toys pictures.