Filmmakers Seek To Alter GI Joe's Image

America's battered international image has claimed a new casualty: the tough-talking comic book patriot named GI Joe.

The muscular character was created as a comic strip for American military publications during World War II and has been fighting America's foes ever since.

But in a new film version scheduled to go into production next year, the all-American will no longer work for a covert American Special Forces unit.

Paramount Pictures and Hasbro, which makes GI Joe toys, have reportedly discussed the challenges of marketing a film about the American military at a time when the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have sunk America's standing in foreign opinion polls.

In a move that has horrified an unlikely alliance of comic book fans and conservative commentators, GI Joe is now to become an acronym for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity," with its star representing a multinational force.

Paramount has even mooted basing GI Joe at a headquarters in Brussels.

While the character has traditionally battled America's neo-Nazi enemies, Cobra — the evil terrorist organization — will now be an arms-dealing syndicate headed by a Scot.

Under pressure, Paramount appears to have substituted Brussels for New York but hasn't otherwise budged from its stance that naked displays of American military muscle will no longer play well at the international box office.

The film, which has yet to be cast, is not due to open until 2009. Hasbro, whose GI Joe action figures were the precursor of Britain's Action Man, toned down the figure's army credentials after the Vietnam War but sales soared again amid the patriotic fervor of the First Gulf War.