Snake Eyes

In G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, flashbacks show Snake Eyes as a boy: an orphan who wanders into the Arashikage clan's dojo. The Hard Master takes him in and names him, and the kid takes a vow of silence. He becomes the rival of Thomas, the future Storm Shadow, and grows up convinced Thomas killed their master.

As an adult he is G.I. Joe's masked commando, sword in hand and without a single line. At McCullen's Arctic base, he takes out one of the nanobot missiles and finally faces Storm Shadow in a duel, which he wins. Larry Hama, the film's consultant, got a scene where he spoke cut.

In G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Snake Eyes turns up in the Himalayas. The Blind Master sends him and his apprentice Jinx to capture a wounded Storm Shadow for the Hard Master's murder. After a battle with his ninjas, Storm Shadow proves his innocence: the murder weapon snaps because it isn't Arashikage steel. Zartan was the killer.

The two rivals end up on the same side and join the surviving Joes. In the final battle at Fort Sumter, Snake Eyes hands Storm Shadow the Blade of Justice, and Storm Shadow avenges his uncle.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins tells a different origin in a new continuity. A boy watches his father die after rolling double ones, "snake eyes", in a forced dice game, and takes the name. As an adult he fights in underground matches until yakuza boss Kenta offers help finding the killer.

He saves Tommy, heir to the Arashikage clan, and is let into the dojo for three trials, but it was all Kenta's plan to steal the Jewel of the Sun. Snake Eyes betrays the clan, spares his father's killer and regrets it. In the end he faces Kenta in the anaconda pit, where the snakes now judge him worthy, and Akiko gives him the black suit and helmet. Scarlett reveals his father was a Joe and invites him onto the team. Henry Golding plays him.

In the 1983 cartoon, Snake Eyes never speaks either. In The M.A.S.S. Device, he wins the radioactive crystals in the Arena of Sport but comes away poisoned. Later, alone in the Arctic, he battles a blizzard, frees a wolf caught in a trap and is saved by a blind hermit, who heals the soldier and names the wolf Timber.

Snake Eyes makes it back with the crystals, but the canister was booby-trapped. In the next miniseries, The Revenge of Cobra, Cobra forces him to fight Duke in the same arena.

In G.I. Joe: Resolute, his silence has another cause: Zartan shot him in the throat. When Storm Shadow kills Bazooka and sinks the USS Flagg, Snake Eyes goes after him alone.

They face off on an island in a fight to the death, and Snake Eyes wins with the Seventh Step to the Sun technique. The show also makes clear he and Scarlett were once a couple.

In G.I. Joe: Renegades, Snake Eyes shadows Duke's group as they run from the Army and from Cobra. The Hard Master called him "Hebi no me," Japanese for snake eyes.

Scarlett "translates" his thoughts, and he is especially loyal to her. In one episode he rescues a wolf, a nod to Timber from older versions.

Snake Eyes debuted in Marvel's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #1 (1982) and was one of the 1982 figures. The all-black look also saved money: the mask meant no face paint. In Larry Hama's comics, he served in Vietnam with Stalker and Storm Shadow, lost his family in a car crash, and had his face and voice ruined saving Scarlett from a burning helicopter. His real name is classified in every version.