The Conceit

The Literary Conceit of The Combined Universe.

The way the Combined Universe is set up is as follows:

The Marvel US 'GI Joe' and 'GI Joe Special Missions' series are canon, with the exception of any involvement of the Transformers. The broad strokes of the Generation 2 story took place - Scarlett infiltrated Cobra, leading to the discovery by the Joes of Cobra's brainwashing of Millville - but without Megatron or the Autobots getting involved.

The Battle Action Force series up until Ironblood's transformation into Cobra Commander is canon. In this verse, in order to keep the US and UK stories separate however, Ironblood didn't become Cobra Commander. Cobra and The Red Shadows are separate entities. Ironblood turned on his Red Shadows, betraying their bases and safe-houses to Action Force. Ironblood was subsequently imprisoned for his crimes. Similarly, Red Jackal didn't become Destro. Nor did Cobra steal the plans to the Hawk helicopter. Instead, the Hawks are copied from Cobra FANGs. Eagle, Skip and the rest battled Cobra's European arm in the events seen, with the AF characters replacing the American-originated Joe ones. Any time you see Ace, for example, flying a Skystriker, that's a Space Force pilot. Probably Moon Dancer. The Cobra Europe page elaborates on who replaces whom in that outfit, but the AF/Joe differences are more fluid.Three BAF stories that don't count are 'Top-Sergeant Duke', 'Gung-Ho' and 'Laser Trooper', which tell origin stories for Duke, Gung-Ho and Flash.

Marvel UK's weekly Action Force title and the later AF Monthly are also canon, in broad strokes, except: Ancient Relics, the Transformers crossover; Thick as Thieves, the prequel to the animated GI Joe movie; Consequences and Truth, which book-ended the reprint of GI Joe #21; Super Trooper, since there's no AF equivalent and the text stories in the Annuals, except Havoc in the Outback. That counts. The events of these stories took place, but with AF and Cobra Europe characters.

The verse also includes events depicted in the Canuckleheads strips in the Joe Canuck newsletters and the related photo dio story and the events of the Canadian Joe Con comics, but these are assumed to have taken place around 1991, instead of in the 21st century.