That's why they often treated it more as high adventure/James Bond stuff. Hasbro was funding the cartoon out of pocket to sell toys, anyway, not explore war and combat. The comic came about because it was illegal for them to make a toon before FCC regulations changed. Had things turned out differently, the comic debuting after the toon...the comic probably would be a whole different animal (total kiddie fare, like part of Marvel's Star group).

As to being true to something...true to what? Hasbro owns the property. They wanted a new lead hero character, rather than just making a new version of Hawk (which they did eventually anyway). Hasbro even wanted to intro Serpentor as if he'd been the true leader of Cobra all along. Imagine how fandom would've reacted to that. They wanted Slaughter, Fridge and even Rocky Balboa. What we dismiss as dumb, they used to keep fickle kids interested. And ARAH lasted a looong time, longer than any of its competitor...only to be killed off by Hasbro-Kenner corporate politics.

I guess that's where my loyalties layed, the comic and cartoon were just extensions of the toy line, since I "found" it first. Not that's the toy line was flawless, far from it.