Whoa, a Palpatine association!

I played around a little bit of that when I was doing GI Joe2050 (a comic). Cobra had developed a 'new' weapon that was placed all over the world. With a single touch of a button, he could detonate these and annihilate the whole world. He said that if any city/state/etc wanted to be spared, they'd have to side with him. He exampled it first off by destroying a few small U.S. cities (Billings, Mt, etc). That was just enough for some of the leaders of their countries to side with him.

That's the annihilistic side of Cobra Commander. Where it turns slightly cartoony is the relation between Destro and CC. See, Destro has a lot to lose if CC goes thru with this 'hair-brained' plan. As usual, they start arguing and a shoving match ensues. CC is pushed onto the controls that detonates these weapons all over the world.

The sci-fi element is that once the button is pushed, an energy shield resistent to the new weapon activates and protects the various cities around the world. (these were, of course installed by Cobra/MARs). The world is, for the most part, destroyed. All the Joes dies. Billions of people perish in an instant. Only a few members of the Cobra hierarchy survive. (ie; they jump into the equivalent of Michael Jackson's sleeping chambers)

WHEN they emerge from their sleep, a few years later (y'know, after the radiation levels have decreased), there have been side effects from the chambers (c'mon, they WERE built by Mindbender and Overkill, what do you expect?). The surviving Cobra 'elite' have changed drastically. For starters, their aging process has been slowed so they look pretty much like how they did when WE first met them.

Zartan becomes obsessed with looks and makes sure NO ONE know what he really looks like.
Cobra Commander becomes obsessed with turning the world into one ruled by him.
Tomax & Xamot, tired of their mirror images become the, uh, Matt and Jeff Hardy of Cobra. Tomax has become the fighter, Xamot the thinker.
Baroness has gotten smarter and is in charge of finding rebel forces. She also often serves as CC's bodyguard.
Zhen Ji is Mindbender's daughter. She's young and takes over Mindbender and Overkill's role in Cobra. She and Zanya get along very well due to their ages.
Buzzer joins the Cobra military and learns discipline.
Monkeywrench becomes MORE ecstatic about explosives and just loves to blow stuff up.
Ripper becomes more violent, much like a nutzoid Wolverine.
Thrasher enjoys cruising the lone highways of the US. He believes the 1950s were the best era of history and looks a lot like a greaser.
Torch's obsession with fire has become so fanatic that he's injecting nanonites into his brain so he can mentally control the flames from his weapons.
Zandar has gone, ahem, goth. A violent goth who act as the assassin for Cobra and the Dreadnoks.
And then there's Zanya and Zarana...

Since the Joes are all dead, a small group of people who survived "Judgment Day" have formed their own special rebel force. Calling it GI Joe, they barely remember the original GI Joe force. The team consists of :

Flint
Beach Head
Lady Jaye
Snake Eyes
Scarlet
LowLight
Spirit.

And don't think for a second that ANY of these characters are anything like the ARAH ya'll familiar with.