Duke is the main protagonist of G.I Joe: The Rise of Corba and a supporting character in G.I Joe: Retaliation. Duke was the callsign of G.I. Joe field commander and Major Conrad S. Hauser.
He is portrayed by Channing Tatum, who also potrayed Jake Sully in Avatar, Greg Jenko in 21 Jump Street series, Joaquín Mondragon in The Book of Life.
Personality[]
Duke was a brave and noble man who cared a great deal about his friends and tried to save Rex just before the bunker Rex was trapped inside was blown up.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Major Hauser led a night HALO jump into the jungle of Papua. Hauser gets his parachute caught in the tree branches. After a clumsy landing, he joins his right-hand man Weems and the other Rangers. They find the trailer with computers used to redirect one of the U.S. spy satellites. As there is more enemy force than anticipated and the lack of time for reinforcements, Hauser becomes concerned but his men assures him they can get the job done. However, he's reminded of the mission where he lost his best friend, Rex Lewis.
A large Russian is guarding the trailer. Not willing to damage the equipment inside, Hauser deals with the man hand-to-hand and a knife. After taking care of the enemy, Hauser's team gets to work. Their mission is to reprogram and reroute the spy satellite back to American control. Once the satellite is returned to US control, Duke activates the explosives his team has planted around the camp and in the control trailer.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra[]
The film opens with Duke and Ripcord leading a convoy (comprising various types of Humvees, all-terrain vehicles and two Apache helicopters) to deliver a case of four nanomite warheads to the United Nations and NATO. However, this convoy is soon attacked by Baroness and her team of Vipers. Duke's men and vehicles are obliterated by the Vipers' superior weaponry, but Duke's resourcefulness saves Rip. Duke recognizes Baroness as Ana, his former fiancee and Rex's sister.
The G.I. Joe team arrives and clears out the attackers, while Duke recovers the case. Telling General Hawk his backstory and how he knows the Baroness, he blackmails his way onto the team, and through training, proves that he belongs. But soon, the Pit is attacked by Baroness, Storm Shadow and Neo-Vipers, after a fight, they escape with the case.
With a new sense of urgency, Duke and the Joes head to Paris, where he and Ripcord, wearing new prototype Delta 6 Accelerator Suits, track down Baroness and Storm Shadow. Rip failed to stop Storm Shadow from firing a nanomite warhead at the Eiffel Tower, but Duke manages to shut it down before it can completely eat away the monument. In the process, he is captured.
At the enemy's underwater Arctic base, he learns that the manufacturer of the warheads, M.A.R.S Industries owner, James McCullen, has been playing both sides against the U.N. and G.I. Joe, and has put in motion a plot to take over the world. Duke tries to convince Ana to help him, but it seemingly falls on deaf ears.
He is taken to the laboratory of The Doctor, a vengeful, masked man, who appears to know Duke. After Duke questions him, the Doctor shows him his unmasked face. The Doctor is Rex Lewis, brother of Ana, whom Duke thought lost on a mission four years ago. The Doctor begins a process to turn Duke into a Neo-Viper, but Ana combats her brother's mind control and frees him. When the Doctor uses his PDA to shut down Ana's consciousness, and McCullen arrives, Duke is able to neutralize them with Ana's pulse pistol, burning McCullen's face in the process and recovering the Doctor's PDA.
He revives Ana and they escape to a waiting enemy sub, and plan to escape, but instead pursue Rex and McCullen, hoping to capture or kill them. After much dodging and destroying of enemy subs, and also having to put up with falling chunks of ice, Duke and Ana are able to track down McCullen, now Destro, and Rex, now Cobra Commander, and surround them with the Joes' underwater naval forces.
With the leaders of Cobra now in custody, Duke tells his team that the world is safe and informed Ana is now in prison until her nanomites are removed. He tells her that he will wait for her, unknowing that Cobra Commander has replaced the President of the United States with Destro's aide, the master of disguise known as Zartan.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation[]
Sometime after joining G.I. Joe, Duke became friends with Roadblock, who was with him in a mission in North Korea. He was later at Roadblock's house, where the two were playing video games, when they saw on the news the death of the Pakistani president and sometime after that he and the rest of the Joes went on a mission to Pakistan to retrieve nuclear warheads. After a successful mission, him and Roadblock have a shooting competition, which Duke losses when Roadblock talks. The Joes' base is then suddenly attacked in an airstrike, later revealed to have been ordered by the president. Seeing Flint out in the open, he rushes out to save him, pushing him away from a truck moments before it is destroyed, killing Duke. After the three remaining Joes - Roadblock, Flint and Lady Jae-see all the dead Joes, Roadblock vows to avenge Duke by killing whoever is responsible.
Trivia[]
- Chris Hemsworth, Matthew Fox and Chris Evans were all considered for the role before Channing Tatum was cast.
- Sam Worthington was also considered for the role of Duke but turned it down due scheduling conflicts with Avatar.
- Channing Tatum originally didn't want to act in this film because he felt it glorified war. He changed his mind when he read the script.
- Channing Tatum told Howard Stern during a radio interview that "I fucking hate this movie." He revealed that he was forced to make the film because he signed a three-picture deal early in his career, prior to finding wider fame. When the movie was offered to him and Tatum was dissatisfied with the script, he asked if there might be a way to avoid taking on the movie, but he was told he had to do it or would be sued. However, his dislike of the movie is more due to the circumstances which forced him to do it, while he considers the final product as a "film that was really not all that bad."
- Ironically, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Cobra Commander) are great friends in real life.
- In the early draft of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra written by Skip Woods, Duke was at one point in a relationship with Scarlett.
- Duke is killed while trying to save Flint, a fellow Joe soldier. This an homage to G.I. Joe: The Movie, where Duke was cut down trying to save a fellow Joe (in this case his brother Falcon, and he survived).
