Clutch (G.I. Joe)
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A character from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline, comic books and cartoon series of the 1980s, Lance J. Steinberg is better known as Clutch, one of G.I. Joe's motor vehicle drivers.
An unabashed skirt chaser, Clutch came across to female Joe members such as Scarlett and Cover Girl as an oversexed chauvinist, and he didn't give them much reason to think otherwise. Constantly hitting on any woman who came into his line of sight, at one point Clutch actually suggested putting up Cover Girl and Scarlett as a women's mud wrestling pair. Even though he was a blatantly chauvinistic jerk, he was also a good driver and a good soldier who did his job when the chips were down. As the series went on, his chauvinistic attitude was downplayed.
Clutch's last appearance in the Marvel run of G.I. Joe was issue #145. He was not seen again until issue #8 of the Image comics version of G.I. Joe. He spent the time in between as a mechanic for the Indy League Racing Circuit. He also worked at a Philadelphia Naval Base which was thought to be shut down, but still carried out top secret missions.
He was not a very prominent character in the animated series. He appeared in both the MASS Device and Revenge of Cobra miniseries and then, after only a few brief appearances in the regular series, he was written out by being placed in an alternate dimension, along with Steeler and Grunt, where G.I. Joe had lost and Cobra ruled the world (though he still appeared regularly in the comic book series written by Larry Hama). Interestingly, the animated Clutch possessed none of the chauvinistic behavior of his comic book counterpart. This is a list of all his appearances in the cartoon:
A Real American Hero (Parts I, IV & V), The Revenge Of Cobra (Parts I, II, IV, & V), The Pyramid Of Darkness (Parts I & V) Twenty Questions (brief), The Synthoid Conspiracy (Parts I & II), Where The Reptiles Roam (brief), Spell Of The Siren, Cobra Quake, Worlds Without End (Parts I & II), The Traitor (Parts I & II), The opening sequence of G.I. Joe: The Movie
The 2003 edition of his action figure has been renamed as Double Clutch. Presumably, Hasbro lost the rights to the character name "Clutch" as they did with several other characters and this was a legal way to reuse the character.
