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Motor Vehicle Driver

File Name:  Lance J. Steinberg

Birthplace: Asbury Park, New Jersey Rank: Sergeant

Primary Military Specialty: Transportation

Secondary Military Specialty: Infantry

Status: Reserve

First Appearance: G.I. JOE # 1 (July 1982)

   Clutch was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey. His first job was working at his uncle's garage. Like many of his friends, Clutch was a car fanatic and was quick to race or play "chicken" with other cars. Clutch takes little seriously and is known to joke even when in dangerous situations. Someone once said that Clutch cares about little else than cars and women. After enlisting in the army, Clutch graduated from many armored and wheeled vehicle training schools. He eventually was assigned as General "Iron Butt" Austin's personal driver. On one assignment, Austin only made the vague suggestion that someone should pick up his command truck at McGuire Air Force Base and drive it to Fort Holabird. Clutch did just that, but found a handcuffed and blindfolded officer in the back seat. He later learned it was Lt. Colonel Clayton "Hawk" Abernathy, recently court-martialed. On the drive, a group of mercenaries in a van attacked the truck, armed with a heavy machine gun. Thanks to Clutch's incredible driving, he avoided the mercenaries, whose van ended up in a rollover. The attackers had been hired by a rogue general, and that knowledge was used by General Flagg and Sparks to blackmail the general into dropping the charges against Hawk. It was Clutch's driving skills in that incident that helped earn him a spot on the newly-forming G.I. Joe team.

    Clutch was one of the original 13 members of the G.I. Joe team. He was part of many of the Joes' major missions including the rescue of Dr. Adele Burkhart and was on the first mission in which the Joe team met the Soviets' October Guard. On that mission, Clutch was responsible for saving the team after evading capture from a Cobra soldier and stealing his uniform. Clutch, Steeler and Breaker were driving the MOBAT tank in a parade down New York's Fifth Avenue when Cobra attempted to steal the tank. The vehicle was not carrying any ammunition, so the Joes had to outsmart the attacking Cobra soldiers. Once they were stopped, Clutch rammed the parade's reviewing stands and revealed a hidden Cobra control room under the stands. Clutch had an often adversarial relationship with Scarlett, who thought he was nothing but a chauvanist. Clutch gave little evidence for her to think otherwise. They were teamed up on a mission to thwart Cobra's attempted assassination of a middle eastern ambassador. Scarlett respected Clutch's fighting skills, but the two never became friends.

    Following a major Cobra assault on G.I. Joe headquarters (aka "The Pit"), Clutch went on leave to his home town. Once there, he discovered that Cobra wa attempting to infiltrate the town. He eventually saved the town, due in part to a timely rescue from the Joe team. A short time later, Clutch was part of the team that captured Cobra Commander. After the re-dedication of G.I. Joe headquarters, aka "The Pit", Clutch and many of the other original Joes were taken off active duty. Shortly afterward, while on leave, Breaker, Clutch and Rock & Roll were nearly killed when the Dreadnoks ran their car off the road. They captured the Dreadnok named Buzzer, and later recovered from their injuries. Clutch returned to the field many times despite being off active duty. He was one of the many Joes to participate in the invasion of the Cobra-controlled town of Springfield. Shortly after that battle, Clutch led a small group of Joes into Argentina to assist a former Nazi who claimed he knew the location of a crashed bomber filled with poison gas. Clutch found it difficult to lead the mission after remembering the horrors his grandmother had gone through at the hands of the Nazis as a young Jewish woman in Germany. While Clutch's team protected the Nazi from Israelis who wanted him dead, another team of Joes found and neutralized the poison gas, learning that he had lied about what had occured, stole money and killed the plane's crew. Clutch told the Nazi that the deal was off. While the Joe's protected the man from the Israelis, they left the man in the hands of the other Nazis that now knew of his betrayal. While leaving the Nazi's jungle retreat, the Joes heard three gunshots from inside the home, but just kept walking. Clutch's next assignment was to a small team of Joes who were testing new weapons for the team. During one such mission, the team was attacked by Cobra and eventually repelled the attack. During the Cobra Island civil war--which the Joes entered on the side of Serpentor-- Clutch drove the AWE Striker that transported Hawk as he led Joe forces.

    Clutch's bad luck on leave continued when he once again unsuspectingly ran afoul of Cobra. He and Rock & Roll drove to Broca Beach in New Jersey only to discover that the town was run by Cobra. The two Joes tried to escape but were captured. They were held prisoner in the town and brainwashed. They were eventually rescued, but they and the other Joes knew nothing of what Cobra had done to them. Once they were inside the Pit in Utah, Cobra activated Clutch and Rock & Roll's "programming," sending them into a "berserker rage." The two Joes overcame the brainwashing because, according to Psyche-Out, their morality overrode the programming.

    From the very beginning of the G.I. Joe team Clutch integral part of the team and he stayed close to the original members. Many of his subsequent missions remain classified, but Clutch stayed on the Joe team until it was disbanded in 1994. In the years following, Clutch brought his skills as a mechanic to the Indy Racing League circuit, earning more wins for his drivers than any other mechanic in recent history. In 1996, the Philadelphia Naval Base was shut down, as far as the general public knew. In reality, one section of the base was still being used for top secret missions. Clutch began working there as a mechanic, though he sometimes missed the action of being part of the Joe team. After the Joe team was reinstated in 2001, the Joes began using the naval base and Clutch joined the team in fighting Storm Shadow when the ninja infiltrated the base. Clutch is now happy to be part of the team once again. He was one of the many Joes to take part in the battle against the forces of a revived Serpentor on Cobra Island. A short time later, Clutch was present for Cobra bombing of a television studio where Hawk was giving an interview, and later helped rescue survivors under the rubble. Clutch took part in a disastrous mission into the Cobra-infiltrated town of New Moon, Colorado. After a surprise Cobra attack, Clutch and the rest of his team barely made it out alive before Cobra used planted explosives to level the town. The Joes were blamed for the incident and all those involved were arrested by the cabal of Generals known as the Jugglers, who began to take control of the team to reign it in, if not disband it altogether. Clutch was eventually released along with his teammates, but they did not return to the Joe team. Eventually, G.I. Joe's roster was cut down to only a dozen Joes. After the remaining team members stopped a plot by Cobra to unleash the weapon known as the Tempest, and defeated a new threat, the Red Shadows, the military again disbanded the team.

    One year later, the Joe team was reformed with a smaller roster of active members. Clutch, like most former Joes, was made a reserve member of the new team. Clutch was called back to the team to assist Jinx in infiltrating the Tokyo headquarters of Hayatu Toba -- a Japanese businessman who was secretly building an Army to topple his country's government. Though the mission called for stealth and subterfuge, the only Joes available to assist Jinx were Clutch, Rock & Roll, Gung-Ho and Wild Bill -- none of whom are noted for their stealth or subtlety. Instead, they all posed as obnoxious businessmen meeting with Toba and started to fight amongst themselves in his office to distract security. They were soon captured and learned that Toba's group was involved with Destro's forces, represented by Armada. When Toba refused to follow her orders, she killed him and started the coup without him. As the rebel forces rolled through the streets of Tokyo, many of the soldiers turned on each other. Budo had worked to subvert many of them away from Toba's control, and they and the Joes put a stop to the attempted coup. Clutch and his teammates decided to spend some extra time in Tokyo after the mission, no doubt getting into trouble on their own.

Artwork: G.I. JOE #22 (cover) by Michael Golden; G.I. JOE #55 (interior) by Rod Whigham and Andy Mushynsky; G.I. JOE Battle Files #1 (interior) by Josh Blaylock