"Your loyal wolf friend here - he needs a name! How about...TIMBER! Yes...'Tis a perfect moniker!"
- Scotch-Eskimo Shaman to Snake Eyes, cartoon episode "The Worms of Death" (1983)
In the fictional universe of the G.I. Joe toys, comics, and cartoons, Timber is a gray wolf who befriends the ninja Snake Eyes.
Timber first appeared as a plastic toy wolf that came with the second version of Snake Eyes, released as part of G.I. Joe Series 4 in 1985.
According to the filecard on the back of the package, after Snake Eyes finished his tour of duty in Vietnam and completed his ninja training in Japan in the second half of the 1970s, he moved to the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California where he lived a solitary and ascetic lifestyle. It was during this period that he met and befriended a wolf, whom he named Timber.
This origin was maintained in the original Marvel Comics series (1982-1994), which portrayed Timber as less of a pet and more of a wild animal. Throughout the series, Timber kept living the wild life of a wolf, but remained in the general vicinity of Snake Eyes's old cabin in the High Sierras, guarding it against intruders and hanging out with Snake Eyes whenever he and his G.I. Joe pals came back for a visit or to hide out or something.
In the Devil's Due Comics continuation of the series, Timber eventually died of old age, but not before siring a litter of wolf pups, one of which Snake Eyes adopts.
In the Sunbow animated television series (1983-1986), an alternate origin for Timber was given. In the very first miniseries, entitled "The MASS Device," Snake Eyes met Timber at the edge of the Arctic Circle while on a mission to gather a rare radioactive crystals needed by the Joes to make their own "MASS Device." Snake Eyes rescued Timber from a bear trap, whereupon a grateful Timber followed Snake Eyes around and helped him fight off a polar bear. Later, Snake Eyes was healed of radiation sickness by an Eskimo shaman, who also happened to speak English with a heavy Scottish accent and named the wolf "Timber."
Snake Eyes takes Timber with him back to the G.I. Joe main base in the US, where Timber shows his high IQ by helping Cover Girl defuse a Cobra booby-trap and earns the high praise, "Timber, you're my kind of wolf!" from the gorgeous former fashion model. Thereafter, Timber shows up randomly several times in the cartoon as Snake Eyes's sidekick.