Imperial_Ozma
01-14-2009, 11:04 PM
First off does anyone have an idea if the guard being holographic and see through on page 6 has any significance? It'd be a shocker if Zartan say was already in the Pit (but then he infiltrated GI Joe early in reloaded)... maybe the pit just has holographic guards? Though I don't see the point.
Anyway on to the review.
This issue begins, with some men on a shipping boat involved in a theft ring, picking through the choosiest bits of the ship's cargo. When they notice something not on the manifest and go to investigate it. The item responds to their presence by shooting them and the ship is sunk. Beachhead and Duke, talk about life before GI Joe while out on a jog, and through the conversation we find out that Beachhead does not remember having a normal life, and he is a danger junkie.
Duke is brought to the command center as Scarlett directs an undersea op to investigate the sunken vessel. Shipwrek and Deep six find the contraband, and General Hawk orders Duke and Scarlett to work together on the "Cobra" problem. We get multiple hints up to this point that there is personal tension between Duke and Scarlett, possibly alluding to a former romantic relationship (similar to the one in the cartoon).
Meanwhile a sumgler in the Rivera, talks with his contact about the ship that sunk in this issue and the one in issue zero. The Smugler declares he no longer wants to work with the people on the other end, they tell him they share the same feelings, and a soldier appears from thin air. The Soldier kills Nico, the smuggler's, guards; but then seems to turn into powder leaving only his gun behind. Nico flee's and Snake-eyes appears on the scene. A guard tells Snake-eyes that the assailant vanished like a ghost before succumbing to his injuries.
Snake-eyes mails the gun back to Scarlett at the pit, she promptly gets Dial-tone to work on discovering exactly what it's made of. She then joins Duke, and three other joes (including Frostbite and Airtight) in examining the contraband recovered from the ship. Duke wants to blow it up, the other joes want to try and open it. Scarlett tell's them to open it but becareful. Which displeases Duke, which inturn pleases Scarlett. The joes comment on how the crate sounds like a Cat's sleeping purrs.
... comments.
In some ways this is very similar to the approach used in Transformers Infiltration, when IDW first got the TF license. Cobra is being very slowly built up with a lot of mystique... the Joes do not know who they are, just that they're a rumour in the underworld. This is, I think a better approach then the old Marvel comics, because Cobra was not clearly defined in the early issues... it was just there doing evil things for the hell of it. Hear we get to see Cobra being developed slowly, and little by little built up until we realize how big and dangerous it is.
The characterization is top notch, really love Scarlett making fun of her heavy workload, "[multitask] should be my codename", her ice queen routine towards Duke and the already intuitive understanding she seems to share with Snake-eyes despite them not having appeared together in the same scene yet. It's easy to imagine that Duke and Scarlett were a thing and then Snake showed up... but we'll see if that theory is right or not.
It's also interesting to see Scarlett as the second in command out of the characters we've seen so far. So used to seeing Duke give the orders, it's quite the role reversal.
The art is well done, a very realistic style with no super muscles or super breasts, for that matter. Very pleasent to look at.
The only thing is that the comic didn't give us any real action at all... a small firefight or even training exercise might have helped set the pace for a war comic. But other then that the issue is perfect in my opinion
4/5
Anyway on to the review.
This issue begins, with some men on a shipping boat involved in a theft ring, picking through the choosiest bits of the ship's cargo. When they notice something not on the manifest and go to investigate it. The item responds to their presence by shooting them and the ship is sunk. Beachhead and Duke, talk about life before GI Joe while out on a jog, and through the conversation we find out that Beachhead does not remember having a normal life, and he is a danger junkie.
Duke is brought to the command center as Scarlett directs an undersea op to investigate the sunken vessel. Shipwrek and Deep six find the contraband, and General Hawk orders Duke and Scarlett to work together on the "Cobra" problem. We get multiple hints up to this point that there is personal tension between Duke and Scarlett, possibly alluding to a former romantic relationship (similar to the one in the cartoon).
Meanwhile a sumgler in the Rivera, talks with his contact about the ship that sunk in this issue and the one in issue zero. The Smugler declares he no longer wants to work with the people on the other end, they tell him they share the same feelings, and a soldier appears from thin air. The Soldier kills Nico, the smuggler's, guards; but then seems to turn into powder leaving only his gun behind. Nico flee's and Snake-eyes appears on the scene. A guard tells Snake-eyes that the assailant vanished like a ghost before succumbing to his injuries.
Snake-eyes mails the gun back to Scarlett at the pit, she promptly gets Dial-tone to work on discovering exactly what it's made of. She then joins Duke, and three other joes (including Frostbite and Airtight) in examining the contraband recovered from the ship. Duke wants to blow it up, the other joes want to try and open it. Scarlett tell's them to open it but becareful. Which displeases Duke, which inturn pleases Scarlett. The joes comment on how the crate sounds like a Cat's sleeping purrs.
... comments.
In some ways this is very similar to the approach used in Transformers Infiltration, when IDW first got the TF license. Cobra is being very slowly built up with a lot of mystique... the Joes do not know who they are, just that they're a rumour in the underworld. This is, I think a better approach then the old Marvel comics, because Cobra was not clearly defined in the early issues... it was just there doing evil things for the hell of it. Hear we get to see Cobra being developed slowly, and little by little built up until we realize how big and dangerous it is.
The characterization is top notch, really love Scarlett making fun of her heavy workload, "[multitask] should be my codename", her ice queen routine towards Duke and the already intuitive understanding she seems to share with Snake-eyes despite them not having appeared together in the same scene yet. It's easy to imagine that Duke and Scarlett were a thing and then Snake showed up... but we'll see if that theory is right or not.
It's also interesting to see Scarlett as the second in command out of the characters we've seen so far. So used to seeing Duke give the orders, it's quite the role reversal.
The art is well done, a very realistic style with no super muscles or super breasts, for that matter. Very pleasent to look at.
The only thing is that the comic didn't give us any real action at all... a small firefight or even training exercise might have helped set the pace for a war comic. But other then that the issue is perfect in my opinion
4/5