[RPD]

Anyone read it? I thought it was pretty good. Mostly setup for the future of her run, but I thought Traviss did a nice job. Thoughts?

[seaneley]

Thoughts?
Ok...
Mainframe and Scarlett dating for 5+ years??? Really?
Snake-Eyes "dead" for this long? Where's he been?
Where's Hawk? This is a long time to be out of the loop!
If Beachhead still suffers from amnesia, should he be on a team ('course, he may have been booted off in the past few years)?
Where's Chameleon?
Is Destro still in limbo?
So many questions... so little answers... yet...

[Steevy Maximus]

It's decent military fiction in its own right, I'll give it that.

But it continues the trend that largely kept me away from IDW's Joe comic (and I'm still a bit bitter that volume 3 ended so soon, I actually LIKED that angle on GI Joe): it takes itself too damn seriously.
Solid military fiction is a dime a dozen these days, and GI Joe just sort of blends into the crowd.

To me, what made GI Joe work, and what made it stand out and be remembered, was all the "wacky" that was incorporated: Ninjas, robots, genetic super soldiers, outlandish doomsday weapons, future tech, etc. IDW seems dead set against doing any of this (and Hasbro's lack of direction with Joe isn't helping, IMO)
Plus it suffers from "trade paperback" syndrome where very little happens issue to issue and will read better as a trade.

By the end, I was saying "For God's sake, throw a damn ninja or robot in here already!"

And what's worse is that, page for page, Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye gave me more bang for my buck than GI Joe does.

I'll check previews on upcoming issues, but unless something changes, I don't see myself sticking with this comic (and considering the relative lack of coverage for IDW comics since 2012, it seems many have already given up on it)

[RPD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steevy Maximus

By the end, I was saying "For God's sake, throw a damn ninja or robot in here already!"

Don't we have ARAH for that?

[RPD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by seaneley

Where's Chameleon?

That's what I'll be waiting for. She became a star in COBRA Files...

[Steevy Maximus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPD

Don't we have ARAH for that?

But I'm also not overly familiar with the original run, have no desire to brush up on 150 issues of continuity, and most importantly, I want fresh ideas.

Saying that is effectively saying "Why does the current comics needs Hot Rod or Scorponok when they're in Regeneration One?". Because the current comics are doing something different than riding 20 year old story arcs.

That's my underlying frustration: I WANT new GI Joe stories. The GI Joe I grew up with that had ninjas, robots, metal masked weapons dealers and bazooka soldiers wearing football uniforms. I WANT fun stories.
I DON'T want "realistic military thriller number 132 featuring GI Joe names". Again, I can get military fiction almost everywhere these days, what always set GI Joe apart were those wacky scifi elements, elements IDW has seemingly avoided at all costs (even killing Snake Eyes!).

And what's really sad is how much the IDW forums are fawning over this book BECAUSE of how boringly realistic it is. If I wanted to follow geo-social politics, I'd turn on the news. I buy GI Joe to see action and adventure and I'm not getting it.

[Rainbow Viper]

I thought it was okay. My major concerns which were as expected, and that is that the concept is beyond belief to me. This story would have made more sense when Cobra was still in hiding during the beginning of IDW's run. The fact that the Joes go from people that "don't exist" to being publicly known fighting a well known terrorist group and now that terrorist group is a good group and well respected all over the world just is just a bad plot point. And of course the obvious get out of jail free card is we don't know what happened in the last 5 years to make this happen so that is the macguffin.

on the positive side...I do feel this writer has a good voice. Most of the dialogue was good. The art was also good. I like the way scarlett was drawn and loved how her costume very closely resembled her renegades costume. I thought it was disappointing and odd that the Baroness's costume was exactly the same as always but her Cobra insignia was gone. You would think with them being essentially okay to dawn their symbol she would wear it. Without it she just feels like any female with black vinyl on.

I think some of the plot points feel predictable...especially the stuff with Siren and her son.

[seaneley]

Let's just admit it: G.I. Joe without adventure and sci-fi elements isn't "G.I. Joe" anymore. It's something else - and there's plenty of it with different names on the market, as Stevy Maximus pointed out. This started out as a toy that attracted thousands of children. Now it wouldn't attract one. What's the point?

[Steevy Maximus]

They suckered another issue out of me, but it was more of the same: heavy focus on two new guys I really don't have reason to give a crap about, lots of political maneuvering, very little action or excitement (hell, I think the Joes themselves are in the comic less than 1/3 of the time!)

Nifty to see Duke and Big Ben, but again, that "5 year gap" basically leaves it unexplained why neither was still with GI Joe or why they left, and I don't see how their arc is going to play out.

I really don't mind "slow burn" stories, but they need to be mitigated with stuff to keep me interested in each issue. Traviss isn't doing that. She's writing this like a novel, not a comic book.

In the end, nothing has been done to address a big issue I have: what is Cobra's end game? WHY is Cobra playing nice, and what do they hope to achieve? How does Cobra Commander play into this?
In other words, give me a damn reason to keep reading to see how things play out!

[seaneley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steevy Maximus

They suckered another issue out of me, but it was more of the same: heavy focus on two new guys I really don't have reason to give a crap about, lots of political maneuvering, very little action or excitement (hell, I think the Joes themselves are in the comic less than 1/3 of the time!)

Nifty to see Duke and Big Ben, but again, that "5 year gap" basically leaves it unexplained why neither was still with GI Joe or why they left, and I don't see how their arc is going to play out.

I really don't mind "slow burn" stories, but they need to be mitigated with stuff to keep me interested in each issue. Traviss isn't doing that. She's writing this like a novel, not a comic book.

In the end, nothing has been done to address a big issue I have: what is Cobra's end game? WHY is Cobra playing nice, and what do they hope to achieve? How does Cobra Commander play into this?
In other words, give me a damn reason to keep reading to see how things play out!

And how did Tomax replace Krake as "Cobra Commander"? That would have taken some serious maneuvering!