[J James]

issue 290

Spotlight: Oktober Guard

The Bongo Balloon Bear van is leaving Springfield. Daina is shot, and Stalker is trying to patch her up with Colonel Brekhov.

We start getting into the whole "reanimated Oktober Guard" exposition dump. Schrage remarks that Horror Show is having memory problems, and it seems that he also did as well. It sounds like Brekhov did not die but they saved his brain and he is mostly cyborg.

He recounts the aftermath of the Special Missions issue in which they all die. The Russian military used advanced technology on them to stabilize their bodies, then they went into a stealth medical ship which was a support vessel for their mission and were upgraded while aboard.

Clutch, Rock and Roll, Stalker, and the Oktober Guard have to pull over due to engine damage from the firefight, but Crystal Ball arrives and gives them a ride.

We skip forward one week. Daina is floating in a bacta tank. Some doctors are working on her. Brekhov wants to keep her intact but they shut him up by reminding him of his own status.

The team explores the operating and recovery floor. Horror Show experiences some seizures from suddenly remembering his own transformation process. They reset him, and learn that if this keeps happening that his memory will be gone forever.

The only way to get more memory modules is to steal them from Revanche. Revanche did the AI, but apparently they stopped delivering once their relationship with Cobra began. So, maybe Cobra has an exclusive arrangement with them.

A mission is born. We skip forward two weeks. Daina is joining the team, newly recovered.
The building is heavily defended. Alpha is inside, gloating about playing the long game on the Oktober Guard. It describes the Blur Ninjas as "legacy models." It talks about the "rebuilding project" which probably means that the Casino girls are being used to rebuild the business after the devastation of the Iron Grenadiers.

Alpha clarifies for the reader which Oktober Guard member has how much robot in them. Stormavik is 40% Revanche, Brekhov is 20%, and Shrage is over 70% Revanche. Horror Show is 100%. Dragonsky is fully human.

Interestingly, Daina, who is now no longer fully human, is identified as 0% Revanche. This indicates to me that the Russians are far advanced of the rest of the world in cyborg technology, and that perhaps they have the resources to defeat Alpha.

The Guard enters through the loading bay and a firefight begins. Dragonsky quickly locates the memory modules on his device. Alpha determines that "the long game is irrelevant if" the infrastructure is damaged, so he releases a special operator named "Quantum Eradicator."

The Guard encounters resistance. They locate the memory modules and Quantum Eradicator attacks. He is not harmed by Dragonsky's flamethrower but Horror Show blows up a refrigerant tank and the robot freezes and shatters immediately.

Alpha turns off the Revanche parts and Stormavik and Schrage go down. Now the efforts of the team are spent on extricating their robot teammates. Horror Show manages to override the shutdown command despite being fully Revanche. His humanity, though now digitized, won out overall through force of will.

There is no letters page.

[AWOL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by J James

He recounts the aftermath of the Special Missions issue in which they all die. The Russian military used advanced technology on them to stabilize their bodies

'Curing death' is the deathknell for a series.

[ozzie92]

Oktober Guard…Revanche…can’t remember what he wrote, won’t research, writes page by page, more resurrections than years lived…yada yada yada…issue #290.

[Mainframe77]

Place holder

[Mainframe77]

Issue 291 is live to discuss.... Yo Joe!

[J James]

issue 291

Lonzo, Tommy, and CLASSIFIED are leaving their ill-fated LRRP mission and heading to the LZ. Tommy is inviting not only CLASSIFIED, but also his twin sister Terri, to Japan.

This is the familiar Vietnam origin story, only now we are seeing it through CLASSIFIED's eyes in first-person perspective.

Tommy runs back through the tall grass and speaks consistent dialogue to keep CLASSIFIED focused and alert as the helicopter takes off.

Dawn comes out of her memory vision and we join a rescue mission in progress aboard a train. "Ultra Nationalist Fascist Paramilitaries" (take a drink) want their imprisoned teammates back and have hijacked this train.

Snake-Eyes Dawn, Snake-Eyes Sean, Scarlett, and Mongoose are taking them out. Lift-Ticket, Wild Bill and Roadblock are flying support above.

The terrorist leader is having the American hostages separated to use as leverage for when the commandos arrive. Six train cars need to be liberated for the good guys to arrive at the boss level. Sean kills one car's worth of villains.

Soon the Joes are in the final car before the boss. During a firefight, Scarlett says some keywords which trigger more of Dawn's memory flashbacks...

This is the first-person accounting of the desert helicopter accident. We witness the other helicopter aflame and coming in too close as the impact ignites the fuel lines. Snake-Eyes is focused on Scarlett in the memory through all the flame and smoke the whole time.

Her vision fades as we enter the final car. Scarlett and Dawn quickly obliterate all challengers using projectiles and swords. The men join them, and Sean quickly eliminates an overlooked threat. His black mask is riding up, which triggers another flashback memory.

This time we are on the Staten Island Ferry. Scarlett is fixing Snake-Eyes' face mask. With this memory, Dawn decides that she has had too much.

On Cobra Island we learn that Mindbender is going to create an evil Snake-Eyes clone while killing Snake-Eyes Sean, and he is making another different "more interesting" clone as well.

There is no letters page.

At this point it seems safe to say that both Mindbender and Cobra Commander are independently obsessed with Snake-Eyes as a person. Neither one of them is willing to let him go. They are both completely in love with the idea of him.

[AWOL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by J James

At this point it seems safe to say that both Mindbender and Cobra Commander are independently obsessed with Snake-Eyes as a person. Neither one of them is willing to let him go. They are both completely in love with the idea of him.

As is Hasbro, Hama, and the fandom.