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04-29-2021, 01:24 PM | #3201 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Boulder
Posts: 1,574
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issue 241
BATS and Blur Ninjas being sent in as a team. Are these enhanced BATS? Do they communicate between each other or on the same band? Do the Blue Ninjas pull rank? The hodge podge squad inside is easily going to be a match for them. Oh they have two Snake-Eyes, they can just send one out to handle it while the others all hang back. There's a great close-up of Destroyed with that scratch in his mask I like to see so much. It’s a nice piece of continuity and really gives Destro a strong variation on his regular look. Dawn takes a break due to her pace. Zartan seems to be leading the group at this time even though Tommy is standing right there. That's interesting. Although Zartan is more of the leader-type personality I suppose if I gave it some thought. Dr. Venom awakens in Mindbender's body. The locker he opens has Zarana and Baroness pin-ups. The Baroness one is VERY revealing. The Zarana one is personalized to "Venom." Is this his own locker from back in the day? What was Venom getting up to on the side with the women of Cobra? How far ahead of the HR was he if he was already getting down with Zarana? I'll never look at him the same way again. Oh this scene with Sneak-Peak on the veterinarian table is very sad. It also took a whole skipped-issue to get here. Sneak-Peak gets put on a mission, meets his ex, shot, forgotten for an issue, now he is back just in time to die. And/or get sent on another deep cover mission. Still sad. Oooff! One page later after all that. I try not to second-guess every plot decision, but I really wonder why he had to die again. Like, he was already back and had a cover story to explain away the mistake. Why not let him see the mission through and then fade away for occasional guest appearances in the future? Or a more active role now that he has some notoriety. Venom takes no time at all in undressing his next conquest! That cad! The temporary shared leadership of Cobra shows why Destro and Baroness left in the first place. But they came back randomly to taunt Cobra Commander at odd times at least three times before blackmailing him into letting them back on board. Apparently they just really miss the excitement. I'm always of the opinion that Destro should drop Baroness like a hot rock and find a more suitable lady, but if I were to be more fair to her I'd wonder if Destro wasn't maybe just way too boring for her overall. This is the infamous Dreadnok escape plan in which the Dreadnoks follow in Zartan's footsteps to aid the Joes. Soon he will be on a mission with them in China under Hawk's oversight. Later in Snake-Hunt the Dreadnoks will be full-on allies to the Joes. Dr. Venom emerges to throw crazy amounts of shade at Cobra Commander. He takes the credit for most of Cobra's early successes and rise, which I think is a fair stance. I would add to it that the Baroness was a major help with her counter-revolutionary background and her family wealth. In the letters page Larry takes a question about Dr. Biggles-Jones and why her role within Cobra changed. He responds by denying her earlier role (he forgot).
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9/1/22 - A Day Which Will Live in Infamy Steevy Maximus - "that Nazi imagery was quaint" |
05-05-2021, 06:09 PM | #3202 |
Cyber Warfare Specialist
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05-05-2021, 06:12 PM | #3203 |
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Issue #242 is live to discuss. Yo Joe!
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05-06-2021, 01:57 AM | #3204 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Boulder
Posts: 1,574
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issue 242
Zartan still appears to be the defacto leader of a mixed group of Joes, Dreadnoks, Arashikage, and civilians. Ling-Torres is bewildered and confused. Her brainwashing was interrupted. To be honest I can't remember if her plotline has ever been resolved or not at this time. She might still be a sleeper agent near the Presidency around issue 280 where we are at the moment. The cycle of Zartan's penance to the Arashikage is complete now. Last issue I joked about the pin-ups of Baroness and Zarana in Venom's old locker. This issue he whispers something to her and she is embarrassed and upset. When his ghost took over Billy's body and Baroness was still under the brainwave scanner control it was very strongly implied that Venom Billy and Baroness were engaged in a sexual relationship. Here he also disses on Cobra Commander and Destro. Perhaps Venom's vision of Cobra would be interesting to see on paper. Leatherneck, Airborne, Rock and Roll, Long Range are dropped into Trucial Abysmia on the way back to base after a different mission. Wild Bill and a pilot I can't identify drop them HALO. Leatherneck doesn't land at the same location as the others. The transition to this TA mission is welcome. Getting away from the Springfield storyline and right into a good FUBAR military storyline. I can't remember how this one goes but I remember really enjoying it. Airborne is upset that their stealth is compromised. Then he lights a flare so Leatherneck can find them. Leatherneck is a bull in a China shop. Apparently lighting a flare to bring him in is less obvious than having him running around alone in the dark in militia-occupied streets. Ambassador McCrory is the latest in a line of military-trained assets the Joe team must protect. The action over the next few pages is solid, if a little oddly narrated. I'm sure Leatherneck stays up late at night wondering if he stuck to the Rules of Engagement. The radicals blow up the extraction helicopter. In the letters page we learn that Snake-Eyes is a Gemini.
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9/1/22 - A Day Which Will Live in Infamy Steevy Maximus - "that Nazi imagery was quaint" |
05-11-2021, 02:57 PM | #3205 |
Bridge Layer Driver
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Ft. Wadsworth
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No-Prize Explanation (or NOH Award) for Dr. Venom having a personalized pinup of Zarana: back in the day, before she joined up with Cobra (so 1982 or 1983 in "real world" time), Zarana sold pictures of herself from ads in the backs of seedy magazines. Like "send me $20 and a SASE and I'll send YOU a personalized picture, honeybunch". Venom probably had one from Wendy O. Williams or the gal from Bow Wow Wo, too.
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>>Chuck X Goren's GI Joe Comic Book Index<< |
05-12-2021, 11:31 AM | #3206 |
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05-12-2021, 11:36 AM | #3207 |
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Issue #243 is live to discuss. Yo Joe!
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05-12-2021, 05:46 PM | #3208 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Boulder
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issue 243
The Roadblock cover is an homage to the Destro-standing-in-the-doorway cover from his first appearance. Trucial Abysmia really looks like a war zone. The Joes have taken out dozens of the local militias. Bodies everywhere. All the unified militias are surging into the building at once. The Joe team has invited the militants into a trap. There are naked bodies everywhere, stripped of their garb. Under these bodies are explosive traps, further diminishing the numbers of the antagonists. Airborne cuts the throat of the vehicle gunner outside in a large and bloody panel. That panel puts him into the category of some of the scariest silent kill Joes for me such as Stalker, Leatherneck, Beachhead, Muskrat, Outback, and Torpedo. The Joes commandeer two vehicles and get a very small lead on their pursuers. They have to blow through a roadblock. The gun battle is pretty brutal and it looks like most of the non-Joes have been shot down. The driver is down. The two bodyguards for the ambassador are wounded. Leatherneck gets to be a Marine-bro with a peer. There is a panel here with an extreme close-up of Long-Range’s eye through two scopes. Pretty good perspective work here. Ambassador McRory demands Leathernecks pistol and apparently his hat, too. Then he goes to cover the Joe team and provide a distraction. Oooops, mission has encountered a problem if their mission is to get the ambassador out alive. McRory gets the militias into a large circle around him by simply being too irresistible to pass up on surrounding. He is standing in a pool of gasoline, a trap. His final words are to cite scripture: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The crowd goes up in flame and the Joe team is able to escape. In the letters page, a correspondent appreciates the philosophical framing of the living members of the cast being able to embrace forgiveness and move on, such as Zartan and Storm Shadow, Obake Obaason, and them all moving forward together. While meanwhile the dead, or the digital ghosts such as Snake-Eyes, Venom, and Kwinn are all trapped forever in their revenge fantasies.
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9/1/22 - A Day Which Will Live in Infamy Steevy Maximus - "that Nazi imagery was quaint" |
05-12-2021, 06:11 PM | #3209 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Boulder
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Quote:
No-Prize Explanation (or NOH Award) for Dr. Venom having a personalized pinup of Zarana: back in the day, before she joined up with Cobra (so 1982 or 1983 in "real world" time), Zarana sold pictures of herself from ads in the backs of seedy magazines. Like "send me $20 and a SASE and I'll send YOU a personalized picture, honeybunch". Venom probably had one from Wendy O. Williams or the gal from Bow Wow Wo, too.
http://alturl.com/vza2r This does open up an interesting discussion about the "when" of when certain Cobra freelancers joined the organization. As we learned that Firefly and Zartan had secret histories working directly for Cobra Commander before being employed by Cobra, I've often thought about other characters similarly. There's a whole story to explore with some of that thinking I feel. Although if done poorly it could be like the most recent issue of the series which so many out-of-place characters and vehicles that it bothers attentive fans instead of enriching the storyline. Here's a few headcannon backgrounds I've had floating around for a long time. Copperhead, from the swamps in the Southeast, is tangentially connected to the Dreadnoks and was aware of Zartan getting a freelancer job with Cobra. So he followed Zartan over and got a leadership position early before the Dreadnoks were brought along by Zartan. However he was never a Dreadnok himself. Baroness came aboard very early and her family money was used by the Commander to help fund the organization early on. He was manipulating her, which ended when Destro came along. Dr. Venom was instrumental in the organizing and planning of the Cobra organization (which we are seeing play out in the plot now). He's most likely of the Springfield community which I feel like was supported by the text, however he would have had some much deeper earlier roots outside of Springfield. Okay I've had this little dumb pet theory that Cobra Commander is untouchable by the Joes for a reason. This is essentially my brain's way of dealing with all the times he's been attacked by a ninja then not killed outright. Of course Destro did say that Cobra as an organization is less effective with Cobra Commander in charge of it than if it were to be taken over by someone else. However that doesn't explain all the saving graces from the assassination attempts. Actually I feel like Cobra Commander had some support from the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community in the first place, and that he was somewhat intentionally enabled to build this organization. That he has been protected at a very high level, and that Snake-Eyes knows he cannot just kill Cobra Commander. It's a nuisance. This also works if you tie it in with the Jugglers. Why would the CIA or the Jugglers enable Cobra and handicap the Joe team while encouraging the overt warfare between the two in various countries? Money. They're war profiteers of course. Plus the Joe team is able to be a platform for exotic weapons and vehicle testing, as is Cobra. And who designs the exotic weaponry and vehicles for the GiJoe team? Mars.
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9/1/22 - A Day Which Will Live in Infamy Steevy Maximus - "that Nazi imagery was quaint" |
05-19-2021, 03:24 PM | #3210 |
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