The world's gone mad! The Joes and Cobra have swapped places!
Action and intrigue happens all over the world - - from DC to the desert - - as the Joes adjust to Cobra's new employment as a national defense agency.
The Good
The confrontation with the vigilantes at the end was a stand-out for its storytelling. I liked the rhythm of Snake Eyes tapping insistently on the window, building up tension before it finally erupted with the Joes putting these extremists in their place so succinctly. I also liked the characterization of Destro as being the educated, sophisticated nobleman with a great deal of intellectual curiosity... who just happens to like plotting to destroy the world. His observations about the improbably coincidences popping up in Billy's dialogue, in particular, gave a three dimensional thoroughness to his mad genius characterization.
The Bad
The dialogue in the opening fight between Stalker and the Cobra viper ran a little too wordy. It didn't fit to have these hard cases trying to one-up each others' "dis dispensesing" like a couple of catty middle schoolers. The trash talk could've definitely a run a little leaner. The art seemed to skirt on details and rely a little too much on colors to fill in the backgrounds during the scenes in DC and around the migrant worker scuffle, too.
The Verdict - 3.5/5
It's fun to see Hama's classic GI Joe run finally continued with enough adjustments to still keep it relevant to contemporary times. I honestly thought the art ran a little too dark and minimalistic for the tone of the title here, but I'm still intrigued to see where the title goes now with this nightmarish, world-gone-mad scenario of GI Joe and Cobra effectively swapping places.
@danhimself: It's a different publisher. There was a debate about this particular continuation a few months ago and everyone decided it worked best and most similar to the other volumes to separate them.
5 Comments