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Back in 1994, GI Joe fans said good bye to the GI Joe comic after 155
issues. This signaled the end of an era for comic readers of my
generation. We would no longer be seeing all our favorite characters
such as Snake Eyes, Duke, Cobra Commander or Destro any more. I personally
grew up with GI Joe through most of my formative years, and was depressed
when I went looking for it at my local comic shop and could not find any new
issues.
A few years later, Dark Horse comics got the rights to the GI Joe comic
and turned it into GI Joe Extreme. One look at this comic and GI Joe fans ran from the
comic stores screaming because they had taken GI Joe and turned it into
a virtual bastard of its former glory. There were no characters in it that
were in the original series and the artwork and writing were so
sub-standard that it did not last past 4 or 5 issues.
In the year 2001, there was a glimmer of hope. A new company, Devils
Due, had gotten hold of the GI Joe license and was going to be putting out a
new GI Joe comic. At first I was skeptical because Devils Due was going
to be working with Image Comics to put out the new comic. For me Image
was the devil incarnate because of comics like Spawn and Savage Dragon that
were all art and no plot. After reading on the web site that the new
writer was a big GI Joe fan I felt a bit more confident that GI Joe was in
good hands, but I did not like the idea that he had. He was going to
integrate some generic Joes into the story. For me, generic characters
were for the Cobra side, not the named GI Joe side. I set aside my biases and
went out and purchased the first issue when it came out in September
2001.
I was a bit let down because the issue was a bit short and did not have
the GI Joe feeling that the first issue of the Marvel comics had.
Subsequent issues got better and if number four is any indication, then
they have a hit on their hands.
The plot of the first four issues revolved around the reformation of
Cobra after being routed by GI Joe. For about seven years, Cobra Commander and the
others lived in Europe trying to rebuild Cobra. After calling the main Cobra
characters together at Zartan's Dreadnok hideout he reveals his next plan
to try to take over the world. When the US Government is informed about
this, they decide to re-form the old GI Joe team. I'd tell more, but that
would spoil the surprise.
The art on this is slightly better than your average Image art. The
character's faces are realistic and stay true to the original GI Joe
characters. Bodies are well proportioned and also realistic looking. No
huge 38DDDD breasts on Scarlett, but she is drawn with a slight slant
towards looking like the actress Gillian Anderson. The generic characters
I mention above really do look alike so it's not that hard to tell them apart
from the original Joes. The vehicles are drawn pretty well, with some
originals like the AWE Striker being seen in the background. The only
thing is, they have replaced the old Dragon Fly that Wild Bill flew with
some type of very state of the art helicopter.
My only gripe is that the comic was released bi-monthly for the first
four issues and is now being released monthly (as of issue #5 due out 4-3-02). I would like
to have seen it be monthly from the beginning.
Overall, this is a vary good re-launch of GI Joe. You can pick up the
first two issues in one called GI Joe Reloaded and the other two should still be available.
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