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I had planned to do a review of the first half of the DC Comics year long mega-event Countdown, but with my English Professor throwing a curve ball at us at the last possible minute that will have to go in the January 2008 edition of the Collector Times. This month I have instead decided to do the first few issues of Devils Due Press' GI Joe: America's Elite World War III year long mega-event.
When I put it on my pull list at the local comic book store my older brother, who reads Previews, told me that they were just starting with a new writer and that I should pick it up. Apparently I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I picked up the first few issues of GI Joe: America's Elite. The first issue I picked up was number 25 which had the cover showing every member of GI Joe in a sort of stacked row. At first I thought they were in alphabetical order by Code Name, but having the likes of Breaker, Flash and Short Fuse in the second and third rows along with other Joes in the later half of the alphabet kind of blew that out of the water. I decided to just forget about it and get to the meat of the matter; the comic itself.
The first two issues deal with the aftermath of the "Sins of the Mother" storyline that took place in issues 21-24. It appears that Destro has sold M.A.R.S. to Cobra Commander and disappeared along with the Baroness. The Joes are regrouping and going after some of the worst of the worst Cobras that are still on the loose and putting them into a lock-up in Greenland called "The Coffin." They already have the likes of Major Blood, Scrap Iron and many others in there and are now going after the Cobra big wigs like Cobra Commander, Destro and Baroness. There is also something going on in Darfur that Cobra Commander has his hands in, but because they dedicate only a couple of pages to this subplot and I want more.
Issue 26 covers Snake Eyes' and Scarlett's attempt to capture Firefly in Japan as well as showing us the blossoming relationship between Shipwreck and Cover Girl and shows us a mysterious man who has been training a priest and saves the priest's life before telling him that something critical is about to happen.
I really like the writing style the writer uses to make the characters stand out. In the early parts of Issue 25 they have Cover Girl and Gung-Ho go after this Cobra sniper that has been targeting Joes. The writer's use of words in Gung-Ho's speech just gives you the idea that he is in fact from Louisiana and he is not regular Army, but is a died in the wool, true blue, I love the Corps Marine; that and the fact that he has the anchor, globe and eagle (The symbol of the USMC) tattooed on his chest. The comic has sucked me in from this latest issue and has made me want to go back and pick up all the issues that I have missed of the Image/DDP series.
It appears that I missed out on some things in the 50+ issues of the Image Comics/DDP version of GI Joe that came out over the past four years, but when you go back and pick up something that was so a part of your childhood like GI Joe was for me, you almost don't need to pick up back issues. I guess that's why I decided to get back into comic books.
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