G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Volume 2) #3

"Reinstated! 3 (of 4)"

Story (and Layouts): Josh Blaylock

Pencils: Steve Kurth

Inks: John Larter

Colors: Hi-Fi Colour Design

 

PLOT SYNOPSIS:

We start off with a stirring and hilarious time capsule juxtaposition, as a suburban schoolteacher lectures her bored, indifferent students about G.I. Joe's triumphant heroism of a decade ago, and how they "made sure we'll never have to worry about them (Cobra) again," which is followed one panel later by an explosive image (which consumes no less than half the opening page) of Roadblock viciously ramming the butt of his rifle into Major Bludd's jaw ("Get in line, Bludd!").

Nearby, Zartan and Zanya arrange to meet Thrasher and Buzzer at the old 'Nok headquarters, but the latter pair has a bit of trouble in the form of Wild Bill and a startlingly futuristic-looking Dragonfly. Once Zartan and his dreadlocked daughter arrive, they find that their former base of operations is housing a pair of thieving thugs. Zanya unceremoniously murders them, while in his Trans-Carpathia castle, Destro conducts the obligatory "My Plan Is Brilliant!" speech which, to writer Josh Blaylock's credit, is at least unusually sadistic; you'll recall that Cobra has taken over a high-tech satellite (it occurs to me only now that it's unlikely there exists such a thing as a low-tech satellite), and through it they plan to activate their legions of nano-mites (wee robots, for you tech-illiterate types), and Destro's goal is like something out of Tyler Durden's Project Mayhem from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club:

"The United States will fall into total anarchy. Their computer networks will fail."

In a fantastic supervillain moment, he adds, "And just for added drama… the mites will kill a few hundred citizens while they're at it."

I love Destro. The evil opportunist's aim is to weaken the U.S. so that its enemies will seek to take advantage, "and we will sell them the arms necessary to do so." It's unnecessarily convoluted, perhaps, but still, as far as evil plots go, it's more sound than most, not least because he adds the following, almost as an afterthought: "Of course, we control the nanites, and we will defeat our own customers once we have their income. And the country will be ours!"

I loathe the use of exclamation points, but in this case, I reluctantly concede that Destro has earned it.

In our previous issue, there was a subtly strange and unsettling conversation between Destro and Baroness. I neglected to mention it because I suspected the payoff would be forthcoming, and I'd mention it when the appropriate time came. Well, here we are; Baroness referred to Destro at one point as "Destro," implying he was someone else altogether, and the recipient of Destro's fun speech o' doom outlined above turns out to be… well… Destro. To clarify, the man we have been led to believe is Destro finishes his longwinded rant with the following: "You'll be so proud of me, father." The proper Destro, you see, is bedridden and seemingly unresponsive, with various mechanical devices and acupuncture needles and such protruding from his withered flesh.

Back in Goodguyland, Duke and Hawk confer with Mainframe (still suited up in what I'll continue to assume is a more-or-less permanent outfit of creepy tech-attachments; he looks somewhat like the Engineer from Warren Ellis' The Authority, albeit less sexy.) It turns out that the big battle that brought our previous issue to a close had something of an unlikely conclusion, as a captured Major Bludd taunted his captors before pushing a button on a concealed handheld device of some sort, resulting in a large flash of light which left all the Joes (and a few remaining Cobra troops) unconscious and, Duke and Hawk confirm, infected with nano-mites.

Hawk also announces his plan to attend the mass funeral for all the fallen Joe rookies, as I struggle to adjust to the continued body count, for I was raised exclusively on the G.I. Joe cartoon, set in a magical land where missiles are accommodating devices which politely provide their targets with plenty of post-explosion time in which to happily eject from their flaming vehicles.

The comic book continuity is of course set in an ever-so-slightly more realistic universe. Accordingly, though Destro used his Anti-Gravity Pod to escape the aforementioned battle last issue, Duke and Hawk are hesitant to launch a full-on assault owing to Destro's political power in Europe (it only complicates matters that Destro had Snake Eyes and Scarlett with him in the AGP when he escaped, and thus any assault on Destro will risk the lives of Snake Eyes and Scarlett.) Hawk insists that they cannot even afford to inform Europe of the imminent threat ("We're not about to let the rest of the world know these things (the nano-mites) exist.") Such secrecy and paranoia in the name of self-preservation on the part of the military rings true, lending some unlikely credibility to a story in which a man in a silver mask and a bunch of biker thugs plan to use tiny robots to cripple a nation.

So what CAN Duke and Hawk do? Call in Kamakura and Spirit to find Cobra Commander's son, Billy! (This Devil's Due relaunch is my introduction to the comic book Joeverse, and as such this bold plan has all the impact, for me, of a My Little Pony cliffhanger. That said, it struck me as something that would probably pack quite the revelatory wallop for longtime readers, and so the use of an exclamation point seems justified.)

For those of you who, like me, are new to this continuity, Blaylock helpfully informs us, through Hawk, why Billy is important. Our previous issue revealed that he was hiding out in a dingy bar in Scotland, pretending not to watch Hawk's press conference, but Hawk also notes that he has spent much time in Destro's castle, and that he served the Joe forces many times (as something of a double-agent, or so the implication seems) before "He kind of snapped, and disappeared off the radar." (Duke's deadpan response: "Multiple brain-washings and having an international terrorist for a father will do that to a kid.")

Duke cautions Spirit that Billy never fully recovered from all the psychological trauma he'd endured, while Mainframe reports to Flint that the nano-mites are attacking the white blood cells of the infected Joes ("Not unlike HIV") and Flint introduces him to G.I. Joe's latest computer gurus, a wiry blond dude who resembles Hi-Tech from the Sigma 6 series (Daemon) and a cute brunette lass with a dark complexion and a mildly rebellious style of dress (Firewall.)

Soon, Kamakura and Spirit find their way to the home of Billy, who is rather reluctant to chat, until Kamakura pulls back his sleeve to reveal an Arashikage tattoo and says, "I have information about a friend of yours." Meanwhile, in a Cobra holding cell, Scarlett unloads on Snake Eyes for bailing on her before their wedding, before Destro Junior's girlfriend (a mercenary named Lilian, or "Mistress Armada") shows up and gloats to the prisoners about Junior's ambitious goals. Baroness strides in at this point and rightfully chides the lass for giving information to prisoners. Sure enough, contrary to predictions of their imminent demise on the part of the bad guys, Snake Eyes and Scarlett cleverly escape their cells soon after, following which they are attacked by Lilian and a group of Iron Grenadiers who, fortunately, are secretly comprised almost exclusively of a disguised Billy, Spirit and Kamakura.

At issue's end, Mainframe reveals that the reason Cobra was able to infect the group of Joes was because they have the capability to activate the nano-mites within a small radius, and that as soon as the satellite is ready there will be a widespread attack, and further, that there are hundreds or thousands of satellites orbiting the earth, and so it may take time to determine which is Cobra's.

Our final image is of a satellite glowing ominously in space, while back on Earth microscopic nano-mites infect an already raving Cobra Commander… via his eyeballs.

Yikes.

 

REVIEWER'S VERDICT:

This series is quickly making a Kamakura fan of me, despite my utter apathy towards his various action figures produced in my beloved Sigma 6 toy series (actually, I should clarify: I very much like the third version, being a blue-clad "Ninja Flames" variant well-suited for troop-building as a generic Cobra ninja… and it has occurred to me just this moment that perhaps you do not peruse these reviews for painfully-detailed accounts of my action figure preferences.) Clever and engaging though the various eight-inch-tall Kamakura action figures have been, none of them quite do justice to the quietly kickass character we meet in this comic book series.

And Kamakura is not alone; every Joe and Cobra we've had the privilege of meeting (or meeting again) in this series has been portrayed as legendary (or at least, in the case of the Dreadnoks, infamous.)

Additionally, I have noted and admired before Blaylock's attempts to lend some small measure of plausibility to G.I. Joe's unlikely premise, and proof of his efforts in this department can be found on the title page, where in addition to the usual credits for inking and coloring and the like, you will find this unusual entry:

"Military Consultant: SSGT. Brian Savage Peterson."

Taking a broader look, publisher Devil's Due motto is "Pop Culture IS Our Culture," and I know of no finer or more succinct cultural summary of geekdom. Certainly it has always been true for me that my entire experience of the world is filtered through popular culture, and since my kind and I are also known for a nostalgic streak that might in all fairness be called desperate, Devil's Due shall never want for a loyal audience as long as it keeps providing updates of bygone properties as entertaining as G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Volume 2) #3.