Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
GI Joe: America’s Elite #30
DDP Comics
Powers, Bear, Shoyket, Beaulieu & Crowley
Well don’t I feel like a dope. I was ready to rip this issue before I even finished reading it. I had a predetermined notion that this issue was a one or two geek goggle max based on certain things I’ll get into later in the review. However, the emergence and involvement of Storm Shadow made me forget all the things I didn’t like about the issue. In short, I was smitten over the use of one character. Usually when I get wool pulled over my eyes its with a ton of action and beatdowns (see World War Hulk). I wonder what I would have rated this issue had they left Storm Shadow out of it? Who cares.
Let’s deal with the issue chronologically.
First, the cover price. Now, I am more than willing to pay extra money for the independent comics. I have no problem with GI Joe charging .50 cents more than your average Marvel or DC title. This issue was marked with the $5.50 cover price, which is normally the price tag on the Special Missions issues that generally include two full stories. The page count for this issue? 30 pages. Yes, they charged .25 cents for each extra page. As a comparison, this GI Joe issue is .50 cents more than the Green Lantern-Sinestro Corps finale and contains 20+ less pages of story. Added to the ridiculousness, DDP added “Double-Sized Issue!” on the cover. Eight pages is not double. Even if you factor in the 13 bios in the back of the issue we are not at “double”. And I really didn’t need 13 bios to assist in upping the cover price. This is totally and completely a rip-off. You simply cant ask people to pay that much extra for so little in return.
So I was pretty mad with this issue early on, but I read on. The story involves more characters than ever as we see Tomax taking some orders to bust out the Cobra gang from prison. Now, my assumption all along was that the prisoners would eventually get sprung, but this feels way too early. They just added and built up new villains and now they want to bring back the old tired ones?
Colton, Sparks and Hawk are trying to hold off the attack at the Rock. This scene also involves Sgt Slaughter and GI Jane, which was interesting. Also, if Hawk was shot in the back, how does he sit up so well when firing a gun?
Next we check in on the core Joe team with Duke and company. We learn who Agent Delta is and, of course, Duke doesn’t trust him. At this point I think Delta is either Zartan or Firefly (I know he is supposed to be incarcerated) because the Delta character has no other real relevance in the Joe history. A character that has been around since the beginning but is only now being introduced? Not buying it. Anyway, the new Cobra crew attacks the core Joe unit. Snake Eyes is specifically targeted. I could have done without the armpit hair shot on the splash page of the Cobra unit crashing the walls.
Finally, Storm Shadow. He is called one the phone by someone that elicits this reaction from Storm Shadow, “never thought I’d hear your voice again.” I immediately think Tommy is flipping again and has gone back to Cobra. I was wrong (for now).
Some politics happen with Russia launching missiles on the US and Cobra shooting them out of the sky. Also, we get some Oktober Guard. Plus, the new Destro attacks Britain and France to cripple their military.
After more fighting between the main Joe team and the new Cobras, we see that Storm Shadow has gone to the Greenland prison to protect the prison from Cobra. Mutt and some general are knocked out, which leaves Storm Shadow alone in his defense. Storm Shadow engages Cobra and has a lot of thoughts about Snake Eyes in the process. He sure went out of his way to think about how his heart is all “one” now. Seems like he is ripe for heading back to Cobra to me.
Duke eventually trusts Zartan – I mean Agent Delta – and Storm Shadow plays a game of chicken with Tomax using his brother, Xamot, as bait. In the end, some Cobra agents get away, but we don’t know exactly who yet and Storm Shadow is seen to have an inside guy in with Cobra feeding him information.
All that and Cobra Commander drops off the President of the US in some desert somewhere.
In all, this issue has a lot of action. It has some plot development, but not a ton. It has decent artwork, but nothing worthy of the battles that are happening between the covers. It has Storm Shadow and it has him down cold. Storm Shadow and the battles save this issue from oblivion. Sure, the Duke parts and the Cobra Commander parts are good, but we have seen them in this series already. We needed someone new and we got the one who has been missing for a year or more from this series. This issue was average without Storm Shadow and it cant be a great issue because I feel robbed by the cost.
I hope next issue jumps this thing forward a bit because with six issues to go in this arc I feel like we are going nowhere fast. I hope I am wrong. I also don’t want characters killed off just to kill some people, so I am not sure what I expect to happen. We’ll see where this goes.
4 out of 5 geek goggles.
 G.I. Joe Americas Elite #30 OCT073444E |
