Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
GI Joe #1 (Volume 4)
IDW Comics
Traviss, Kurth & Young
The latest launch of GI Joe takes a leap forward in the timeline by five years. The premise is that Cobra and the world are at peace. With that threat seemingly gone, the United States government no longer feels it needs to fund GI Joe. The first issue is awfully slow and doesn't really push anything in motion that's all that compelling. The comic has some nice writing and some nice artwork but doesn't present much of a wow factor for the first issue.
The book spends a lot of time setting up the larger story. One of the evil twins is now a politician. Combine that with the members of GI Joe sitting in front of a Congressional panel and it makes for a dialogue-heavy, politically slanted comic book. The limited action that the book has surrounds around a Cobra trainee, that happens to be sixteen, and his disgust with the peaceful solution. The wheels appear to set in motion by the end of the issue to have some battles and conflict.
The staples of the franchise are noticeable absent. I'm not just talking about Snake Eyes, Duke, Cobra Commander, Destro and all the rest, but the action, the vehicles, the military strategy. This comic reads like a collection of between the panels dialogue that is left on the cutting room floor from a Larry Hama GI Joe book. There have been plenty of launches of GI Joe where the direction is to set the team in a more real-world setting. Devil's Due tried this with "GI Joe: America's Elite" and Chuck Dixon tried this at IDW. However, those comics all contained action and missions. This comic badly needed that.
The artwork is fine. It's not bright and vibrant at all. As such, it looks like a Vertigo comic where facial details stay in the shadows. The problem here is the characters. Some are unrecognizable and without being introduced (such as the Joe with the goatee) the reader is left to guess at the identity (Mainframe? Clutch?). The book looks like a spy book. Unfortunately this issue is more like a political drama.
GI Joe is a tough franchise to find something new to cover. Over thirty years the stories have run the full array. IDW continues to try to set the Joes in a real world setting but the cornerstones that made this franchise appealing are action, characters and ninjas. You can wrap the politics around those cornerstones but when you lack them you have to wonder why this is a GI Joe comic book. We'll see where this is all heading. Not a great start but there are some items in here that have potential.
1 out of 5 Geek Goggles
