Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, IDW, Review | Tagged: bombstrike, chuckles, cobra, comic book reviews, g.i. joe

G.I. Joe #8 Review: Here Are Some Morally Murky Waters

In this incarnation, in the pages of G.I. Joe #8, of the long-running franchise, Cobra began as a scrappy tech startup and, using particularly the power of their Battle Android Troopers (B.A.T.s), took over the United States. Yikes! The very small number of survivors from the G.I. Joe team have become a scrappy insurgency, recruiting civilians to work against the Cobra World Order.

Here, a Canadian diplomat has been converted into an intelligence asset called Bombstrike, reporting to the Hawaiian shirt-clad intelligence agent Chuckles. Bombstrike has seduced the Cobra scientist Archibald Venom, and he's halfway ready to throw it all away to be with her. Of course, she finds him wholly repulsive … well … maybe not wholly. That's where the conflict comes in.

As the years have proceeded, the character of Chuckles has come to embody the truth of a clandestine anti-terrorist force. Any issue with him will swim in morally murky waters, and this one is no different. The visual storytelling from Emma Vieceli, Brittany Peer, and Neil Uyetake does well to show this eastern European foothold of Cobra's power (yes, there's the famous Trans-Carpathian castle you'll see) with a kind of romantic storybook quality and a sinister undercurrent. Paul Allor showcases the trepidation of Bombstrike, who's way out in the high grass virtually all by herself.

The only thing that went wrong was Dr. Venom. His brilliance being twisted in the service of fascism is easy enough to believe, especially with his cavalier attitude about human life. The elements of his personality that cause the struggle within Bombstrike are harder to perceive. He's kind of a blank slate on the good side of the ledger, and that robs this issue of the kind of stakes and urgency that previous takes on this idea of doomed romance have used previously. G.I. Joe #8 was close but didn't quite get across the finish line. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.

G.I. Joe #8
By Paul Allor, Emma Vieceli
The Joes travel to Eastern Europe to sabotage a key component of Cobra's industrial war machine. To do so, moral lines will have to be crossed, and complicated relationships will have to be destroyed. G.I. Joe's multi-pronged assault on Cobra is just beginning.

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