Comic Book Review – G.I. Joe #2

“HOMEFRONT! The G.I. Joe team battles Cobra to the death on American soil! COVERL GIRL, DOC, and the newest member, HASHTAG (yes, HASHTAG) have been separated from the rest and have to fight their way through hundreds of kill-crazy Cobra sympathizers-with a teammate’s life hanging in the balance! Plus: The BARONESS has DUKE in her clutches. So why isn’t DESTRO happy about that?“

IDW kicked off its latest G.I. Joe relaunch last month with a new #1 for the main series, shifting in both tone and direction to deliver a more light-hearted, over-the-top ‘superhero’ take on the elite military unit courtesy of the creative pairing of writer Fred Van Lente and artist Steve Kurth. The first issue received a mixed response from fans and critics, meaning there’s a lot riding on this second issue now that the character introductions are out of the way and the plot of this first story arc has been set-up.

Things got underway last month with the now-public G.I. Joe team embarking upon its first mission under the media spotlight, venturing to the town of Warrenton, Ohio to investigate a possible Cobra chemical weapons plant. Unfortunately the Joes’ intel failed to pick up on the fact that the entire town was under the control of the dastardly terrorist organisation, and when we last saw our heroes Duke had been captured by the Baroness, Roadblock, Tunnel Rat and Quick Kick were nursing a wounded Shipwreck whilst fending off a mob of angry townspeople, and Cover Girl, Doc and Hashtag were hiding out in an abandoned building. And by the end of issue #2, we’re pretty much in the exact same situation. However, while the storyline makes little progress in G.I. Joe #2, the issue does make up for it with some decent hard-hitting action, as well as taking the time to develop some of its characters, particularly the newest member of the team, the near-universally derided Hashtag.

In my review of the first issue, I described the Joes’ resident blogger as perhaps the most ridiculous character in the history of the franchise, and even joked that the team’s helicopter had been shot down because she checked in their location. Well, in this issue, she actually does check in their location… when they’re hiding in a building surrounded by an entire town of Cobra agents and sympathizers. Honestly. Quite how Cover Girl managed to restrain herself from ramming Hashtag’s smartphone down her throat, I’ll never know. Anyway, just when you’re left questioning how much longer you can suspend your disbelief – and how many more panels of this godawful character you can take – Van Lent pulls off the impossible by making Hashtag the most interesting aspect of the book. How he gets her there is a little cliched, but I’m left genuinely interested in seeing how her arc plays out in ‘Homefront’, and judging by the way things are shaping up plotwise, her storyline is probably going to be the only thing of note in what otherwise looks to be a fairly generic G.I. Joe tale.

Given the fact that G.I. Joe #2 has made me care about a character I utterly despised a few short weeks ago, it’s hard to describe this second issue as anything but a success. It was nice to see appearances from Firefly, Croc Master, Dr. Mindbender and Destro – albeit for a single panel, in Mindbinder and Laird McCullen’s cases – and while the attempts at humour don’t really do much for me (I mean, do we really need to have the Baroness tapping into the pop culture zeitgeist by dropping a Gangnam Style reference as she prepares to torture Duke?), Ven Lente does add a little depth to proceedings by touching upon issues of power, control and social unrest. Hopefully we’ll see more of this going forward, and while it could be tough for the series to find the right balance between ‘real world’ sociopolitical themes and cartoonish superheroics, with issue #2 it seems to be moving in the right direction.

Gary Collinson is a writer and lecturer from the North East of England. He is the editor-in-chief of FlickeringMyth.com and the author of Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen.