G.I. Joe: Special Missions #1: Manhattan
by: DarthMolen 2 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 9 hours, 4 minutes ago
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I loved G.I. Joe as a youngster. I had a good majority of the figurines and a lot of the vehicles to go with them. I picked up a couple G.I. Joe comics based upon that nostalgia. One of these was G.I. Joe Special Missions #1 where they heralded three whole stories on their cover.
Yes, I said it. Three whole stories. Too bad they didn’t deliver. What is really in this comic is one story, a half-story, and one quarter of a story. The first story involves a building entry scenario with some run-of-the-mill terrorists as their nemesis. Beachhead, Covergirl, Tunnel Rat, Lowlight, and Mercer are the reserve Joe’s involved.
It’s an all right story as long as you aren’t aware of what really goes on in a building entry scenario.... which I am (although I am not a freakin expert). Anyways, putting my knowledge aside and suspending my disbelief, the first story has some action but not enough to put all five characters they introduce through their paces. I enjoyed seeing tunnel-rat, lowlight, and beachhead (all figures I owned) but none of them got to strut their stuff. There was a lot of skulking but they didn’t devote the space to play up the dramatics that a good skulk needs to work in a comic book setting. There are two clashes, one with the terrorists and one with a Cobra agent, that literally resolve themselves in three panels total. So mediocre plot and average art.
The second story is five pages or so. I actually found it more interesting than the first story, even though it is shorter, because it exercises the characters involved better. The skulking is played out better and the art is pretty decent also. Too short in my estimation but at least they brought it to a decent conclusion.
The third story was a waste of space. A Joe pet has a dream involving other Joe pets with crappy artwork and a crappy Cobra operative… Bah.
The most interesting part of this comic was the Joe profiles that were given one page spaces and were made to look like dossiers from General Colton (new general that I have no idea about).
This issue is almost two bucks more than a regular issue. If it were regular price, I might have given it a passable score, but I can buy a whole novel for the price of this comic book ($4.95). Definitely pass on this one unless you absolutely want to have a low-down on the characters involved in these stories.
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