Words will not be minced. This issue was an outright disaster. A property constantly branded as “The Crown Jewel of the Hasbro Universe” is getting some pretty shoddy treatment.
I will expand on this further when I review Revolutionaries Issue #8, but the beginning is right here. Because G.I. Joe #9 has been heavily delayed, and Revolutionaries #8 just came out this past week, the big reveals and surprises in First Strike did not get the proper hype and quality “ta-da” treatment. For starters, the “new” Cobra Commander is revealed in First Strike: G.I. Joe, even though it technically hasn’t taken place yet sine G.I. Joe #9 hasn’t come out. The incorporation of V.E.N.O.M. from M.A.S.K. into Cobra isn’t fully explained, but at least with the current issues of First Strike we are hopefully smart enough to figure out what is going on. At the end of G.I. Joe # 8, we see Rock ‘n’ Roll and Skywarp apparently meet their end, yet here they are alive and well. Sorry if that was a spoiler, but this was known already in previous issues of First Strike.
This feels like a throwaway issue, as nothing really notable takes place. Bad guys become badder, and the good guys need to go all comically exaggerated to battle. I’m sorry, but there is one panel where a G.I. Joe character is carrying enough weaponry to make 1990’s Rob Liefeld drawing Cable look like nerf guns. Then said character shoots said weaponry, and you can easily see blasts emanating from nowhere near the guns.
Sorry IDW, but this First Strike one-shot tie-in should have introduced a character called Major Dud.
Rating: 3 out of 10
