GI Joe #10 – Review

By: Chuck Dixon (writer), Alex Cal (artist), J. Brown (colors), Shawn Lee (letters), Carlos Guzman (assistant editor) & John Barber (editor)

The Story: Cobra has taken over a sovereign country and is driving the civilians out!  The Joe’s have to stop them.

Five Things: 

1. Cobra is a pretty compelling enemy. – The best thing about the GI Joe relaunch at IDW (which is a couple of years old now) is how they have and are handling Cobra.  They’re not some out-in-the-open enemy and have been more of a rumor until very recently.  The Joes have a hard time even convincing people that Cobra is real.  In some ways, Cobra is kinda like a pre-September 11th Osama bin Laden; certainly a lot of folks knew who he was, but there was disagreement about whether he was a serious threat to the US or just an annoyance spouting venom in Afghanistan.  Combine this mystery with the fact that the main Cobras are all really interesting and you almost find yourself rooting for them over the very vanilla Joes.

2. Overall thrust of the story remains good. – Going with my first comment above, this is a good overall story: Murky criminal/terrorist organization, no one believes they’re a threat and the first thing they do after going public is to overthrow a sovereign country!  Wow!  That really steps up the treat level for Cobra!  You could understand how with their cool technology that Cobra could be a major nuisance, but this story is showing that they have a magnitude to them as well.  And, since any story is only as good as its antagonist, this Cobra Command story arc is opening a lot of possibilities.

3. Can’t really get behind this art anymore. – Unfortunately, Alex Cal’s art has gone from “competent” a few issues ago to “problematic”.  He seems to be drawing 2 or the 3 Joe books right now (this and Snake-Eyes) and while I presume that IDW started him working on these ahead of time, this art looks more rushed than his first issue.  Why IDW would dump such heavy art chores on a fairly new artist is beyond me.  Cal does draw some characters fairly well and sticks to a realistic style that will be pleasing to most GI Joe fans, but his action scenes leave a lot to be desired (i.e. you can’t tell what is happening) and his characters lack any sense of energy (i.e. they look posed).  Also, lots of depth problems in these panels between the characters and their backgrounds.  And, I’d stop doing splash pages.  Cal’s art would be better if it was smaller and allowed fewer opportunities for error.  Note to editor: Caption boxes telling us who the characters are would be appreciated.